HS Soccer is borderline unwatchable

[Anonymous]

I will acknowledge that HS sports are a great way to engage with your community and school friends. My rant is solely focused on the coaches and style of play I've seen over the last 4 years. My son has been on a high-level team for a reputable club in the area and will be moving onto college soccer this fall. I come to every game to support him and the school, but I find myself biting my tongue every game watching what appears to be a foot volley game. The build-up is virtually the same with every school they have played.

CB gets the ball at the 15-yard line, takes a touch, and punts it 30 yards to a forward guarded by 2 defenders. The opposing team wins the ball, and makes a pass to the outside back, 2 touches later he sends the pass 30 yards to a sprinting winger who beats the back line and dribbles 20 yards where he's met with endline. Goal kick, rinse and repeat.

If it wasn't bad enough, I hear the coaches congratulate the players for a good run. WHAT! They didn't look up, they didn't serve the ball to the 2 open players in the box, and lost possession of the ball. I use to laugh at the club coaches who complained about HS soccer and their attempts to convince kids not to do it. I'm with them, it's hard to watch and it teaches too many bad habits. I get it, it's just for fun...but can't fun be doing it right. I don't see the AAU BBall players changing their style of play in HS.

Parents! Stop promoting this garbage. Good kick!...um no it wasn't. He just booted it to the other defender and loss possession because he doesn't know how to build or at least be on target with the long ball. Good shot! Nope, it was 10 feet wide and 40 ft high which means his technique was bad. Foul! Nope again, that was called a tackle. The opponent did fall down, but that does not mean it was a foul!

Thank god I'm done with HS sports now that he's graduating.

[Anonymous]

The exact same thing for girls HS soccer in MD. It’s ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

This is what soccer is in America. Doesn't stop at HS either, you'll find this at the collegiate level as well.

[Anonymous]

Our HS. The coaches benches the club players and plays kick ball with athletes. Any type of shorter build out gets yelled at. And if a pass gets broken up ….the kid is benched for not kicking it down the field. Cant wait for it to be over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our HS. The coaches benches the club players and plays kick ball with athletes. Any type of shorter build out gets yelled at. And if a pass gets broken up ….the kid is benched for not kicking it down the field. Cant wait for it to be over.

OP here, my son learned the hard way he couldn't play the same in HS as he does in club. He was benched because his passes were not always going forward, and he was told he missed goal-scoring opportunities and needed more air under the ball.

[Anonymous]

Yikes - where are these HS? Our plan was to stop club and play HS. We just started MS and have been in Travel for years on a fairly high team of a big club in NOVA. Is it really that bad? DD won't play Rec because it's a totally different skill level. Will she feel the same about HS soccer then? Ugh!

[Anonymous]

I have an 8th grader defender on an ECNL team whose current coach hates the long ball. Next year HS should be fun

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our HS. The coaches benches the club players and plays kick ball with athletes. Any type of shorter build out gets yelled at. And if a pass gets broken up ….the kid is benched for not kicking it down the field. Cant wait for it to be over.

OP here, my son learned the hard way he couldn't play the same in HS as he does in club. He was benched because his passes were not always going forward, and he was told he missed goal-scoring opportunities and needed more air under the ball.

Parent bashing team/coach because kid gets benched. Sounds typical of any level of soccer.

[Anonymous]

same experience on HS girls team. The defenders kick the ball as hard as possible and with no intention of anyone ever getting it. Usually ends up as a goal kick and then the other team kicks it as hard as possible and again- goal kick.

it is so terrible. It just confuses me because the girls do not play this way for their club- so is this the direction from the coach?

Also, coaching is generally terrible.

[Anonymous]

This must be VA soccer because it's in the spring and MCPS is in the fall. Our experience with the Bethesda/Potomac/Rockville side of MCPS has been that most players are also club players, have talent, and the game is pretty good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an 8th grader defender on an ECNL team whose current coach hates the long ball. Next year HS should be fun

My defender feels the same way - incredibly frustrated by HS soccer....although likes to be part of the team, but the game aspect is sooo frustrating.

[Anonymous]

I’m in VA and I don’t understand why it is so bad. I’ve watched games where most of the players on the field are ECNL, with a handful of RL players mixed in, the coaches are travel coaches with big clubs…and the play is terrible, even worse than typical bad US Youth Soccer standards. I don’t totally understand why, but I think there is too much of an emphasis on results (eg we can’t lose to THAT school) and maybe the ratio of games to practices is off - way too many games and not enough practices. My DCs play, but feel like they are mostly standing around watching the ball get slammed around for endless goal kicks and throw-ins.

[Anonymous]

You have to understand high level soccer in the US is a niche sport. If you take out the rec and low level travel leagues, you're left with a pretty small amount of players in the country with the skills, commitment, training, and coaching to play the type of soccer you expect and know from ECNL.

Compare that with football or basketball where there are far, far more players and coaches who have a great deal of knowledge and experience with the game.

There are some areas and HS teams, where they happen to have a lot of kids that play ECNL level club soccer, and those HS teams are actually quite good. But when you distribute the small number of kids that play at that club level, across all the high schools, you end up with maybe a couple per team with the rest from lower level travel or rec level players. In most of the US, including this area, soccer just isn't popular enough for strong HS teams.

[Anonymous]

I recall another thread here where there was phrase to describe HS soccer. While travel was about passing to move ball forward and set up scoring opportunities, think someone called HS soccer punt and play or something like that where just kick it away but not TO someone and not playing to build scoring opportunities but just “did you score?!” after big kicks. Anyone remind me of the catchphrase for the big kick play style?

[Anonymous]

You think soccer is unwatchable. My niece is playing girls field hockey. I went to one game. Maybe this is a real sport somewhere, but, I am skeptical.