Now that high school soccer season is slowly coming to a close and kids are drifting back to their club teams, how bad is the damage? Seems pretty hair raising to see the decline in skills, the change in play, listen to the kids complain, “That’s what my high school coach told me to do!”
Defenders banging the ball down the field instead of finding someone’s feet: “My school coaches yelled Away Away every time I tried to pass out from the back."
One touch, quick passing game gone.
"My coach told me my passes aren’t “long enough.”
Kids ignoring the other side of the field.
"We weren’t allowed to switch fields, Coach said, it's too risky."
First touch gone in your kid and her teammates.
" The only drills we did all fall were shooting and keep away."
Not just that they spent the fall with coaches playing a brutally direct, over the top kick . Some HS coaches apparently are outright anti-club. “Kick that ball down the field, you’re not playing for your club.” Or my favorite: “The aim here isn’t to play pretty soccer, to say to mom and dad, look at how you’re getting your money’s worth for your $4000. This is high school. The aim is to win.”
My own youngest, while she looked forward to the social aspect of HS soccer, is disillusioned after a fall of watching coaches yell even at upper class players who play for some of the state’s best club teams for doing things that she knows she would do too. Doesn’t relish three more years of “schizophrenic soccer,” having to forget most of what she’s learned or get yelled at for it.
Seems especially a problem for girls. From what i’ve seen of boys HS, it’s marginally better, actually play some soccer. But it’s irrelevant. On the boys side if you have any ambitions at all there are the MLS academies and the independent ones that play against them, which is where you need to be.
With the folding of the US soccer academy program, however, girls who don’t want to be subjected to HS have fewer options. Some academy fall play, but not enough. ECNL’s approach, meanwhile, makes me feel bad for quality kids from small school districts or places where the HS coach is not very good (is that redundant?). Those kids basically condemned to no meaningful soccer in the fall throughout HS.
Or are there other options, short of finding some expensive private high school where they play good soccer?
Defenders banging the ball down the field instead of finding someone’s feet: “My school coaches yelled Away Away every time I tried to pass out from the back."
One touch, quick passing game gone.
"My coach told me my passes aren’t “long enough.”
Kids ignoring the other side of the field.
"We weren’t allowed to switch fields, Coach said, it's too risky."
First touch gone in your kid and her teammates.
" The only drills we did all fall were shooting and keep away."
Not just that they spent the fall with coaches playing a brutally direct, over the top kick . Some HS coaches apparently are outright anti-club. “Kick that ball down the field, you’re not playing for your club.” Or my favorite: “The aim here isn’t to play pretty soccer, to say to mom and dad, look at how you’re getting your money’s worth for your $4000. This is high school. The aim is to win.”
My own youngest, while she looked forward to the social aspect of HS soccer, is disillusioned after a fall of watching coaches yell even at upper class players who play for some of the state’s best club teams for doing things that she knows she would do too. Doesn’t relish three more years of “schizophrenic soccer,” having to forget most of what she’s learned or get yelled at for it.
Seems especially a problem for girls. From what i’ve seen of boys HS, it’s marginally better, actually play some soccer. But it’s irrelevant. On the boys side if you have any ambitions at all there are the MLS academies and the independent ones that play against them, which is where you need to be.
With the folding of the US soccer academy program, however, girls who don’t want to be subjected to HS have fewer options. Some academy fall play, but not enough. ECNL’s approach, meanwhile, makes me feel bad for quality kids from small school districts or places where the HS coach is not very good (is that redundant?). Those kids basically condemned to no meaningful soccer in the fall throughout HS.
Or are there other options, short of finding some expensive private high school where they play good soccer?
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