Top Team in Smaller Club? Second (or lower) Team in Larger Club?
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Anonymous
| For a U-10 girl, would you choose 2nd or lower team in a larger (stronger) club? Or would you choose top team in a smaller (weaker) club? Which is better for development? |
Anonymous
|
Go with the better coach for her and your family.
Done. Lock thread. |
Anonymous
| What if I know nothing about the coaches? |
Anonymous
| Then you have some work to do! |
Anonymous
|
We just spent a U10 year on the A team at a small club (not in the DC area). Thing is, the A team is the only team for this club, and due to a small pool of players, there is a wide skill range on the team. It's been difficult to play games at the appropriate competitive level, and practice level is not great - all despite a really excellent coach.
We are currently looking to move to a larger club this tryout season for U11, and will hopefully end up on the B team of that club. That B team beat us 5-0, and more importantly, you can see the team is all at about the same level. Coach also appears solid. I think a small club can be great (the years above/below us have strong teams), but lower numbers lead to more variability in team composition, and over time, the better players are likely to continually leave for larger clubs with higher platforms. |
Anonymous
A question from a parent obviously new to this and this is how you treat them? Let me guess, to you being a parent of a kid who played several years makes you seasoned as if that means anything special. |
Anonymous
Honestly, a “smaller (weaker)” club could mean getting blown out of games to the “larger (stronger)” clubs. If you and your dc can stomach that, I’d choose that. Dc will play against better opponents. |
Anonymous
Honestly, they’re not wrong, though. OP should try to ask around about coaches, because that really is what matters. |
Anonymous
| We just had to make this decision, but for U12. We chose the A team at the smaller club. But the smaller club plays in the same league as the larger ones, and U13 is when kids start going off to higher level teams and moving around a lot anyway, so maybe not as big of a difference. At U10 I think B at a large club could be good IF the coaches in the age group are uniformly good AND the club is known for moving kids up and down as they develop. I would really try to find those things out from parents currently at the club if you can. A large club who never moves kids around because of pushy parents could mean that your kid is stuck on B no matter how good they get which can be very frustrating. Pay attention to whether the large club is likely to have more chill parents or the crazy striver parents. It is often closely related to the level of affluence in the immediate area. |
Anonymous
| Which two clubs are you considering? |
Anonymous
Posting a question here doesn’t count as asking around? |
Anonymous
| I appreciate this question. You can’t always knowing everything about a prospective coach. If all things are equal, is it better to be on second team for a better and larger program or first team for smaller, lesser program? This is u12 and below question. Wondering for best development of the player, don’t care about wins and losses but want to be competitive and grow. |
Anonymous
About the specific coaches? Uh, no. |
Anonymous
Considering several. The closests are Loudoun East, Sterling and Sterling. Work close to Great Falls. |
Anonymous
| *Herndon |