Reply to The travel bar... would they make their high school team

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]On the boys' side (I know nothing about the girls')... this whole thread seems crazy to me. Obviously "travel soccer" spans a huge range of player/team quality. But for the A teams on decent clubs, 100%* of them would make their HS team. Really, it's the reverse -- most HS players would not make the A teams on decent clubs. Heck, the entire top league (MLS Next) keeps (almost) all their players out of HS soccer. For better or worse, boys HS soccer just isn't that good; and most of the top players don't play it. One way to tell is that college coaches don't scout HS games at all. I've never seen one -- even D3 -- at a HS game, even the state playoffs.

* Maybe there's an exception for freshman making a HS team, just because of the physical development differences in boys.[/quote]

The big thing about high school soccer for guys is size difference.  15/16 and some 17s are just too small. Guys continue growing well into late teens and early twenties.  Yes there are small skilled 16 year olds but they will also often be competing against big fast skillful 18 year olds.  Mind you, that applies to most high school sports.  But, not so much on the girls side where a vastly greater percentage of girls are done growing at 16/17.  A 5’6” 135lb 15 year old guy is going to get beat up playing against 17/18 year olds who are going to be 20-30 lbs heavier and 4-6 inches taller.  So the, “my kid plays on a good club team” group can be disappointed when their kid does not make varsity as a freshman or sophomore.  The coach is not being “mean” or “stupid”.  They are recognizing the facts of the high school game with the potential 4 year age gap - and protecting the smaller kids.

As for recruiting; college coaches don’t randomly go to any game or match in any high school or club sport - well they might live nearby and be walking the dog and stop to watch.  That is certainly not how recruiting works.  And, yes - I have seen a good many college soccer coaches at high school games - come to see a specific player.

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