Going to Europe with your soccer team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It should be a lot of fun. How old is your kid? A fair warning though, from a European, have your kid be aware that they will be below par to most junior teams in Europe, no matter the country. Club football/soccer in Europe is vastly different to club soccer here. And in general much, much better. If kids are a bit older, they would not be there if they were not pretty good.

I don't think this is likely to be true if the team from here is a reasonably high level one. In our experience (both from what we've seen on trips to the Netherlands and England and read), most good US boys' teams are competitive with their European counterparts up until U16 or so. That's when US kids start falling behind due to the lack of tactically astute coaching options here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My DD has played 8 games in Europe and they had to play much older teams to get decent competition. At U13 they had to play U15 teams and at U16 her club team beat a U20 team 5-1. The US club girls side is much stronger than the same age Euro clubs from what I saw. I'm thinking the boys side is a different story.

This is correct. I’ve witnessed the same thing. The US is much stronger on the girls side, but the opposite is true on the boys side. Both for cultural reasons.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are generally for fun and exposure - but many people now get excited about saying their kid went to Europe to play soccer, even tho it is really just that they could pay for it.

It is often presented as an "exclusive invitation" that requires the player be "selected". I have seen threads about poor families that misunderstand and create go fund me accounts to raise money for their special player kid to go train in Europe. They get ripped to shreds predictably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD has played 8 games in Europe and they had to play much older teams to get decent competition. At U13 they had to play U15 teams and at U16 her club team beat a U20 team 5-1. The US club girls side is much stronger than the same age Euro clubs from what I saw. I'm thinking the boys side is a different story.

This is correct. I’ve witnessed the same thing. The US is much stronger on the girls side, but the opposite is true on the boys side. Both for cultural reasons.

Nope. My kids were on US selection teams (kids selected from around the country). The boys U10 and U12/13 beat 3 out of 4 of the Spanish teams and all 5 of the English teams they played. They were obviously not playing the real Academy teams. But, these were local Club teams. The coaches and parents on opposing teams commented on how high the level was. We went over assuming we'd get crushed and it turned out the other way.

But, I agree with a pp---by U16 if these same boys played each other it would be a different story. It's a shame US soccer can not develop male players.

[Anonymous]

Think about what you just said. Your player was on a select team made up of the best boys from around the country. And that’s what it took to beat local non-academy club teams. You just made the point that the boys are well behind the Europeans, and it’s not just at u16 and older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD has played 8 games in Europe and they had to play much older teams to get decent competition. At U13 they had to play U15 teams and at U16 her club team beat a U20 team 5-1. The US club girls side is much stronger than the same age Euro clubs from what I saw. I'm thinking the boys side is a different story.

This is correct. I’ve witnessed the same thing. The US is much stronger on the girls side, but the opposite is true on the boys side. Both for cultural reasons.

I assumed OP's child is a bit older, as they are traveling. The point that US soccer, for boys, nobody cares for girls soccer in Europe, don't understand is that nobody, I mean nobody is actually focused on winning at the young of an age. It is used for footwork and skill development. That is a common thread in junior sports in US, winning is the only thing that matters. After 16, things change in Europe, and even that might be too early to tell who will rise to the top. Read this and then you will know that coaches don't care, they are often not in it for private lesson cash, but for long term success of their players on the pro scene. As for women's soccer, well, yes, nobody is disputing US is the champ, but why is it that there are so few pro soccer women's clubs in the US?
https://www.soccertoday.com/youth-soccer-european-vs-american-player-development/[url]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It should be a lot of fun. How old is your kid? A fair warning though, from a European, have your kid be aware that they will be below par to most junior teams in Europe, no matter the country. Club football/soccer in Europe is vastly different to club soccer here. And in general much, much better. If kids are a bit older, they would not be there if they were not pretty good.

It depends, we did a tournament in Italy and the team from this area held it's own. Don't assume that because they are from Europe that they all better than you, why would you ever tell a player that he/she will be below par? Is that tough love crap? You tell them to do their best, that's it.

Well yes, tough love is how you build athletes! You did read that I am from Europe?! I guess your reply explains why US can't produce a top 10 male tennis start for years and years now. Pampered kids, pampered athletes with not drive, shocked out of their mind when they go to France to play tennis(one example) and think they are going pro and then are beaten by an average club player there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Think about what you just said. Your player was on a select team made up of the best boys from around the country. And that’s what it took to beat local non-academy club teams. You just made the point that the boys are well behind the Europeans, and it’s not just at u16 and older.

Amen!

[Anonymous]

OP here, this is for U15. Team is CCL 1/NPL level. The majority of the team has committed, we are still on the fence.

I'm getting a lot of crap from my parents and siblings without kids who think this is an absolutely ridiculous idea and a total waste of money even beyond the normal waste of money that is us paying for travel soccer for a kid who is never going to play professionally. Apparently I shouldn't have told them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, this is for U15. Team is CCL 1/NPL level. The majority of the team has committed, we are still on the fence.

I'm getting a lot of crap from my parents and siblings without kids who think this is an absolutely ridiculous idea and a total waste of money even beyond the normal waste of money that is us paying for travel soccer for a kid who is never going to play professionally. Apparently I shouldn't have told them.

Lol. I hide most of the competitive soccer insanity from my parents and siblings. They judge it as ridiculous. They are right of course but we do it anyway so we go with lies of omission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you can swing it financially, it is worth doing at least once.

It will change your perspective about how things are done here in the U.S., and your son's as well.

How old is your kid OP?

It is worth considering if he is in high school (sophomore or junior) as a once in a lifetime opportunity, but otherwise it sounds like a good reason to throw away money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Think about what you just said. Your player was on a select team made up of the best boys from around the country. And that’s what it took to beat local non-academy club teams. You just made the point that the boys are well behind the Europeans, and it’s not just at u16 and older.

This post cracked me up. I'm certain that PP's player was not on a team "made up of the best boys from around the country". Who could tell something like that when kids are 8-12? Sounds like they were a good team that did very well against local European competition. When our son was in that age range several years back, he went on a trip to the Netherlands that included two age groups of kids from here and NY that the guy organizing the trip had been impressed with at a regional tournament. We did well (especially the older group) against actual club youth teams (including Ajax and PSV). The youth director at Ajax talked to our group after a tour of the club and mentioned that American teams always look good and do well up until U15 or U16. He said the teams that train at Ajax or play in youth tournaments there have technical skills on par to their counterparts in the Netherlands, but as time goes on, they have much less game awareness and tactical sophistication.

OP, we found these trips to the Netherlands to be amazing experiences on both the soccer (for our son) and tourism (for us) fronts. It really helped our son get a better sense of what high level soccer looked like, and what it would like to be a pro. But this was a pretty serious soccer program where the boys trained at Ajax and participated in tournaments where they were the only American team. A lot of the programs that sound like what you are considering more like soccer-light, tourism-heavy. I'm sure it would be fun, but I'm not sure I'd let my kid miss a week of school for one. Hopefully your club would not penalize the kids who don't go. That would be really unfair given the expense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here, this is for U15. Team is CCL 1/NPL level. The majority of the team has committed, we are still on the fence.

I'm getting a lot of crap from my parents and siblings without kids who think this is an absolutely ridiculous idea and a total waste of money even beyond the normal waste of money that is us paying for travel soccer for a kid who is never going to play professionally. Apparently I shouldn't have told them.

Just a thought

Next next Summer is the UEFA's Euro 2020 tournament thoughout Europe. If there was a time to be in Europe for football it would be 2020.

We went to 2016 with our side and played a few local sides (we won) but also got to attend four or five matches plus hang in the fan zones in Paris and just soak in the atmosphere. It was a blast. Absolute football vacation.

If money is tight, I'd seriously look at waiting a year until 2020 and trying a tournament over there when all of Europe is focusing on the game. (note: Euro 2020 is going to be in 10+ different cities in 2020, so lots of opportunities to see Europe and some matches).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, this is for U15. Team is CCL 1/NPL level. The majority of the team has committed, we are still on the fence.

I'm getting a lot of crap from my parents and siblings without kids who think this is an absolutely ridiculous idea and a total waste of money even beyond the normal waste of money that is us paying for travel soccer for a kid who is never going to play professionally. Apparently I shouldn't have told them.

Just a thought

Next next Summer is the UEFA's Euro 2020 tournament thoughout Europe. If there was a time to be in Europe for football it would be 2020.

We went to 2016 with our side and played a few local sides (we won) but also got to attend four or five matches plus hang in the fan zones in Paris and just soak in the atmosphere. It was a blast. Absolute football vacation.

If money is tight, I'd seriously look at waiting a year until 2020 and trying a tournament over there when all of Europe is focusing on the game. (note: Euro 2020 is going to be in 10+ different cities in 2020, so lots of opportunities to see Europe and some matches).

That's a seriously clever suggestion. And I don't get all the flack from family members. Why not go to Europe for soccer if that's the family passion? People spend ridiculous amounts of money on Disney trips and whatever else that to me look just as foolish.

[Anonymous]

CCL puts together all star teams of the best players in the league every summer to go to play in the Gothia Cup. Sometimes the boys teams get crushed, and sometimes they do alright. The girls teams tend to do better.