Bethesda Soccer On Way Down

[Anonymous]

Repeating, for those who respond but don’t read:

There is no such thing as too much soccer. There is such thing as too much pressure and unrealistic expectations. That’s what burns kids out.

[Anonymous]

Did Bethesda buy SOFIVE Rockville? Or is their indoor facility different (address and location looks slightly different) but using Sofive clip art/images?

https://www.bethesdasoccer.org/indoor-facility/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did Bethesda buy SOFIVE Rockville? Or is their indoor facility different (address and location looks slightly different) but using Sofive clip art/images?

https://www.bethesdasoccer.org/indoor-facility/

The Bethesda facility is separate from Sofive but seems modeled after it, five small fields with boards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Repeating, for those who respond but don’t read:

There is no such thing as too much soccer. There is such thing as too much pressure and unrealistic expectations. That’s what burns kids out.

There absolutely is "too much soccer". Rest/recovery is a huge part of growing in any sport/athletic pursuit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did Bethesda buy SOFIVE Rockville? Or is their indoor facility different (address and location looks slightly different) but using Sofive clip art/images?

https://www.bethesdasoccer.org/indoor-facility/

The Bethesda facility is separate from Sofive but seems modeled after it, five small fields with boards.

There's a Sofive stock photo on the page
Someone got a little lazy

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did Bethesda buy SOFIVE Rockville? Or is their indoor facility different (address and location looks slightly different) but using Sofive clip art/images?

https://www.bethesdasoccer.org/indoor-facility/

The Bethesda facility is separate from Sofive but seems modeled after it, five small fields with boards.

There's a Sofive stock photo on the page
Someone got a little lazy

said photo

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Repeating, for those who respond but don’t read:

There is no such thing as too much soccer. There is such thing as too much pressure and unrealistic expectations. That’s what burns kids out.

There absolutely is "too much soccer". Rest/recovery is a huge part of growing in any sport/athletic pursuit.

I think we understand your point, but what kid in this country is just playing soccer constantly outside of the pressure and structure of a club? I assume most, if not all, the folks on this thread are struggling with clubs like Bethesda.

[Anonymous]

Happy to explain my position. We as parents are 100% responsible for controlling the pressure and expectations related to our kids soccer experience. Choosing the right coaches and teams for your child is the first step, having the right conversations before and after competitive games is the next, making sure they enjoy the tournaments and training outside of that is another. You have to maintain an environment that is about them and the sport they love. If they don’t love t, you need to lay it off and not pressure them. If they do, you protect that from all coaches and you let them play as much as they want.

If you only care whether they win or lose, so will they. And they will never just play. That’s unnecessary pressure. Then there’re parents’ expectations. Most of the parents on our first Bethesda team care a lot more about status and optics than their child’s experience. So it is not about the amount of play, it is all about the negative experience that we create around it.

[Anonymous]

This burnout stuff for these kids is funny made-up stuff

It's easy to push and repeat theories that can't be proven.
If our kids are burning out doing less than others who aren't we must be weak

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This burnout stuff for these kids is funny made-up stuff

It's easy to push and repeat theories that can't be proven.
If our kids are burning out doing less than others who aren't we must be weak

You havent been around enough. Its real. Many kids just call it quits before college. Some are actually pretty good. No desire to keep up the grind which is really what it takes to be good at soccer. Keep telling yourself its great that a 14 year old should play 60 games a year. Never mind injury risk and burnout, kids probably need more time to train on weaknesses or work in gym on strength vs the pressure of winning another game or another team practice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This burnout stuff for these kids is funny made-up stuff

It's easy to push and repeat theories that can't be proven.
If our kids are burning out doing less than others who aren't we must be weak

To be proven you need to have scientific theory and data-verified testing.

Please stop and just use common sense.

Winning should not matter until around age 14-15. These kids are being taught that in order to have validation from their parents, they need to win from the ages of 8. Unless you want to submit your kids to psychological testing, I am 99% sure most of them just want to compete and have fun WITHOUT their parents pressure and onlooking.

They are ALWAYS going to say I want 60 games because they want to impress us.

Especially pre-MLS Next/ECNL, the best situation is to have 2-3 practices a week and then reserve fields for mixed aged voluntary pickups open to all. Provide Pennie’s, balls, goals and the rules. 5 min max, 3v3, 4v4 or 5v5, first to two goals win, winner stays on. The kids would probably accumulate more time than 60 games but they would have more fun on their terms and they would not quit and lost the love of the game as a teenager.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This burnout stuff for these kids is funny made-up stuff

It's easy to push and repeat theories that can't be proven.
If our kids are burning out doing less than others who aren't we must be weak

You havent been around enough. Its real. Many kids just call it quits before college. Some are actually pretty good. No desire to keep up the grind which is really what it takes to be good at soccer. Keep telling yourself its great that a 14 year old should play 60 games a year. Never mind injury risk and burnout, kids probably need more time to train on weaknesses or work in gym on strength vs the pressure of winning another game or another team practice

How many 14 year olds here are doing two-a-days training?
MLS Next U14's and U15's play less than 40 games a year. Who's playing 60?
How many U14's are playing full game minutes?

Kids quit music lessons, art, martial arts, scouts etc etc all the time because they lose interest and find other interests.
It's not burnout.
There are kids quitting sports without even putting in extra time outside team practices and calling it burnout. Hilarious
They spend more time seated looking at screens

[Anonymous]

Too much soccer is definitely possible. The problem is that most parents in our area want their kid to be stand out players but they don't understand that the development of their child is a marathon not a sprint. 90 percent of serious soccer parents in our area are sprinting with their kids development with a the more they play the better they will be approach. While that concept is true to a certain extent there is a limit to how much a young body can sustain for a period of time. What they don't realize is that they are setting their kids up for injuries down the road as they get older from overuse at younger ages. Why the current crop of USNT players are injured more often than not. They were the first generation of really intense soccer parents in the country. A player needs to put in the time on their feet to be good there is no question about that. But the time needs to be spent developing SKILLS not necessarily playing games. The games are where you test the skills you've been working on. If you go around to Bethesda games or really any other clubs games in our area there are tons of kids with below average skills but above average desire to win a game. Those two things are in conflict and it manifest itself on the sidelines. This problem is widespread in youth soccer in our country. Once we get away from.the winning culture and start promoting a skill development culture we will.be better off. I can see hundreds of kids on Instagram that can do fancy cone moves but those same players can't control the ball out of the air with pressure. Very different skills and the former is ok to have, the latter is a must have in high level football. Back to the original point...you can definitely over train and play too much soccer and if you do that in this country, chances are your kid won't be that good because more likely than not you're training on the wrong things and clubs like Bethesda bank on your ignorance to sell you things and extract money from your pocket. It's that simple.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too much soccer is definitely possible. The problem is that most parents in our area want their kid to be stand out players but they don't understand that the development of their child is a marathon not a sprint. 90 percent of serious soccer parents in our area are sprinting with their kids development with a the more they play the better they will be approach. While that concept is true to a certain extent there is a limit to how much a young body can sustain for a period of time. What they don't realize is that they are setting their kids up for injuries down the road as they get older from overuse at younger ages. Why the current crop of USNT players are injured more often than not. They were the first generation of really intense soccer parents in the country. A player needs to put in the time on their feet to be good there is no question about that. But the time needs to be spent developing SKILLS not necessarily playing games. The games are where you test the skills you've been working on. If you go around to Bethesda games or really any other clubs games in our area there are tons of kids with below average skills but above average desire to win a game. Those two things are in conflict and it manifest itself on the sidelines. This problem is widespread in youth soccer in our country. Once we get away from.the winning culture and start promoting a skill development culture we will.be better off. I can see hundreds of kids on Instagram that can do fancy cone moves but those same players can't control the ball out of the air with pressure. Very different skills and the former is ok to have, the latter is a must have in high level football. Back to the original point...you can definitely over train and play too much soccer and if you do that in this country, chances are your kid won't be that good because more likely than not you're training on the wrong things and clubs like Bethesda bank on your ignorance to sell you things and extract money from your pocket. It's that simple.

Too many generalizations and inexact science and personal opinions here to address
Not to mention lack of causation or correlation conclusions.
Ramblings without substance that can't be verified by facts

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Too much soccer is definitely possible. The problem is that most parents in our area want their kid to be stand out players but they don't understand that the development of their child is a marathon not a sprint. 90 percent of serious soccer parents in our area are sprinting with their kids development with a the more they play the better they will be approach. While that concept is true to a certain extent there is a limit to how much a young body can sustain for a period of time. What they don't realize is that they are setting their kids up for injuries down the road as they get older from overuse at younger ages. Why the current crop of USNT players are injured more often than not. They were the first generation of really intense soccer parents in the country. A player needs to put in the time on their feet to be good there is no question about that. But the time needs to be spent developing SKILLS not necessarily playing games. The games are where you test the skills you've been working on. If you go around to Bethesda games or really any other clubs games in our area there are tons of kids with below average skills but above average desire to win a game. Those two things are in conflict and it manifest itself on the sidelines. This problem is widespread in youth soccer in our country. Once we get away from.the winning culture and start promoting a skill development culture we will.be better off. I can see hundreds of kids on Instagram that can do fancy cone moves but those same players can't control the ball out of the air with pressure. Very different skills and the former is ok to have, the latter is a must have in high level football. Back to the original point...you can definitely over train and play too much soccer and if you do that in this country, chances are your kid won't be that good because more likely than not you're training on the wrong things and clubs like Bethesda bank on your ignorance to sell you things and extract money from your pocket. It's that simple.

Too many generalizations and inexact science and personal opinions here to address
Not to mention lack of causation or correlation conclusions.
Ramblings without substance that can't be verified by facts

Right because you really need that on a mommy and daddy discussion board open to the public. Take what is being said or leave it. If you have info to refute what is being said, present it. If not, you're a troll.