Reply to A general note to clubs about tryouts

Forum Index » Sports General Discussion

Reply to "A general note to clubs about tryouts"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]The DoC of the kids’ club said (20 years ago) to the parents - and he was correct:  The best kids at 9 are not the best kids at 13. [b] And the best kids at 13 are not the best kids at 18.[/b]

Ultimately, you, as a parent, eventually figure out: 
1.  Where your kid fits athletically.  Speed and quickness are 90% of the gradation.  
2.  Individual work is the key to individual improvement.  No kid is making an mlsnext team who is not spending at least 10 hours a week, on average, working on their own.  That is not unique to soccer either.
3.  Team participation is important  for tactical knowledge and practice starting with 11v11.  But, you have to be playing positions that work for you.  If that means joining a different team - do it.  
4.  At 16-17 getting exposure is important but once you make a college/pro decision you should bail.

Finally - no one really gives a hoot that a team won anything.  The clubs actually promote based on where they get kids placed, not whether they won some tournament.

[/quote]

I have 2 boys.  One turns 18 next Fall and the other is 15.  I also have 4 nephews that played competitively and are now post-college.  I watched this play out with boys.

On my almost 18-year olds top team, the 3 best players were on the lowest team at a big Club U9-U12.  They left and went to different clubs.  I always noted that these kids were so sorely misplaced and ignored.  They kept plugging away.  Puberty hit early for some in this age group (those kids flew to the top in middle school) and then puberty hit late for others.  Those 3 kids all now have D1 offers and 3/4s of the kids on the top team at U9 dropped the sport as they kept moving down the ranks.

My 18 year old always was very, very good technically but he had a very late growth spurt (think 5'3" at U15 and 6'1" at U17).  It was a real disadvantage in terms of team placement, but a GREAT advantage in terms of development as a player. He had to think faster, be quicker on the ball, learn to shield and develop greater skill.  A lot of the big guys were used to boot the ball and chase down 50-50 balls and by U16 they were still marketable to high school teams, but now college coaches or MLSNext, etc were giving them a look--all noting they didn't have the first touch or field vision/movement.

Soccer is a weird sport in the US.  A lot of kids with great potential leave the sport in droves because of the inexperience of coaches to identify players to develop and the use of big guns to win at younger ages.

Yes--there are a few superstars that were always superstars right from the start all the way to 18 and beyond, but that is much more rare.[/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