Reflection: Advice to the Girls Ulittles

[Anonymous]

The most important thing for all U-littles, is to keep it fun. They should be playing with friends, have a coach who is focused on development and fun (not screaming at players and not focused solely on winning). That will keep them playing, which will lead to improvement, winning, fun, and more playing

[Anonymous]

I wish soccer operated on the draft system similar to basketball so you wouldn't get teams of girls that have banded together to basically dominate an entire league for years. It's not fun for the other girls. This particular rec team has been talked about on this forum ad nauseam.

[Anonymous]

Switch to lacrosse.

(I tried but failed to get my daughter to play lacrosse.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be realistic about how athletic your daughter is - not how technical or good at soccer - but how athletic. Deciding factor in speed of play on girls side at older ages is dominated by athleticism and aggression.

Eff this advice. Be technical and smart. This is everything that is wrong with American soccer and slowly the game is evolving.

That said, of course athleticism matters a lot. It is a sport but you can control your technical and tactical development. Athleticism is god given.

Also, to those who are athletic, great, do us all a favor and stop being lazy and simply relying on athleticism. Play some wall ball, be a student of the game and respect the technical aspects. If you are an athletic freak then it shouldn't be hard to develop good first touch. The game demands technical players when all anyone has is athleticism.

Thank you. If your kid's only selling point is size and speed that's sad and doing the player a disservice. Studies show smaller players that stick with soccer into high school do much better because they learn so much more/work harder than the players who do minimal work and rely just on their size/speed.

Unfortunately a lot of these genius uLittle coaches are geared only on size and big kicks. They ignore basic skills. Some top teams have players that can’t even receive a pass, have first touch or even handle a 1 v 1. It’s a sad state when “athleticism” for coaches means big size and not skill, movement and execution. Look at the US Gold medal Olympic team. Those women are not huge but they are highly skilled. Ignore the doofus coaches; they should get a job at Golds Gym selling protein powder.

You have to define skill. There are u-littles who can pass and shoot (sort of) and then there are few kids who take your breath away. The dunderhead coaches who look for size and speed might miss the former, but nobody misses the latter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be realistic about how athletic your daughter is - not how technical or good at soccer - but how athletic. Deciding factor in speed of play on girls side at older ages is dominated by athleticism and aggression.

Eff this advice. Be technical and smart. This is everything that is wrong with American soccer and slowly the game is evolving.

That said, of course athleticism matters a lot. It is a sport but you can control your technical and tactical development. Athleticism is god given.

Also, to those who are athletic, great, do us all a favor and stop being lazy and simply relying on athleticism. Play some wall ball, be a student of the game and respect the technical aspects. If you are an athletic freak then it shouldn't be hard to develop good first touch. The game demands technical players when all anyone has is athleticism.

Thank you. If your kid's only selling point is size and speed that's sad and doing the player a disservice. Studies show smaller players that stick with soccer into high school do much better because they learn so much more/work harder than the players who do minimal work and rely just on their size/speed.

Unfortunately a lot of these genius uLittle coaches are geared only on size and big kicks. They ignore basic skills. Some top teams have players that can’t even receive a pass, have first touch or even handle a 1 v 1. It’s a sad state when “athleticism” for coaches means big size and not skill, movement and execution. Look at the US Gold medal Olympic team. Those women are not huge but they are highly skilled. Ignore the doofus coaches; they should get a job at Golds Gym selling protein powder.

You have to define skill. There are u-littles who can pass and shoot (sort of) and then there are few kids who take your breath away. The dunderhead coaches who look for size and speed might miss the former, but nobody misses the latter.

We are currently on a team with a coach that hates the latter. Don't kid yourself about the level of soccer intelligence some of these coaches lack. Many are simply looking for size, aggression and big kicks. It's sad to say but there are only a handful of teams that value skilled players. Ironically, the teams that do value that are the ones that are more successful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be realistic about how athletic your daughter is - not how technical or good at soccer - but how athletic. Deciding factor in speed of play on girls side at older ages is dominated by athleticism and aggression.

Eff this advice. Be technical and smart. This is everything that is wrong with American soccer and slowly the game is evolving.

That said, of course athleticism matters a lot. It is a sport but you can control your technical and tactical development. Athleticism is god given.

Also, to those who are athletic, great, do us all a favor and stop being lazy and simply relying on athleticism. Play some wall ball, be a student of the game and respect the technical aspects. If you are an athletic freak then it shouldn't be hard to develop good first touch. The game demands technical players when all anyone has is athleticism.

Thank you. If your kid's only selling point is size and speed that's sad and doing the player a disservice. Studies show smaller players that stick with soccer into high school do much better because they learn so much more/work harder than the players who do minimal work and rely just on their size/speed.

Unfortunately a lot of these genius uLittle coaches are geared only on size and big kicks. They ignore basic skills. Some top teams have players that can’t even receive a pass, have first touch or even handle a 1 v 1. It’s a sad state when “athleticism” for coaches means big size and not skill, movement and execution. Look at the US Gold medal Olympic team. Those women are not huge but they are highly skilled. Ignore the doofus coaches; they should get a job at Golds Gym selling protein powder.

They are also all very athletic. You are doing your kid a disservice of you have them believing that technical skills can overcome genetics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be realistic about how athletic your daughter is - not how technical or good at soccer - but how athletic. Deciding factor in speed of play on girls side at older ages is dominated by athleticism and aggression.

Eff this advice. Be technical and smart. This is everything that is wrong with American soccer and slowly the game is evolving.

That said, of course athleticism matters a lot. It is a sport but you can control your technical and tactical development. Athleticism is god given.

Also, to those who are athletic, great, do us all a favor and stop being lazy and simply relying on athleticism. Play some wall ball, be a student of the game and respect the technical aspects. If you are an athletic freak then it shouldn't be hard to develop good first touch. The game demands technical players when all anyone has is athleticism.

Thank you. If your kid's only selling point is size and speed that's sad and doing the player a disservice. Studies show smaller players that stick with soccer into high school do much better because they learn so much more/work harder than the players who do minimal work and rely just on their size/speed.

Unfortunately a lot of these genius uLittle coaches are geared only on size and big kicks. They ignore basic skills. Some top teams have players that can’t even receive a pass, have first touch or even handle a 1 v 1. It’s a sad state when “athleticism” for coaches means big size and not skill, movement and execution. Look at the US Gold medal Olympic team. Those women are not huge but they are highly skilled. Ignore the doofus coaches; they should get a job at Golds Gym selling protein powder.

They are also all very athletic. You are doing your kid a disservice of you have them believing that technical skills can overcome genetics.

Don’t be so narrow visioned. What highly skilled technical player is not athletic? In fact most are extremely athletic. Unless all you mean by “athletic” is large and aggressive. Then you are a moron and you should coach girls rugby.