U11 to u12 girls

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever heard about LS/NVA?
U11- 14
U12- 15-17
U13 -20+

Not accurate for u-11. Each team has 12.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the top u12 clubs almost all of them are playing atleast some 11v11. If they are only playing 11v11 they typically will have 16-18 kids if they are playing both 11v11 and 9v9 it’s usually 13-15 and they will add a few kids from 2nd team when they play 11v11

Not true on roster size but yes, syc has 13 playing 11v11 I believe, loudoun 17 and McLean 14ish I think. If you listen to any educated podcast, the are doing a complete disservice by playing 11v11 early, not to mention the awful competition because they aren’t in any competitive leagues. Avoid clubs doing this at all costs.

I am far from an expert, but my kid’s U12 team has started playing 11v11 and it’s definitely more pleasant to watch. They were looking so congested on the 9v9 field and sometimes the keepers were practically punting the ball back and forth. I get that it’s fewer touches during games, but they still do a ton of small sided games and drills during practice so lots of touches there. Maybe I biased because my own kid looks better the bigger the field gets. It seems like a better fit for their particular strengths.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the top u12 clubs almost all of them are playing atleast some 11v11. If they are only playing 11v11 they typically will have 16-18 kids if they are playing both 11v11 and 9v9 it’s usually 13-15 and they will add a few kids from 2nd team when they play 11v11

Not true on roster size but yes, syc has 13 playing 11v11 I believe, loudoun 17 and McLean 14ish I think. If you listen to any educated podcast, the are doing a complete disservice by playing 11v11 early, not to mention the awful competition because they aren’t in any competitive leagues. Avoid clubs doing this at all costs.

I am far from an expert, but my kid’s U12 team has started playing 11v11 and it’s definitely more pleasant to watch. They were looking so congested on the 9v9 field and sometimes the keepers were practically punting the ball back and forth. I get that it’s fewer touches during games, but they still do a ton of small sided games and drills during practice so lots of touches there. Maybe I biased because my own kid looks better the bigger the field gets. It seems like a better fit for their particular strengths.

Short term gain unfortunately. When the best countries in the world wait late to go 11v11, then there is probably something wrong when your club is doing the opposite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the top u12 clubs almost all of them are playing atleast some 11v11. If they are only playing 11v11 they typically will have 16-18 kids if they are playing both 11v11 and 9v9 it’s usually 13-15 and they will add a few kids from 2nd team when they play 11v11

Not true on roster size but yes, syc has 13 playing 11v11 I believe, loudoun 17 and McLean 14ish I think. If you listen to any educated podcast, the are doing a complete disservice by playing 11v11 early, not to mention the awful competition because they aren’t in any competitive leagues. Avoid clubs doing this at all costs.

I am far from an expert, but my kid’s U12 team has started playing 11v11 and it’s definitely more pleasant to watch. They were looking so congested on the 9v9 field and sometimes the keepers were practically punting the ball back and forth. I get that it’s fewer touches during games, but they still do a ton of small sided games and drills during practice so lots of touches there. Maybe I biased because my own kid looks better the bigger the field gets. It seems like a better fit for their particular strengths.

Short term gain unfortunately. When the best countries in the world wait late to go 11v11, then there is probably something wrong when your club is doing the opposite.

My thoughts exactly. If your kid looks better when the field gets bigger that’s a problem. They have to master the tight spaces

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the top u12 clubs almost all of them are playing atleast some 11v11. If they are only playing 11v11 they typically will have 16-18 kids if they are playing both 11v11 and 9v9 it’s usually 13-15 and they will add a few kids from 2nd team when they play 11v11

Not true on roster size but yes, syc has 13 playing 11v11 I believe, loudoun 17 and McLean 14ish I think. If you listen to any educated podcast, the are doing a complete disservice by playing 11v11 early, not to mention the awful competition because they aren’t in any competitive leagues. Avoid clubs doing this at all costs.

I am far from an expert, but my kid’s U12 team has started playing 11v11 and it’s definitely more pleasant to watch. They were looking so congested on the 9v9 field and sometimes the keepers were practically punting the ball back and forth. I get that it’s fewer touches during games, but they still do a ton of small sided games and drills during practice so lots of touches there. Maybe I biased because my own kid looks better the bigger the field gets. It seems like a better fit for their particular strengths.

Short term gain unfortunately. When the best countries in the world wait late to go 11v11, then there is probably something wrong when your club is doing the opposite.

My thoughts exactly. If your kid looks better when the field gets bigger that’s a problem. They have to master the tight spaces

Definitely understand this, but on the other hand it seems like what the rest of the world is doing doesn’t really matter for the vast majority of kids playing soccer here. Most aren’t ever going to be going up against kids from other countries unless they are good enough to play college soccer or the national team. Like so what if it’s a short term gain for most kids? They realistically just need to figure out to do well against local/regional competition and enjoy playing for a few more years until they age out. The US being able to compete on the world stage feels like someone else’s problem to solve for the average parent of a kid playing youth soccer here who is nowhere near that level.

[Anonymous]

9v9 is good for learning how to play in small space. 11v11 is good because learning to play with space is also important. They should play both because different skill sets are required, neither less important. But the the major reason they do both is because 11v11 is full field. Lots of running. Many kids hate the full field running. One of the major drop out rates is when the kids realize they have to run full field and don’t want to. By doing 9v9 and 11v11 I in the same season, you weed out the kids that don’t want to run full field, but are still learning close field skills. This is a very important year. Some kids are good on small fields but don’t want to really run. Coaches want to know who has close field skills but also want to run full field. Don’t knock the clubs that try to do both at that year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9v9 is good for learning how to play in small space. 11v11 is good because learning to play with space is also important. They should play both because different skill sets are required, neither less important. But the the major reason they do both is because 11v11 is full field. Lots of running. Many kids hate the full field running. One of the major drop out rates is when the kids realize they have to run full field and don’t want to. By doing 9v9 and 11v11 I in the same season, you weed out the kids that don’t want to run full field, but are still learning close field skills. This is a very important year. Some kids are good on small fields but don’t want to really run. Coaches want to know who has close field skills but also want to run full field. Don’t knock the clubs that try to do both at that year.

This is opinion vs fact. Spain stays small sided until u14 I believe. England just changed their rules for 9v9 to last longer, just a couple of quick examples. This has nothing to do with play other teams in other countries, it is just the fact that the world is better than us in soccer and this is a major reason why. Anyone who thinks US soccer outsmarted the other dominate countries is flat out wrong. Heck, why do we all play futsal, it worked for South American so why not here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Pretend you are McLeann 2008 u10 coach or TD, and only 15 players show up, not enough for 2 full teams.

Do you cut the pool to 12? And then hope those players show up for u11 and are good enough? Or do you try to balance it out for the best for all

Cut to 12

Make it required that parents update availability in the app

Have a second team or team below to pull from if you need available players.

Have the mindset to play a game down or without no subs

Educate the parents that the goal is development over playing time.

When kids show up out of no where from small clubs and take team 1 spots at big clubs, the blueprint above is how they got so good when kids in big clubs are riding the bench.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pretend you are McLeann 2008 u10 coach or TD, and only 15 players show up, not enough for 2 full teams.

Do you cut the pool to 12? And then hope those players show up for u11 and are good enough? Or do you try to balance it out for the best for all

Cut to 12

Make it required that parents update availability in the app

Have a second team or team below to pull from if you need available players.

Have the mindset to play a game down or without no subs

Educate the parents that the goal is development over playing time.

When kids show up out of no where from small clubs and take team 1 spots at big clubs, the blueprint above is how they got so good when kids in big clubs are riding the bench.

Sorry, I meant to say explain to parents the goal is playing time and development over winning and trophies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9v9 is good for learning how to play in small space. 11v11 is good because learning to play with space is also important. They should play both because different skill sets are required, neither less important. But the the major reason they do both is because 11v11 is full field. Lots of running. Many kids hate the full field running. One of the major drop out rates is when the kids realize they have to run full field and don’t want to. By doing 9v9 and 11v11 I in the same season, you weed out the kids that don’t want to run full field, but are still learning close field skills. This is a very important year. Some kids are good on small fields but don’t want to really run. Coaches want to know who has close field skills but also want to run full field. Don’t knock the clubs that try to do both at that year.

This is opinion vs fact. Spain stays small sided until u14 I believe. England just changed their rules for 9v9 to last longer, just a couple of quick examples. This has nothing to do with play other teams in other countries, it is just the fact that the world is better than us in soccer and this is a major reason why. Anyone who thinks US soccer outsmarted the other dominate countries is flat out wrong. Heck, why do we all play futsal, it worked for South American so why not here.

wow, so I guess we should just blindly follow the other countries without any consideration for how leagues are structured here. My kids played on high-level teams where they were crushing everyone when they played 9v9 at their age group. Thankfully they played up and actually got some competitive games at 11v11... so yeah, I would call that a long-term and short-term win. The u12 leagues are too diverse on talent; at least if you play up in the right league, you can get good competition every single week. I know some teams play up in the 4th division just to get some confidence playing up, but not every club does that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9v9 is good for learning how to play in small space. 11v11 is good because learning to play with space is also important. They should play both because different skill sets are required, neither less important. But the the major reason they do both is because 11v11 is full field. Lots of running. Many kids hate the full field running. One of the major drop out rates is when the kids realize they have to run full field and don’t want to. By doing 9v9 and 11v11 I in the same season, you weed out the kids that don’t want to run full field, but are still learning close field skills. This is a very important year. Some kids are good on small fields but don’t want to really run. Coaches want to know who has close field skills but also want to run full field. Don’t knock the clubs that try to do both at that year.

This is opinion vs fact. Spain stays small sided until u14 I believe. England just changed their rules for 9v9 to last longer, just a couple of quick examples. This has nothing to do with play other teams in other countries, it is just the fact that the world is better than us in soccer and this is a major reason why. Anyone who thinks US soccer outsmarted the other dominate countries is flat out wrong. Heck, why do we all play futsal, it worked for South American so why not here.

wow, so I guess we should just blindly follow the other countries without any consideration for how leagues are structured here. My kids played on high-level teams where they were crushing everyone when they played 9v9 at their age group. Thankfully they played up and actually got some competitive games at 11v11... so yeah, I would call that a long-term and short-term win. The u12 leagues are too diverse on talent; at least if you play up in the right league, you can get good competition every single week. I know some teams play up in the 4th division just to get some confidence playing up, but not every club does that.

I am not going to argue your point as it is ill informed and based on your own individual experience, which btw, you will never know another way because you only get one path. What I do know is, no one is arguing, and I mean no one, that US soccer is the gold standard. That said, going even one step further away from proven pathways just doesnt resonate with me. Regarding the competition piece, every time we play high level tournaments, I am always impressed by the competition across the country. In terms of league play, you get good teams and some that are not so good as with any league. Most of the teams I know playing up are playing against awful competition because they cant do ECNL/ RL, GA/ Aspire, etc., so all they are getting are bigger, less talented kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9v9 is good for learning how to play in small space. 11v11 is good because learning to play with space is also important. They should play both because different skill sets are required, neither less important. But the the major reason they do both is because 11v11 is full field. Lots of running. Many kids hate the full field running. One of the major drop out rates is when the kids realize they have to run full field and don’t want to. By doing 9v9 and 11v11 I in the same season, you weed out the kids that don’t want to run full field, but are still learning close field skills. This is a very important year. Some kids are good on small fields but don’t want to really run. Coaches want to know who has close field skills but also want to run full field. Don’t knock the clubs that try to do both at that year.

This is opinion vs fact. Spain stays small sided until u14 I believe. England just changed their rules for 9v9 to last longer, just a couple of quick examples. This has nothing to do with play other teams in other countries, it is just the fact that the world is better than us in soccer and this is a major reason why. Anyone who thinks US soccer outsmarted the other dominate countries is flat out wrong. Heck, why do we all play futsal, it worked for South American so why not here.

wow, so I guess we should just blindly follow the other countries without any consideration for how leagues are structured here. My kids played on high-level teams where they were crushing everyone when they played 9v9 at their age group. Thankfully they played up and actually got some competitive games at 11v11... so yeah, I would call that a long-term and short-term win. The u12 leagues are too diverse on talent; at least if you play up in the right league, you can get good competition every single week. I know some teams play up in the 4th division just to get some confidence playing up, but not every club does that.

I am not going to argue your point as it is ill informed and based on your own individual experience, which btw, you will never know another way because you only get one path. What I do know is, no one is arguing, and I mean no one, that US soccer is the gold standard. That said, going even one step further away from proven pathways just doesnt resonate with me. Regarding the competition piece, every time we play high level tournaments, I am always impressed by the competition across the country. In terms of league play, you get good teams and some that are not so good as with any league. Most of the teams I know playing up are playing against awful competition because they cant do ECNL/ RL, GA/ Aspire, etc., so all they are getting are bigger, less talented kids.

Yeah, I think the key difference is the competition. Pre-ECNL North Atlantic does 9v9 in the fall and 11 v 11 in the spring for U12. It worked out well for my kid last year, because when they moved to 11 v 11, it was against quality competition. Simply playing a random EDP U13 or equivalent probably isn't worth it for a good team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9v9 is good for learning how to play in small space. 11v11 is good because learning to play with space is also important. They should play both because different skill sets are required, neither less important. But the the major reason they do both is because 11v11 is full field. Lots of running. Many kids hate the full field running. One of the major drop out rates is when the kids realize they have to run full field and don’t want to. By doing 9v9 and 11v11 I in the same season, you weed out the kids that don’t want to run full field, but are still learning close field skills. This is a very important year. Some kids are good on small fields but don’t want to really run. Coaches want to know who has close field skills but also want to run full field. Don’t knock the clubs that try to do both at that year.

This is opinion vs fact. Spain stays small sided until u14 I believe. England just changed their rules for 9v9 to last longer, just a couple of quick examples. This has nothing to do with play other teams in other countries, it is just the fact that the world is better than us in soccer and this is a major reason why. Anyone who thinks US soccer outsmarted the other dominate countries is flat out wrong. Heck, why do we all play futsal, it worked for South American so why not here.

wow, so I guess we should just blindly follow the other countries without any consideration for how leagues are structured here. My kids played on high-level teams where they were crushing everyone when they played 9v9 at their age group. Thankfully they played up and actually got some competitive games at 11v11... so yeah, I would call that a long-term and short-term win. The u12 leagues are too diverse on talent; at least if you play up in the right league, you can get good competition every single week. I know some teams play up in the 4th division just to get some confidence playing up, but not every club does that.

I am not going to argue your point as it is ill informed and based on your own individual experience, which btw, you will never know another way because you only get one path. What I do know is, no one is arguing, and I mean no one, that US soccer is the gold standard. That said, going even one step further away from proven pathways just doesnt resonate with me. Regarding the competition piece, every time we play high level tournaments, I am always impressed by the competition across the country. In terms of league play, you get good teams and some that are not so good as with any league. Most of the teams I know playing up are playing against awful competition because they cant do ECNL/ RL, GA/ Aspire, etc., so all they are getting are bigger, less talented kids.

sounds like we're both sharing our personal experiences then, basically it works for some and doesn't work for others in this country. I'm just saying that the US is fundamentally different from other countries, so to say that we should adopt this one thing from Spain and this one thing from Norway and this one thing from England, isn't helpful since the US is generally larger and more diverse than all these other countries. This country could always do better (and needs to do better on the men's side). Our national-level womens teams seem to be doing just fine, so maybe other country's should replicate our women's programs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9v9 is good for learning how to play in small space. 11v11 is good because learning to play with space is also important. They should play both because different skill sets are required, neither less important. But the the major reason they do both is because 11v11 is full field. Lots of running. Many kids hate the full field running. One of the major drop out rates is when the kids realize they have to run full field and don’t want to. By doing 9v9 and 11v11 I in the same season, you weed out the kids that don’t want to run full field, but are still learning close field skills. This is a very important year. Some kids are good on small fields but don’t want to really run. Coaches want to know who has close field skills but also want to run full field. Don’t knock the clubs that try to do both at that year.

Seeing this on DS's team now. Some are able to use size and physicality to their advantage on the small field, but they either don't want to or can't run on the big field. Older soccer players seem to almost exclusively be pretty lean; I assume the ones who stick with it are all running a lot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9v9 is good for learning how to play in small space. 11v11 is good because learning to play with space is also important. They should play both because different skill sets are required, neither less important. But the the major reason they do both is because 11v11 is full field. Lots of running. Many kids hate the full field running. One of the major drop out rates is when the kids realize they have to run full field and don’t want to. By doing 9v9 and 11v11 I in the same season, you weed out the kids that don’t want to run full field, but are still learning close field skills. This is a very important year. Some kids are good on small fields but don’t want to really run. Coaches want to know who has close field skills but also want to run full field. Don’t knock the clubs that try to do both at that year.

This is opinion vs fact. Spain stays small sided until u14 I believe. England just changed their rules for 9v9 to last longer, just a couple of quick examples. This has nothing to do with play other teams in other countries, it is just the fact that the world is better than us in soccer and this is a major reason why. Anyone who thinks US soccer outsmarted the other dominate countries is flat out wrong. Heck, why do we all play futsal, it worked for South American so why not here.

wow, so I guess we should just blindly follow the other countries without any consideration for how leagues are structured here. My kids played on high-level teams where they were crushing everyone when they played 9v9 at their age group. Thankfully they played up and actually got some competitive games at 11v11... so yeah, I would call that a long-term and short-term win. The u12 leagues are too diverse on talent; at least if you play up in the right league, you can get good competition every single week. I know some teams play up in the 4th division just to get some confidence playing up, but not every club does that.

I am not going to argue your point as it is ill informed and based on your own individual experience, which btw, you will never know another way because you only get one path. What I do know is, no one is arguing, and I mean no one, that US soccer is the gold standard. That said, going even one step further away from proven pathways just doesnt resonate with me. Regarding the competition piece, every time we play high level tournaments, I am always impressed by the competition across the country. In terms of league play, you get good teams and some that are not so good as with any league. Most of the teams I know playing up are playing against awful competition because they cant do ECNL/ RL, GA/ Aspire, etc., so all they are getting are bigger, less talented kids.

I am not saying we should adopt per se. What I am saying is that US Soccer says 11v11 starts at u13. Most of the rest of the world says slightly later. All this being said, how does it make sense to then say, they are all wrong, let's start sooner.

sounds like we're both sharing our personal experiences then, basically it works for some and doesn't work for others in this country. I'm just saying that the US is fundamentally different from other countries, so to say that we should adopt this one thing from Spain and this one thing from Norway and this one thing from England, isn't helpful since the US is generally larger and more diverse than all these other countries. This country could always do better (and needs to do better on the men's side). Our national-level womens teams seem to be doing just fine, so maybe other country's should replicate our women's programs?