Reply to Can you tell me the pros and cons of playing “up”?

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Can you tell me the pros and cons of playing “up”?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]A lot of factors go into playing up. If your kid is big, fast and skillful, then they should be playing up until everyone catches up or not. The thing you need to watch out for is little playing time and missing out on skill development. This is more so in the younger age groups. You don’t want them trying to run before they can even walk so to speak. Just ask the coaches why they think this and would your kid miss out on any developmental training, or do they already think he has what is needed and ready to move into a different stage of training. [/quote]

Bad advice. Playing up because your kid is big is exactly what you shouldn't do. At younger ages, they need to develop footwork. Your kid being big might allow him to boot more balls into the net, but scoring goals at a young age has very little to do with soccer development. [/quote]

I think it's the exact opposite.  Playing up when your kid is big is exactly what you should do.  If your kid is bigger/faster/stronger than most of the kids his own age, how will that encourage him to develop his technical skills?  It won't -- he'll just be able to outrun, push, and boot the ball longer and harder than the other kids.  He will use his size/speed advantages to beat other players.

If your kid is small or average size, then I would hesitate to play up a year unless his skills are enough to compensate for being slower, smaller, weaker than the older kids.[/quote]

America's problem with soccer in a nutshell.  This is not American football. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics