Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. At the top levels of travel soccer, the parents, er, I mean, kids are obsessed with getting to commit to a college and thus justify the money otherwise wasted. There is no sense of team - the players are in it for themselves only. The clubs know this and cater to it, and most are focused on trumpeting all their college commitments (even D3 commits are celebrated). No one involved in travel soccer cares at all about a “team.” It’s a foreign concept. Parents move their kids like cattle between clubs.

Then why leagues like ECNL/GA exist at all. The argument of not everyone’s college material contradicts the ECNL mission. Soccer is a team sport not an individual sport that’s what many people tend to ignore cause they only care for their own benefit. For example a club need to select more than 11 players in order to exist/subsist/compete. However the same club tells the 12-18 player that they are average and they are not college material.

Anonymous wrote:No. At the top levels of travel soccer, the parents, er, I mean, kids are obsessed with getting to commit to a college and thus justify the money otherwise wasted. There is no sense of team - the players are in it for themselves only. The clubs know this and cater to it, and most are focused on trumpeting all their college commitments (even D3 commits are celebrated). No one involved in travel soccer cares at all about a “team.” It’s a foreign concept. Parents move their kids like cattle between clubs.

Anonymous wrote:No. At the top levels of travel soccer, the parents, er, I mean, kids are obsessed with getting to commit to a college and thus justify the money otherwise wasted. There is no sense of team - the players are in it for themselves only. The clubs know this and cater to it, and most are focused on trumpeting all their college commitments (even D3 commits are celebrated). No one involved in travel soccer cares at all about a “team.” It’s a foreign concept. Parents move their kids like cattle between clubs.

Anonymous wrote:Spoiler alert: all of the kids pertinent to this discussion are not going to be professional soccer players. The leap to compare teamwork emphasis at a local club soccer team with professional academies around the globe shows the level of delusion at work on this forum.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. At the top levels of travel soccer, the parents, er, I mean, kids are obsessed with getting to commit to a college and thus justify the money otherwise wasted. There is no sense of team - the players are in it for themselves only. The clubs know this and cater to it, and most are focused on trumpeting all their college commitments (even D3 commits are celebrated). No one involved in travel soccer cares at all about a “team.” It’s a foreign concept. Parents move their kids like cattle between clubs.

Most of the world also doesn’t care about team at the highest levels. The goal is to develop a few select players.

Anonymous wrote:No. At the top levels of travel soccer, the parents, er, I mean, kids are obsessed with getting to commit to a college and thus justify the money otherwise wasted. There is no sense of team - the players are in it for themselves only. The clubs know this and cater to it, and most are focused on trumpeting all their college commitments (even D3 commits are celebrated). No one involved in travel soccer cares at all about a “team.” It’s a foreign concept. Parents move their kids like cattle between clubs.

Anonymous wrote:I understand OPs question exactly. Take a team with a large, dominant central player… that player can 1v1 up the field but loses the ball more often than not. They might score majority of goals but it’s because their shoot rate is high, because they never pass. Team would do better if they passed. But that player never comes out because… hey, they score the most! And are big and aggressive! Every team DC has been on, now U15, has had a player like that. And not a single coach has been willing to say, you will sit on the bench until you learn that you have teammates. No question it hinders the team as a whole.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem with teams that pass is that college plays infinite subs.

A possession style offense requires a limited number of subs. What happens is it takes less effort to pass between players than it does to chase the ball around. Once the team that's chasing the ball is tired the possession team switches to direct and scores at will.

Since college allows infinite subs it doesn't make sense to play a possession style offense because the defense will never get tired. Also the defensive coach will sub constantly to control the tempo of the game which also negates possession style play.

What ends up happening is college only cares about big fast aggressive direct to goal type of players.

Youth clubs know that possession will win when the rules favor it in leagues like MLS ECNL and GA. However they also know that colleges don't care about possession because of infinite subs.

Do youth clubs want to win games or place players into colleges?

The bolded above is 100% false.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not sure how you measure value, but in my son's MLS Next Team the players who get the most playing time are the goalie, the two CBs, and the CDM. The CBs and CDM almost never score goals, but the coach and the team realize that their role is fundamental to our team's success.

No disrespect but I don't know how well you know soccer. It isn't about realizing those kids are fundamental to success, those positions usually run the least (and presumably don't get tired) so they don't get subbed. This is generally true in the pro game also. I don't want to say what positions are fundamental to success, everyone has an opinion.

False. Goalie and CBs are and CMs are a core of the team regardless how the games go and generally don’t get subbed even if the team is under pressure the whole time.

Modern days these positions are also integral part of attack.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not sure how you measure value, but in my son's MLS Next Team the players who get the most playing time are the goalie, the two CBs, and the CDM. The CBs and CDM almost never score goals, but the coach and the team realize that their role is fundamental to our team's success.

No disrespect but I don't know how well you know soccer. It isn't about realizing those kids are fundamental to success, those positions usually run the least (and presumably don't get tired) so they don't get subbed. This is generally true in the pro game also. I don't want to say what positions are fundamental to success, everyone has an opinion.

What about a CM in 9v9? That's where my DC normally plays and they seem to run a lot... never get subbed out. There are two of them and the other one gets subbed.