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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I disagree that the players in younger age groups don't care about winning.  My kids have enjoyed looking at the rankings app and knowing the caliber of team they are up against. They also would get bummed when they lose games that they could've won, and excited when they win a tournament final.

People keep saying the younger age groups are about development.  I ask you this, developing for what?  I thought a sport is a type of competition, and we are going to tell these kids they are never going to really compete because it's not as important as learning the skills of the sport, even though 1% will actually use those skills at an elite level?

With that I think the reason my kids play soccer is not to develop skills, it is to have fun competing. It just so happens that developing skills makes them more competitive, and there is no reason to delay the gratification of winning competition because some parents/coaches are crazy and some kids aren't really ready for it.
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First, we know it's you who's hung up on the useless rankings app. Then you pushed that silly obsession on your kids.

The reason development is more important to kids than winning games, is because kids want to get better at what they do, especially in front of their peers.
At these low levels and younger ages, it only takes 3 or 4 good players (usually early bloomers) for a team to win games.
Meanwhile people like you are celebrating victory when most of the team doesn't contribute much.

The more a kid develops and contributes, the more they love the sport. 
But you want to raise the kid in science class group project who gets an A when the rest did the work.

Teams are as good as the weakest links. The kids who aren't developing drag the team down. No kid wants to be that player. [/quote]

The truth is the people who obsess over "development over competition" have this delusional belief that every U9 player signs up for soccer so they can be the next Messi and that coaches and parents ruin it by being too competitive and not focusing on development.  The supposed antidote is to eliminate competition, focus exclusively on individual skills (in a team sport), and give everyone participation trophies until they are 16 to keep them in good spirits. There is an unhealthy obsession with US soccer one day dominating at the international level and needing to fix things by turning everything upside down to make that happen. These people need to look in the mirror when they judge people who like winning in youth soccer.  The reality is soccer isn't fun when you spend the first several years doing nothing but skill development and not keeping score or having any kind of competition. 
 What soccer should be is developing so that you can play well RIGHT NOW.  Winning and losing is a measurement of where you are at.

At some point you have players who rise above all because they love it and work harder than everyone else and end up at the top.  As long as soccer isn't a top priority in our culture it ain't happening at the international level.  Yes the financial aspect of it is a problem no doubt that that, but not the whole competitive nature of youth soccer as is often spouted here.

And it is foolish to say the rankings app is useless.  How do you flight a tournament into competitive flights without tools like this?  I think the most demoralizing thing you can do is put two teams together where the outcome is 10-0 and no amount of hiding the score from these kids is going to make them feel better after getting a beat down like that because some adults are terrified of their kids having hurt feelings every now and then when they lose a close battle and it goes on record.  What the record is supposed to do is set the next performance goal for the team.

And I never said that a win is all there is and how that win occurs doesn't matter.  I am a big fan of a possession game.  That requires a full team effort and it does require the development of technical skills.  Your problem is you paint everyone with the same brush.  Wanting to win automatically means you put the fast kid in front and just long ball to him over and over and win games.  That is HS ball and it is garbage.  I would rather win the right way, but there is just no reason to put your all into shooting at that goal if it means nothing in the moment.

My main point is developing for the future is dumb when most kids don't even have a future in soccer.  They have a right now, so might as well make the most of it.

I welcome more attempts to tell me this is what's wrong with youth soccer!
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If the players are being developed properly, winning games is a byproduct. 
So saying development is being prioritized over and instead of winning displays soccer ignorance.

You want 12 year olds kicking and chasing in swarms like they were doing at 6?

You using hyperbolic exaggerations like Messi comparisons to help your weak uninformed argument is a waste of time.[/quote]

Wrong.  The argument being made by many is you spend your entire youth developing so that you can win games when you are much older.

My point is development / performance cycle should be short term and more frequent, not a years long cycle where performance metrics either don't exist or are largely internalized by players and not externalized because of fear of crazy parents and coaches.[/quote]

So the coaches and parents not obsessed with booting long balls and winning games with early bloomer big players to feed their insecurities and post pictures of medals are "crazy"?

The good coaches teach their players to not to be comfortable with losing while focusing on developing their individual skills so they can grow and contribute to the success of their team[/quote]

What I'm tying to articulate is that there are two extremes going on here.  We have people who think winning must happen at all costs, and we have people who think winning as part of a team's plan is also problematic, particularly if a child is in a younger age group.

I think both are wrong, and the latter deserves more scrutiny.  Fear of crazy parents / coaches (who want to win at all costs) is not a reason to completely restructure the way youth soccer is organized.  Ranking systems are not bad and are a useful tool for flighting competitions and for teams to set their own goals. Keeping score has the same usefulness.  My kids and their teammates are all aware of the score whether it's recorded or not.  Hiding it is a way to try to solve a problem that can easily be remedied with code of conduct policies that are actually enforced.[/quote]

First of all, the 'rankings' are not built on accuracy and true facts, but on manipulation.
Teams can and do use Guest/Guess players in tournaments to gain points. 
Many teams are much higher quality than the fake rankings because they don't participate in the numerous tournaments to boost points.

The reason true soccer countries don't focus on scoreboards and league standings is so that the coaches egos aren't focused on standings. 
They focus on teaching.

I have never met a coach or parent who is Against Winning. In any country.

So what if the kids and their parents are logging results in Excel spreadsheet at home?[/quote]

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