Still it's not apparent if any new quality coaching or leadership has been hired. They would benefit from some extra coaching leadership. They advertised over this past winter, for multiple positions, but no new faces or announcements have been made.

I think there are lots of benefits to letting kids play up. I can recognize 1 kid might be invited to play up at one club, but not be invited up at the next club. Our club frequently allowed it when they were short on players, but once the playing rosters filled up over the winter recruitment drive, the invitations stopped. We have 1 kid who tried out for a year up and made the second team of only two teams. She will play up for the entire season (although she is only an average player) because of the contract at the start of the season. I have also seen coaches not want players to play up as they fear loosing their better players and want to keep kids together. I would suggest, if your kid wants to play up, let them tryout for the higher team. It might ruffle some feathers, but the situation could change where there are no guest slots for you kid to play up later. Or the coaches might change and the option is gone.

It would be hard to quantify a developmental difference for using a size 4 now instead of the size 3. Unbelievably, our travel club lets the kids practice with size 4 balls instead of size 3, and run FUTSAL clinics with size 4 balls, but they use size 3 in the games.

Developmentally it is better to train with the smaller ball, but it's hard to say how much better. I think as long as you are training at home consistently, that is the more important thing! I know this answer is not exactly helpful, however, if I were to buy one for my daughter, I would buy the size 3.