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[quote=Anonymous]Overuse is a huge problem. I say this as a parent of a player who now plays D1 college. In his case, all through his club career, we kept him out of all summer leagues and formal training. He also took a 5-6 week break during winter except for work to build strength and flexibility. When he would come back after his time off (almost 2.5 months in summer), he would usually have a great season after taking a couple of weeks to get back into full soccer shape, and remained mostly free from soft tissue or muscle injuries.

Interestingly, it became much easier to do this at an older age. At young age (&lt;12), it was absolutely crazy, with some kids playing in 2-3 different teams in off-season, which creates pressure on everyone to do the same as they don't want to &quot;fall behind&quot; or &quot;miss out&quot;. As they got older, at least our club coaches advised the players to rest in off-season and most in the top teams did, at least to some extent. Most of them didn't play high school, so were spared of the brutal high school &quot;coaching&quot; that goes on with practices every day and multiple games every week.

On playing multiple sports. I know this is an article of faith among many American parents, and I am convinced about its benefits at an early age. But noone in their right mind should encourage playing multiple sports at high school plus club sports with overlapping high school and club seasons. No teenage soccer player in any other country does that, as it's a sure recipe for burnout and overuse injuries. Multisport doesn't mean running around playing 3 different intense sports in overlapping school and club seasons when you are 16-17 years old, the age when overuse injuries are very common. It's not rest from overuse when the player is training 5 days a week in basketball during soccer off-season, and running track at high school between club soccer practices. [/quote]

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