Reply to Most of you have no idea the REAL goal of travel soccer

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There is no denying youth sports are a big $ business relying on the egos of parents or the poor souls that go into it not knowing the particular sport.  In the US soccer wins make $ for youth Clubs.  Parents only want wins starting at the youngest ages.  They want the pride of saying their kid is on the elitist little kicker team.  So, of course, every traditional travel soccer Club (barring a very few) only focus on the perceived best/actively recruit (because in the younger years, and European scouts say this, there is no clear tangible way to determine which players ultimately succeed (barring of course the Messi/Pele/Ronaldos of the World) .  It is not a development mindset in this Country.  Parents aren't willing to understand how soccer development works and the Clubs capitalize on that. Go to any DA tryout in the area and see how they sort kids to fields based on wherever the kid is coming from prior.  If you come from a less perceived team in a 'good' Club or from a lesser perceived Club, you are on the field and pre-sorted and ultimately that field is not looked at.  Further, watch the Kindergarten style soccer being played and watch the kids that have soccer IQ.  Smart players are making movement to get open and never get a touch, or they pass the ball and never get it back. So, obviously they aren't noticed.

There is also no concept of doing this for pure joy once a kid hits 8 or 9 years old.  The push is on.  Parents think they are falling behind so force their kids into the rat race, sign up for this and that and more.  I think we have made every level pay-to-play so what is left in Rec are kids that don't really want to be there signed up by parents that want them off the Xbox.  Once a kid is a certain age, it is near impossible to play Rec if they are an experienced player and much more likely to get injured playing with kids that don't know how to tackle or control their bodies.  So, if a kid loves soccer and even if they have no desire to go chasing the mythical soccer scholarship or National team berth, the parents have to pay to get them to play with players that at least know the sport and to get adequate competition for fun.  The ratio of travel Clubs to Rec Clubs (very few #s of travel Clubs with a huge # of Rec players) used to be the opposite and this is not because more kids are truly talented.  It is because people found they could make money off of it.  Now nobody is left in Rec.  Our Club had to relax Rec rules and let a certain number of travel players play or they wouldn't have been able to field teams.

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*came out wrong, meant to say the ratio tipped in the other direction because of $ flow---huge # of travel vs tiny # of rec teams.[/quote]

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