r/youthsoccer

My son just joined a new team, he had to do a trial before he joined. It’s an academy club in Scotland, although doesn’t get to serious until around 9. My son was the best in our local team, we’ve always got compliments about how well his first touch, passing, shooting and mostly his close ball control is. He’s always struggled with running, moving with the ball great as in the ball sticks to his feet. He actually went to a new group training thing last week and started in the lower group ( which is normal for a newcomer ) the coach approached me within 10-15 minutes and said I’m going to move him he’s 1 level ( top group ) his dribbling is so neat and tidy I love him. So he was moved then seemed to shy off he got nervous. The top level coach explained we see it a lot give it a few weeks. However in his new team ( actual team ) we were told after the two week trial my sons technical ability is actually better than the top group however he’s abit on the slower side and they’d be worried he can’t keep up. It also seems in even academy’s the coaches sons will always be top group ( a reoccurring problem we’ve discovered in a few teams now but a rant for another time ). We were told he’d be put in the second group and sometimes third but only third to dominate. I’ll prob get hate for this but I’m just a dad trying to work out what’s best for my son. It’s frustrating seeing him playing with kids who do not know even the basics yet. Even the top team when I see them in training my son is what the coaches said technically way above them. So why not let him train with them? My son is getting better at running as it all seems to stem from running mechanics not actual speed as when told to race a friend he’s not slow, speeds just not his game in football.

I recently joined my school's team, I'm 13 and I need cleats and shin guards/pads. I don't have anyone around me who plays, so I came here wanting to get some help! Thank you!

We are coaching a 7-9 year old ymca soccer league. The league plays 8 on each team with a minimum of 6 players. We were given 8 players on the roster and one player never showed up. We have a consistent 7 players who show up and play hard. We have requested more players and the athletic director was of no help. There are teams in the league with 13 and 12 players.

Our last game was in 90 degree, no wind, no shade and one of our hardest working players was having a hard time breathing and was too hot by the end of the 3rd period.

The athletic director was there and our assistant coach complained to him. The director left before the end of the game. Suddenly we have multiple complaints about our assistant coach according to the director.

That's the background. The question: What are strategies that we can use to give the kids breaks and keep them safe? We had been rotating kids playing offensive to defense to allow them to rest a little. I want to play only 6 kids to allow someone to sit on the sideline, but think that we will get another mark against us with the director looking for things. Any suggestions?

Scrolled about 6 months back in this subreddit, and identified 5-6 big problems people have with the system: birth year debate, cost of club soccer, burnout/dropout rates, college recruiting confusion, ECNL vs. MLS NEXT vs. NPL, playing time/coaching decisions.

What do you think is number one? Let's talk

My son is U10 in an academy and was a great striker last year, 40+ goals in 31 matches. The team performed great with him at ST, had an 18 game unbeaten streak, multiple tournament wins and was ranked top 50 in the state. He works hard, never missed a practice, literally first one to practice everytime and stays late.

This season, he was moved to CAM against his wishes. Now I can sort of see why the move to CAM as my son can make good passes, but at heart he always wants to be a ST. Still, he never complained to his coach and continues to play well.

My problem is that the new striker is objectively not good at soccer right now. He has never created/finished a single opportunity in the 40+ games I have seen him play, he cannot press/defend (goalies/backs literally toy with him), he regularly misses practice, he is one of the slowest kids on the team and has improved minimally over the past year. Yet the coach has decided to play him exclusively at ST, give him major minutes and now we have lost more games the past month than all of last year.

I am utterly confused to why this kid is at striker. There were no changes to our roster. I would not have a problem with any other kid on our team at striker (as they at least have some offensive skills). At CAM this year, my son has created SO MANY OPPORTUNITIES for this new striker (at least a dozen), but again this kid just does not have the skills to finish anything. I thought maybe I was the only one but other parents and other kids on the team have the same feeling as well. It kills my son that he lost his desired spot to someone so undeserving.

Is the coach just trying to hide our weakest player up front? Is it favoritism? I know development is paramount and winning isn't the main objective for the big picture, but I feel like I'm missing the key reason for this change.

Anyone here from the DMV area and have experience with SAC and/or Bethesda Soccer Club? Particularly at the U8 - U12 levels?

Considering both clubs for my kid next fall and just wanted to get some insight on the coaching styles and environment. THANKS!

Hello, my kid is on a free trial of the TAKA app used by MLS Next, but I am just not sure what the utility of the APP is. I do like the notion that it records and cuts highlights for you, but so does VEO. The Asst Coach feature seems cool, but is it used for QOP or something? How does this help a player and what should they be using it for? Any comments or or ideas would be welcomed.

Just curious people’s thoughts on personal trainers at the u11 age? My son has an evaluation with me tomorrow night. He currently spends 2-3 hours practicing outside everyday. Even practices outside after a team practice. He’s just getting frustrated with certain technical aspects he wants to improve on. I am doing my best to help, however I never played and I’m still learning things myself and I am trying my best to be patient but his frustration is causing my patience to run thin.

Most of my sons team is heading up to 11 v 11 because they are older. My son is staying at his grade level 9 v 9 even though he had the opportunity to move up. Just feel one more year at 9 v 9 is a better fit. Anyone else feel weird this spring season?

So my son's club can technically be called an academy because they have a USL2 senior team (don't get me started on what a waste of infrastructure this glorified college summer league is). Now this USL2 is COMPLETELY separate from the "academy". I mean outside of the constant messages they send out over the summer for us to come out and support, there is no other connection between the "senior team" and the "academy."

The point of this is, I got curious and looked at their rosters over the last 5 years: there's not a single player from the club that has actually played for this team. Would it be fair to judge their ability to develop based off of that fact alone? After all, if this is truly supposed to be their "senior team", then shouldn't there be players coming up through the club on the team? Not to mention, it's USL2, not the Premier League or MLS.

Maybe someone else at a club has a better understanding of how these type of "academies" work.

Context: This is not the US. My 7 year old (turning 8 this year) is on a U9 team. He got picked up by the coach from a low-cost city-sponsored program 2 years ago, who said he was a good player and had great potential, and has been playing with the coach since.

Everything has been fine up until now. Last year, the coach even called him up to support the U9 team if they didn't have enough players for a game. He's a strong player, and although he's smaller physically, he's fast and not scared of playing against bigger players.

Current Situation: This year, the coach organized a local tournament and created 2 U9 teams. They play 9 v 9 - but there are only 9 kids on each team's roster, just barely enough to play. He filled one of the other U9 teams (kids turned/turning 9 this year) with strong U7 players.

My kid is on the other team (all kids turned/turning 8 this year), and they haven't always had enough players. The coach puts in anyone he can find, even younger U7 players that don't have much game experience, and it's a disaster. My kid is frustrated because he knows he can play, but there aren't many good players because they're divided between the 2 teams. They lost their last game pretty badly, and my kid was pretty upset because he felt like they never had a chance, given the poor coaching and teammates that keep changing.

I called out the coach and talked to him about why he made 2 U9 teams if he really only had enough players for 1. He wasn't very receptive and said that my kid and his team had to learn to lose and that they weren't always going to win. I pointed out that we had lost plenty of games in the past, but didn't complain because obviously losing is part of the process, but this time felt different because there was a lack of organization and support for the kids.

Seems like it's just a money grab, since there's a tournament fee. If he really wanted to support the kids, he'd have 1 team with like 12 kids so they have a few subs and it's a consistent group.

Question If this is the way it's going to be, I'd rather my kid just enjoy playing with the city-sponsored program and not bother with this supposedly more competitive team. If my kid were to get any opportunities where we live, he'd be scouted by playing for the more competitive team. But, I feel like the coach isn't making decisions to support the kids. I guess we could also find another club. Any advice?

A local team decided to move all of their keepers to the ECNL rl team as not place any of them on ECNL. There were four keepers in this U14 level. In this club, the RL team is actually pretty far down in rankings.

Multiple new keepers showed up to tryouts - none were selected for RL or NL. Some of them are extremely good keepers.

3 out of the 4 keepers quit. Two quit soccer completely. This left one keeper for two teams. They refused to place him on ECNL and instead made him do both saying he had not earned it so then he also quit.

Question: why would a director of coaching do this?

Changing clubs. U12 next season. Above average skill level. Not ECNL, MLS Next level. I'm mostly concerned about quality of coaching. How do I figure out which are the best coaches? I don't want to go by wins and losses. Any cheap and dirty way of figuring this out? I'm not too plugged into the community so word of mouth is not going far.

For coaches out there, what’s your opinion of your club’s board? And do you even have think about them at all? Also, for the coach administrators/leaders, how is your relationship with the board? Do they rubber stamp everything you suggest or have feelings and attempt to provide guidance and guardrails for the club (for better or worse)? I’m sure some boards suck, I’m sure some boards are good; just interested in other perspectives and experiences in that environment.

I’ll try to keep this long story short. My daughters (U11) club made a poor choice of having 4 teams at her age (one team was a combined U12 and U11) and as a result 3 of the teams were barely able to field a roster for game and had to constantly share players. All 4 teams struggled severely in their seasons. The coaches were newer and seemed to be put into a bad position by the club, leaving a lot of frustrated families. All in all, not a good year. My daughter still says she loves soccer and wants to play despite this. She’s been team one for a couple of years now and we do a lot of stuff outside of practice too (camps, shooting, etc).

So now the issue. Next year at U12 will be her last year before GA. This club is the only one in town that offers GA or ECNL. Like all clubs, our age group is shifting to school year, which will shake some things up for my daughter’s team. We’re going to have a new coach who is newer to the program, but seems to have developed some pretty good teams. This change was exciting to me. However, after having a brief conversation with him, I’m left wondering if there is just more club related BS to look forward to.

Tryouts are in a couple of weeks. As luck would have it, so is my daughter’s big 5th grade science field trip where they get to camp for two nights. She’s been looking forward to this for years so she’s definitely going. Fortunately, she will be able to make the second night of tryouts. I tracked down who the new coach would be so I could give him a heads up. He was nice enough to come to one of our team’s practices so he could meet the girls who would be trying out next year. I took the opportunity to speak with him and this is where things got strange.

The entire time he only talked about his team 2 and how they are treated equally. It felt like he was trying to sell the idea to me, even though he’s never seen my daughter play and tryouts have yet to happen. He also, perhaps inadvertently, mentioned his U12 team 1 roster was built out already. When I asked him to clarify he corrected and said that the girls who currently play for him and will be forced down to their age are guaranteed spots on team 1. The combined U12 and U11 team will also have many girls “playing down”. My theory is that these families have been appeased by being guaranteed team 1 spots ahead of tryouts, but that’s only a theory. My worry is that my daughter has already been determined to be on team 2 because she’s missing a tryout. It wouldn’t change our plans if that were the case though.

Sorry for the essay, but I’m curious if anyone has seen or heard anything about how players who are “playing down” next year are being handled or if this is as crazy as it sounds. If my suspicions are correct, then why have tryouts?

My 11 yo kid is pretty good, and has lots of potential. ​

However he is not coachable. He gets feedback from coaches and gets defensive. He won't listen when I tell him he needs to hustle more in games. I show him game footage where he is walking. The coach is yelling about kids walking, he thinks it is about someone else. He doesnt change. I explain to him that coaches are vested in making him better and that his coaches are right. He misses a goal, he throws his arms up in the air. Loses a game? They were cherry picking. Etc etc etc. ​

Its like he has a chip on his shoulder. He is good but he doesn't work hard enough to have that chip.

I would prefer if his coaches would bench him if he acts this way, but there arent enough kids to do so.

​it's embarrassing. How do I get through to him? He says he loves to play and genuinely seems to love it. The only thing I can think of is to make him leave practice if he acts that way. ​

Help.

Hi, my friend and I are both U15 and looking to join a summer soccer league in Philadelphia. Our budget is under $100 each, so we’re hoping to find something affordable but still competitive. If anyone knows of any good leagues or opportunities, please let us know, it would be great!

I coach a MS team. We were supposed to have two more games, then finish the season off with a parents vs kids scrimmage for our last practice.

Our last two games have been cancelled. Would you still hold practices even though you don't have any more games for the season? It's very tempting to cancel the rest of the practices except the scrimmage.