Reply to Is travel soccer the best way for soccer growth?

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[quote=Anonymous]Based on the previous responses, hopefully, you've gleaned that travel soccer isn't a bad investment if you can afford it and want a more competitive training environment for your kid. That being said, just being on a travel soccer team, alone, won't necessarily ensure your child is ready for more competitive teams or to make their HS varsity team. To answer your question about "is it too late to join travel?" I don't think so. I've seen some girls who started around U11/U12 and make a ton of progress via their committment to train. They have to work harder to catch up and are aware of it.

At your DD's age, most clubs will prioritize physical attributes when making offers, as they aren't focused on long-term development, but near-term winning since players and coaches switch clubs so often. What travel soccer provides that rec and challenge can't is an opportunity to drastically improve their speed of play, or speed of decision-making. That's not something which is easy to replicate unless you're actually in it. It's also worth noting that just playing on a team with similarly skilled kids won't prepare your DD for advancing to a higher team on its own. IOW, she has to be committed to training outside of her team trainings if she wants to catch up to where her current mid-level team opportunities are and, ultimately, a earn a spot on a higher team. When they get a little older, and everyone has gone through puberty and the physical differences are much more minimal between players, it becomes very obvious which kids rested on their early physical advantages and didn't put in the extra work, and which kids had to focus on advancing their skills and game IQ to compete. IMO, the latter are the ones who can be better off because they were constantly having to earn it until their bodies caught up.

My DD is one of those "latters." She started off on her club's 6th team as a U9 and was pretty undersized until U14, and through tons of outside (in addition to team) training, has steadily progressed up to her club's top team. The other dirty secret about advancing to better teams is that you often have to be willing to switch clubs. Although you'd think that a club would want to reward loyalty and promote from talent within, it rarely happens as they get older and a shiny new player (& money) from another club is almost always more attractive to a higher-team-level coach than a kid who's been labeled as a 2nd or 3rd teamer within the club. So, just be prepared for what's really involved (at least in the DMV) when it comes to supporting your DD's budding soccer career.

Net net is that your DD should be having fun along the way, constantly striving to improve (if she wants to), and that travel soccer can provide a great environment in which that growth can occur.[/quote]

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