Anonymous wrote:Birth month counts for a LOT.

Birth month and athletic success have been studied extensively and it has been shown that the older the player in the pool, the more successful he is. Small differences at first are magnified later, as more attention is given to the best early players.

So your child might end up being the exception, but know that the data is stacked against her.

As in Malcolm Gladwell wrote a pop statistics book about it?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At that age, a child should not BE one position.

I started telling my kid - you're doing good but for you - the next level is x.

For ex.
Like one year, he was a great foot skill and speed, but his positioning was all over the place. Some days great, some days just awful. I was like this year - I want to see you learn positioning - and then we were specific - you need to be within this place of the ball and within the team.

Or another year - we said - on your on days you are fantastic, on your off days you are horrible. the coach doesn't know to depend on you to win the game or just do nothing. this is the year of consistency. We want every game to be at least within your 75% best.

believe it or not, this has totally worked. So I would take this info and give it to him and give him a few months to work on it.

It's sad the coach couldn't relay that information to him---especially positioning!!

You might want to rethink where you are.

At U9/U10? Nah. Not many coaches will do much with positioning beyond "create space." That's the USSF curriculum.

At 9/10 they have no idea what 'create space' means--unless a coach tells them. This is why some clubs still have bunch ball going on or players from their own team tackling them. Yes--very specific tactical information can be detrimental ---but knowing where to move and get open and not dragging defenders over to your teammate with the ball is definitely 'positioning lite' that should be communicated.

Anonymous wrote:My child is 10 and playing U11 in a CCL club. She/he is one of the fall birthdays and has made the transition well. The majority of the team is year older in school and 6-12 months older by age.
My child has excellent ball skills and is a "smart" player. Passes are well placed in anticipation of where the next player will be. However, my child isn't a fast kid and it's becoming increasingly apparent
as the speed of the game has increased between u9 and u11. Basically all the great kids are now running at top speed the entire game. My kid (who plays defense) tackles well and puts down these
beautiful passes (the crowd of parents often says, "wow, amazing pass!") but this kid doesn't charge the ball aggressively. It's becoming apparent in recent games that he/she needs to step up the speed in which he/she attacks the ball and then passes on the ball.
However, this is a kid who is more slow and deliberate in everything in life. It's just who he/she is. I haven't said anything and I'm not sure I can about needing to step it up in soccer. Or can I? The coach seems to like him/her very much but I hear him/her calling out
in the game, "XX, run faster!, faster!".
My child loves, loves soccer and I want him/her to have the option to keep playing if he/she so desires. Has anyone had a similar kid and/or do you have any thoughts?

Is your child's gender uncertain or something? What's with the mixed pronouns?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At that age, a child should not BE one position.

I started telling my kid - you're doing good but for you - the next level is x.

For ex.
Like one year, he was a great foot skill and speed, but his positioning was all over the place. Some days great, some days just awful. I was like this year - I want to see you learn positioning - and then we were specific - you need to be within this place of the ball and within the team.

Or another year - we said - on your on days you are fantastic, on your off days you are horrible. the coach doesn't know to depend on you to win the game or just do nothing. this is the year of consistency. We want every game to be at least within your 75% best.

believe it or not, this has totally worked. So I would take this info and give it to him and give him a few months to work on it.

It's sad the coach couldn't relay that information to him---especially positioning!!

You might want to rethink where you are.

At U9/U10? Nah. Not many coaches will do much with positioning beyond "create space." That's the USSF curriculum.

Reading this thread with interest because my 14 year old basketball player is one of the less aggressive players on his teams, or used to be. It's not like he's always the most aggressive kid now, but he's gotten much better in the past two years or so. He's inconsistent, but the floor of his play is much better than his average games used to be, and the ceiling is really pretty good.

I disagree with the posters who say temperament is what it is. I think some kids have a frame of reference that makes them think "I'm doing OK. If I were a different kid (had a different temperament) I'd be better, but this is OK." If they really confront the fact that they are in fact playing lazily (i.e. it's not OK), then they can change pretty dramatically. We've seen this with DS twice. Once after he had just started playing for a better travel team, I watched him jog his way through a practice and scrimmage, not looking to score or to defend, just going with the flow. After the scrimmage, we had a talk and he said "sometimes I'm tired and I just feel like doing my job." I asked him what that meant, and he said he felt his job was passing to open players, guarding his man and not making turnovers. I told him pretty forcefully that if he wanted to do travel, he needed to see his job as scoring and stopping the other team from scoring. I am not proud of that conversation because I felt like a crazy sports dad, but he really took it to heart. Before that, he had never even scored with that team in a scrimmage (despite having good skills), after that day he made sure he never failed to score in practice. Eventually he started to score in games, and to get steals and block shots.

Now he's playing at a higher level, and recently, we've had a similar conversation as he's realized that his new coaches have higher expectations of him than he feels like he's delivering. This time it was all him --- he said after a recent practice that he realized he tends to make excuses for lazy play ("I didn't score today, but I score more than other freshmen", "I'm one of the youngest kids here", "I have played two games already today, I can take it easy") and that he was going to stop doing that. Now he actually says "no excuses" over and over to himself before games or practices, and it seems to be working --- his aggressiveness is way up and he can contribute even when his jump shot is not falling.

I don't know if a 10 year old is old enough to work this out, but as she gets older she may work it out on her own or you can help her (hopefully in a better way than I did). Maybe a conversation with her about what she expects / wants to get out of soccer makes sense, but as a parent it's hard to let the kid drive that kind of conversation. And parents can do a lot of harm with stuff like this.

At the end of the day, if the coach is happy, that's probably your best guide. If it's still an issue closer to high school, then you can talk to her.

Anonymous wrote:At that age, a child should not BE one position.

I started telling my kid - you're doing good but for you - the next level is x.

For ex.
Like one year, he was a great foot skill and speed, but his positioning was all over the place. Some days great, some days just awful. I was like this year - I want to see you learn positioning - and then we were specific - you need to be within this place of the ball and within the team.

Or another year - we said - on your on days you are fantastic, on your off days you are horrible. the coach doesn't know to depend on you to win the game or just do nothing. this is the year of consistency. We want every game to be at least within your 75% best.

believe it or not, this has totally worked. So I would take this info and give it to him and give him a few months to work on it.

It's sad the coach couldn't relay that information to him---especially positioning!!

You might want to rethink where you are.

At that age, a child should not BE one position.

I started telling my kid - you're doing good but for you - the next level is x.

For ex.
Like one year, he was a great foot skill and speed, but his positioning was all over the place. Some days great, some days just awful. I was like this year - I want to see you learn positioning - and then we were specific - you need to be within this place of the ball and within the team.

Or another year - we said - on your on days you are fantastic, on your off days you are horrible. the coach doesn't know to depend on you to win the game or just do nothing. this is the year of consistency. We want every game to be at least within your 75% best.

believe it or not, this has totally worked. So I would take this info and give it to him and give him a few months to work on it.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter was a "smart" and skilled player - but not at all naturally "aggressive" in terms of her soccer playing, and she was actually a relatively fast runner, but she was not one of those kids darting all around the field. She ended up not making her varsity high school soccer team b/c the coach thought she had a lack of hustle (even tho she had much better skills than many). She ended up running X-country instead, which suits her well.
If the issue is running, there are some coaches who can work on things like gait and movement.
If it's a temperament/aggression thing, you can start (esp if you are the mom) with going out & doing some work outs that model "aggressiveness" in sports being ok... (like yelling as loud as you can, saying 'kick the ball as hard as you can', etc)... but sometimes temperament is what it is.

Just to note, also try not to make your daughter self conscious about it -- try doing the going out to play fun.

My daughter was a "smart" and skilled player - but not at all naturally "aggressive" in terms of her soccer playing, and she was actually a relatively fast runner, but she was not one of those kids darting all around the field. She ended up not making her varsity high school soccer team b/c the coach thought she had a lack of hustle (even tho she had much better skills than many). She ended up running X-country instead, which suits her well.
If the issue is running, there are some coaches who can work on things like gait and movement.
If it's a temperament/aggression thing, you can start (esp if you are the mom) with going out & doing some work outs that model "aggressiveness" in sports being ok... (like yelling as loud as you can, saying 'kick the ball as hard as you can', etc)... but sometimes temperament is what it is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is also an October birthday kid playing with mostly kids who are older than she is and have had two more rec soccer seasons than she has. So sometimes there are gaps between where she is and where many of her teammates and opponents are.

She has hustle in one sense- she's aggressive and scrappy and loves being in the center of the action. But we noticed recently that she runs on her heels vs. her toes, and that slows her down. So we're starting to work with her on her biomechanics to try to speed her up a bit.

It's been interesting watching the kids as they progress in travel soccer this year. Some of them have speed and excellent ball skills, but they are very polite and kind of stay out of the fray. Others are scrappier. And some start out polite and then gain more confidence and start playing more assertively.

If it's an actual speed/conditioning thing, you can work on that outside of soccer. Get your child running 5K's with you, or running on the track. But if it's a matter of assertive play, that may not be teachable.

how old is your daughter?

Who cares ? He/she has derailed the good soccer talk that was happening. No--9-year olds don't need to be running track races.

Can your daughter use both left and right foot effectively? Have her dribble, juggle, pass and shoot with BOTH feet as early as possible. Can she properly receive a ball? How is her first touch? Does she know how to properly shield the ball? Is she shooting with the proper part of her foot? Can she take a ball out of the air? If your club isn't focusing on these basic soccer skills in the early years. Leave now.

Most importantly, all conditioning in the early years should be done with a ball at the feet.

Go back and page or two and read the advice there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus Christ, reading a lot of these comments how is American soccer so shitty?

yep all they care about is speed and height.

It's not that simple.

Messi without athleticism, aggression and a work ethic is ... Freddy Adu.

Anonymous wrote:My daughter is also an October birthday kid playing with mostly kids who are older than she is and have had two more rec soccer seasons than she has. So sometimes there are gaps between where she is and where many of her teammates and opponents are.

She has hustle in one sense- she's aggressive and scrappy and loves being in the center of the action. But we noticed recently that she runs on her heels vs. her toes, and that slows her down. So we're starting to work with her on her biomechanics to try to speed her up a bit.

It's been interesting watching the kids as they progress in travel soccer this year. Some of them have speed and excellent ball skills, but they are very polite and kind of stay out of the fray. Others are scrappier. And some start out polite and then gain more confidence and start playing more assertively.

If it's an actual speed/conditioning thing, you can work on that outside of soccer. Get your child running 5K's with you, or running on the track. But if it's a matter of assertive play, that may not be teachable.

how old is your daughter?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus Christ, reading a lot of these comments how is American soccer so shitty?

yep all they care about is speed and height.

Wow, how 20 years ago.

Look at the National team today...plenty of smaller, skilled players. A handful of smart, players that aren't the best athletically.
We are so beyond that stupid stereotype.

Sorry but you are wrong, the stereotype is not gone and exactly the point we are making. Although the NT has evolved, it hasn't at the youth level. You consistently hear parents here and on the sidelines referring to a kids size, speed, strength instead of technique or tactical development. Unfortunately some of the big clubs have not evolved either since many focus on results first to make it seem like the "Elite" place to be.

Say what you want, but speed matters. Not as much as it matters in other, faster sports, but it does matter.

No one is saying it doesn't but it shouldn't be the primary focus.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Jesus Christ, reading a lot of these comments how is American soccer so shitty?

yep all they care about is speed and height.

Wow, how 20 years ago.

Look at the National team today...plenty of smaller, skilled players. A handful of smart, players that aren't the best athletically.
We are so beyond that stupid stereotype.

Sorry but you are wrong, the stereotype is not gone and exactly the point we are making. Although the NT has evolved, it hasn't at the youth level. You consistently hear parents here and on the sidelines referring to a kids size, speed, strength instead of technique or tactical development. Unfortunately some of the big clubs have not evolved either since many focus on results first to make it seem like the "Elite" place to be.

Say what you want, but speed matters. Not as much as it matters in other, faster sports, but it does matter.