High School Soccer is the new teen recreational soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I look at how high schools handle their programs, the more I feel like I’m seeing recreational soccer for teens.

What are you looking at?

I saw last night a game between Whitman and Churchill where every single player out there was playing high club soccer. MLS Next, ECNL, E64, EDP regular.

They all moved the ball around, they all had technical skills.

The entire rosters in both teams were almost all seniors and juniors.

The JVs are stacked too. If you see a varsity team with only one or no freshmen and maybe one or two sophomores - and all of those are MLS Next or ECNL (not ECNL-RL!), then you know you are facing a great team.

If varsity has like 5+ underclassman playing regular travel (Bethesda C or Potomac B or lower), they are just trying to build for next year or the year after that (or just don’t know what they are doing)

No team is winning a state championship with underclassmen. You need size, strength, and speed of seniors to win. Seen too many freshmen and sophomores getting career ending injuries playing on varsity. It’s just rough sometimes and they don’t have the size or stength.

It's way more than size.

You are clueless

Man I’m old school but after watching that game you need size (not height) but you need to beef up a bit and work on athletic part as well. It was technical but very physical. I saw some viscous tackles out there where if the guy had been some lightweight kid he would have been broken in half

That’s what I’m talking about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all seem to forget that you're not their age. HS soccer is about playing with friends, so as much as the soccer may not be good, it's the friendships. Especially when your kids have gone to school since elementary school and never had a chance to play with them.

Yeah. My kid went private for HS- so not the same kids. Lots of friends - some play different sports, some don’t…he has a lot of really good friends on club team (from many different schools).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You all seem to forget that you're not their age. HS soccer is about playing with friends, so as much as the soccer may not be good, it's the friendships. Especially when your kids have gone to school since elementary school and never had a chance to play with them.

Not any more, PP, at least at some schools. This is what we would like it to be but it’s not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I look at how high schools handle their programs, the more I feel like I’m seeing recreational soccer for teens.

What are you looking at?

I saw last night a game between Whitman and Churchill where every single player out there was playing high club soccer. MLS Next, ECNL, E64, EDP regular.

They all moved the ball around, they all had technical skills.

The entire rosters in both teams were almost all seniors and juniors.

These two teams are excellent and both have very skilled players. Too bad the Whitman fans are so toxic and mean-spirited. It’s so ugly to see so much guttural voice cracking anger from a bunch of young men (fans).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I look at how high schools handle their programs, the more I feel like I’m seeing recreational soccer for teens.

What are you looking at?

I saw last night a game between Whitman and Churchill where every single player out there was playing high club soccer. MLS Next, ECNL, E64, EDP regular.

They all moved the ball around, they all had technical skills.

The entire rosters in both teams were almost all seniors and juniors.

The JVs are stacked too. If you see a varsity team with only one or no freshmen and maybe one or two sophomores - and all of those are MLS Next or ECNL (not ECNL-RL!), then you know you are facing a great team.

If varsity has like 5+ underclassman playing regular travel (Bethesda C or Potomac B or lower), they are just trying to build for next year or the year after that (or just don’t know what they are doing)

No team is winning a state championship with underclassmen. You need size, strength, and speed of seniors to win. Seen too many freshmen and sophomores getting career ending injuries playing on varsity. It’s just rough sometimes and they don’t have the size or stength.

It's way more than size.

You are clueless

Man I’m old school but after watching that game you need size (not height) but you need to beef up a bit and work on athletic part as well. It was technical but very physical. I saw some viscous tackles out there where if the guy had been some lightweight kid he would have been broken in half

You are the equivalent of the "old school" American football coaches that think players should be able to tackle head down and spear opponents. Don't let the kids that become paralyzed change your thinking.

When players are getting hurt playing a game this is a blinking red light that something is wrong.

Overly physical play is the hallmark of less skilled players. They get frustrated when more skilled players get around them and lash out to try and compensate. This is the main reason really good teams don't want to play bad teams. It's not worth the effort it takes to run up the score if your opponent is just going to cheap shot to get you out of the game.

[Anonymous]

HS soccer and the coaching is terrible. GS sports coaching is also generally terrible

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm...interesting discussion.

My son played club soccer (classic level in VA) and also HS soccer. His HS soccer experience was really disappointing due to the coach's ineptitude. Just poor play, organization on the field, favoritism with time, etc.

He had a couple of friends on the local boys ECNL team who wanted to play their senior year and didn't last the entire season because it was so bad. One is playing at a Sun Belt D1 program now and the other at a local DIII school as freshman in college.

There are some HS boys programs locally here that are better, but it's still not great.

My daughter, freshman ECNL player, choose not to play HS - her ECNL club field a combined "Super Cup" team and played other local girls ECNL clubs and even a few younger ECNL boys squads. Much better experience compared to public HS girls soccer for her.

Now, there are a few privates that have good coaching and good squads overall, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

Which high school in VA was so bad?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm...interesting discussion.

My son played club soccer (classic level in VA) and also HS soccer. His HS soccer experience was really disappointing due to the coach's ineptitude. Just poor play, organization on the field, favoritism with time, etc.

He had a couple of friends on the local boys ECNL team who wanted to play their senior year and didn't last the entire season because it was so bad. One is playing at a Sun Belt D1 program now and the other at a local DIII school as freshman in college.

There are some HS boys programs locally here that are better, but it's still not great.

My daughter, freshman ECNL player, choose not to play HS - her ECNL club field a combined "Super Cup" team and played other local girls ECNL clubs and even a few younger ECNL boys squads. Much better experience compared to public HS girls soccer for her.

Now, there are a few privates that have good coaching and good squads overall, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

Which high school in VA was so bad?

https://www.maxpreps.com/va/soccer/24-25/division/visaa-di/rankings/1/?mobile=1&statedivisionid=4153afb7-591e-4ab1-a538-b1e0477c9ea3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Hmmm...interesting discussion.

My son played club soccer (classic level in VA) and also HS soccer. His HS soccer experience was really disappointing due to the coach's ineptitude. Just poor play, organization on the field, favoritism with time, etc.

He had a couple of friends on the local boys ECNL team who wanted to play their senior year and didn't last the entire season because it was so bad. One is playing at a Sun Belt D1 program now and the other at a local DIII school as freshman in college.[b]

There are some HS boys programs locally here that are better, but it's still not great.

My daughter, freshman ECNL player, choose not to play HS - her ECNL club field a combined "Super Cup" team and played other local girls ECNL clubs and even a few younger ECNL boys squads. Much better experience compared to public HS girls soccer for her.

Now, there are a few privates that have good coaching and good squads overall, but that's the exception rather than the rule.

My kid did not play HS (not his choice ) and is playing in college this year---proud to be wearing the school jersey and crushing it. Several goals, lots of playing time.

He said he much rather have this experience than if he had to choose HS v college play. And the level of play between the two-no comparison.

[Anonymous]

Travel sports claiming another victim. Such a toxic industry.

[Anonymous]

Something to do in-between ENCL for girls. It's never going to be anything else than a fun exercise. What did folks expect? Go look at AAU compared to HS bball.

[Anonymous]

For those club soccer elitists, you must support calendar year-based teams. No reason for school year teams when club players come from large geographic areas.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those club soccer elitists, you must support calendar year-based teams. No reason for school year teams when club players come from large geographic areas.

BY and SY are essentially the same thing.

I prefer BY because it's what's available now and everyone is aligned. All the trapped player talk is just nonsense at the ECNL level. There might be SY value at younger ages but not u13 and up high level competitive teams.

In the end it really doesn't matter. However changing does create a lot of churn for clubs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For those club soccer elitists, you must support calendar year-based teams. No reason for school year teams when club players come from large geographic areas.

Yes. I do.

[Anonymous]

So now travel sports are killing high school sports too? Wonderful