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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid was on the C team until 9th grade and ended up First team All Met in high school and had offers to play in college.  Better to get to play regularly than be a bench warmer.  And you never know which kids are going to end up being really good.  Love of game and good connection with coach are more important than A team, especially at younger ages.[/quote]

Boys develop even later than girls, many boys aren’t even near full height/size at 15–some are just starting their growth spurt.

Similar story in my house.  Turned out to be a Gatorade State player too with lots of offers.  Years of getting overlooked, but focused on his technical game young. It paid off.[/quote]

What paid off? Growing?

Think about where he’d be if he hadn’t grown. [/quote]

Focusing on technical game young paid off. That’s PP’s point. [/quote]

And yet if his kid didn’t actually grow the technical work wouldn’t have mattered. [/quote]

This sums it up .. if you physically dont have the size and more importantly athletic ability the technical players can never catch up. I hate the my sons small but technically better BS. The best are athletes first with acquired technical skills.[/quote]

I’m not pp.  My kid was one of the best athletes prior to growth spurt and early puberty of others in the age group.  In males, there is a huge difference in a 13/14-year old fully through puberty and growth spurt and a kid that still looks 9 at 13/14.

So yes he was very technical and athletic but dwarfed by giants...just like his older HS brother could crush him in sports and races.  Once he made the physical transformation through puberty/growth spurt —he was again one of the best athletes on the field again.  The playing field levels.

Does that make sense?  We are a family of college and a few pro athletes (on mom
And dad’s side) so genetics was never an issue.[/quote]

Yes.  This.

Pps are poo-pooing the small thing.  But it’s equivalent to matching a 16-year old against an 11-year old in some cases of kids born the same year.  There can be that big a discrepancy.  Testosterone levels build mass and speed.

A kid that is genetically a gifted athlete like scenario above but a late grower/late puberty can be a beast down the road.

We don’t care about these kids though because most stop playing before 16/17/18.  In other countries, that’s when they just are really beginning.

My son went through a phase when he was just starting his major growth spurt where he looked slower and he had a lot of injuries—after being a top player until dwarfed (he’s a late bday).  2 years later he was a foot taller and easily one of the fastest kids on the field.  He’s taller now than many of the players that dwarfed him U13-U15.  His ball skill way higher now.

This is documented in the history of many top players—like Paul Schoales (at one time called an angry dwarf), Gareth Bale, Griezmann who was overlooked by everyone.

Nobody is disputing that there needs to be underlying genetic potential, btw.[/quote]

There's research that speaks to this phenomenon. It's the "relative age effect." Analyses of boys' elite youth soccer teams have found that the birthdates of teams members are skewed, not evenly distributed throughout the year. Some studies have found that almost 3 times as many boys will have birthdates in the first quarter of the year of eligibility than in the 4th quarter. (That is, if the boys eligible for the team have birth dates between Jan 1, 2003 and Dec 31, 2003, 3 times as many boys on the team will have birth dates in January, February, or March than in October, November, or December.)

Why does this matter? In each age cohort, some less mature boys who might have developed into great players are weeded out.[/quote]

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