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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]24 on roster could possibly be too much but not always. Around 22 for older age groups seems to be the right number for reasons mentioned in this thread (high school, college visits, injuries, etc.).  Most teams I have seen with just 18 rostered are usually (more often than not) struggling to field full teams with some subs to give breathers by the end of a season in leagues of with a high level of competition. And many clubs will let those not rostered play with the B team on that given week. Either way, I do support at the older age groups (u17+) having kids earn their time by performance in training and in games. This is not popular opinion for parents of kids that don't get as much time. I have had kids on both ends of this (one who played for fun and only got 15-20 minutes per match and one who played nearly every minute, was a star, and still plays in college). The one who played for fun knew her place on the team and made decisions on how hard she wanted to work to earn more time. I think the earn your way approach at older ages sets kids up well for the truth they will face in college soccer (if they go that route) and definitely in the journey of life and is one of many steps to help with maturity growth. Not everyone will be the star and not everyone deserves equal time. Not fun to discuss or internalize, but true. I will not go on a rant but the "entitlement factor" is a big part of the problem in the world I see today.     [/quote]

I’d agree that 24 is not always too many, but the coach/club needs to do a good job of communicating the overall picture and individually per player. That rarely/almost never happens, in my experience.

But, there are a lot of factors. At a big club (3 or more teams per age group), there’s no reason for 24, you can pull from other teams short term (both up and down), and given that environment (large player pool) and the large fees (over $3k) I don’t think it’s an issue of entitlement.

My DC’s club has 5 teams at age group. Top 2 have a combined roster of over 50 at this point (and adding, top team is mls next w/ 26 kids). There’s no real resason for such large rosters w/ a player pool of over 100…other than cold hard cash.[/quote]

I completely agree that with larger rosters the communication aspect is critical to set expectations. I agree that cold hard cash is also a big factor. It is American soccer where it is all about money unlike many other countries. That is the American way and we have to live with it. My son's team last year started with 24. Two moved away to an MLS academy in another city, two were injured and we had a few here and there that couldn't make games along the way. It worked out and in weeks where we had more than 18 there was proactive communication on what would happen with any player not being rostered. Absolutely should not see situations where kids travel out of town to a tourney and find out when they arrive. That is just unacceptable. Expectation setting is key (and has to be done proactively). The money grab factor will be factor will always be there and if a player is not good enough to get the amount of field time they desire they can choose to work harder to get there or move to another club or lower team in same club (and that is not always going to solve the play time issue as all teams are not equal). [/quote]

It sounds like this team was run in a satisfactory way. How did the coach decide when there was more than 18? How soon before the game did he communicate who would be rostering? I would understand if my child were left off a roster sometimes if she was not as good as others but I would want to know as far in advance so that we could make alternate plans.[/quote]

Great questions! I agree it was run effectively. It was older age groups (u17 and u19 groups) and the coach determined who was in the 18 each week based on performance in training and during the season as they went. I think it is much harder to keep larger rosters at the younger groups below u17 or maybe u16. Notifications were given after the last trainins session for the week on the plans for the weekend match. Of course some shell games happen between Thursday and match time as availability sometimes changed, but overall it worked. Additionally, anyone on the top team who was not in the 18 was rostered to the 2nd team for that week (which had room as part of the design and to give them field time in games to help with the process). A little proactive management, a consistent process and communication goes a long way to manage this (and still get the money grab for the club). it was amazing how proactive families got with updating team websites with availability, etc. for the given weeks knowing how it worked. The whole process improved because of how it was managed. The best part is the kids learned a lot about working hard in training and not just in games which was way more important to help them develop. Too bad this does not happen across more clubs based on the horror stories I have heard and some that are in this email thread.[/quote]

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