Happy with Eastside FC , current coach not coaching

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My 09 child is coached by someone who seems to be retired on the job. I like the club, however the coach, who is one of the oldest there, appears to be retired on the job. Practice often entails 1 simple drill, and then asking another team or age group to scrimmage with little input. It appears that other teams have began to decline to scrimmage with this coach. Other 09 teams both higher and lower level are learning what would be advanced skills in comparison.

The coach probably was great in his first 40 years of coaching, however he shows little effort or passion for teaching kids now.

I don't think writing the club is a good idea because I fear the possibility of retaliation or my child being held back from advancing.

The season just began and my hope is this coach won't be coaching the same group next year and someone better will be in his place. Besides the fact that parents are paying thousands of dollars per year, I am concerned that my child will be left behind skill wise compared to others the same age.

How many seasons would you endure a coach who isn't coaching?

Any thoughts or input is greatly appreciated.

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If your kid is not developing you have a couple of choices ..Coerver , ..go to a new club do not sit there and hope that he will get better development is important most of all he/ she should be able to play multiple positions if development is correct

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Lol I am surprised it took this long for someone in the forum to post something negative about Eastside. Eastside has it's good points and it's bad points like every other club. There are a couple of coaches there that are really really good. Like maybe 3 at most. (If you are an EFC coach reading this you are probably not one of them).The rest are old school Chance Fry kick and run direct athletic biggest kid wins soccer practitioners. The soccer is honestly some of the worst most ancient kick and win 50/50 ball soccer you will experience across both genders and all age groups. Most of the Eastside parents have no idea what good soccer is, they only see winning and strength as important. This is evident from weekend games when they all cheer when kids get a break away at midfield. It's a weird terrible soccer bubble because athleticism can consistently put you as a 3rd place team across the age groups at premier soccer. The good points to EFC are typically the coaches are nice on the surface to your kid. Not alot of coach yellers and the club is also organized well. Your kid will definitely be benched though if you don't get in line with the direct physical style of play. My advice to you is to sign up for any training you can get that involves lots of touches. Also try to get games from indoor, Futsal, guest play, etc. De-emphasize EFC to your kid as a great place to play by allowing them to play in more technical places and experience how bad the soccer and coaching is at EFC. Then next year run for the hills to any other club. At 09 your kid will languish at EFC and you won't even realize it because you feel trapped in the yearly soccer system. If you don't believe me then just go watch any EFC team play on the weekend and you will see how unskilled it is. Or just go to Preston on a weeknight and look across the fields. All of the training groups are doing crossing drills, big boots during what should be possession games, cone passing drills, lots of standing around being coached at instead of touching the ball, no focus at all on any individual tech skills, etc....

And do not ever, I mean ever, I will say it again ever, email or talk to the club or coaches about your kid, playing time, etc. You will immediately be placed in a crazy parent camp no matter how justified you are.

[Unregistered]

My 09 child is coached by someone who seems to be retired on the job. I like the club, however the coach, who is one of the oldest there, appears to be retired on the job. Practice often entails 1 simple drill, and then asking another team or age group to scrimmage with little input. It appears that other teams have began to decline to scrimmage with this coach. Other 09 teams both higher and lower level are learning what would be advanced skills in comparison.

The coach probably was great in his first 40 years of coaching, however he shows little effort or passion for teaching kids now.

I don't think writing the club is a good idea because I fear the possibility of retaliation or my child being held back from advancing.

The season just began and my hope is this coach won't be coaching the same group next year and someone better will be in his place. Besides the fact that parents are paying thousands of dollars per year, I am concerned that my child will be left behind skill wise compared to others the same age.

How many seasons would you endure a coach who isn't coaching?

Any thoughts or input is greatly appreciated.

You know...you could have been anonymous about the club, team, or coach and still have been effective in your inquiry. Or you are just trolling for clicks.

[Unregistered]

Lol I am surprised it took this long for someone in the forum to post something negative about Eastside. Eastside has it's good points and it's bad points like every other club. There are a couple of coaches there that are really really good. Like maybe 3 at most. (If you are an EFC coach reading this you are probably not one of them).The rest are old school Chance Fry kick and run direct athletic biggest kid wins soccer practitioners. The soccer is honestly some of the worst most ancient kick and win 50/50 ball soccer you will experience across both genders and all age groups. Most of the Eastside parents have no idea what good soccer is, they only see winning and strength as important. This is evident from weekend games when they all cheer when kids get a break away at midfield. It's a weird terrible soccer bubble because athleticism can consistently put you as a 3rd place team across the age groups at premier soccer. The good points to EFC are typically the coaches are nice on the surface to your kid. Not alot of coach yellers and the club is also organized well. Your kid will definitely be benched though if you don't get in line with the direct physical style of play. My advice to you is to sign up for any training you can get that involves lots of touches. Also try to get games from indoor, Futsal, guest play, etc. De-emphasize EFC to your kid as a great place to play by allowing them to play in more technical places and experience how bad the soccer and coaching is at EFC. Then next year run for the hills to any other club. At 09 your kid will languish at EFC and you won't even realize it because you feel trapped in the yearly soccer system. If you don't believe me then just go watch any EFC team play on the weekend and you will see how unskilled it is. Or just go to Preston on a weeknight and look across the fields. All of the training groups are doing crossing drills, big boots during what should be possession games, cone passing drills, lots of standing around being coached at instead of touching the ball, no focus at all on any individual tech skills, etc....

And do not ever, I mean ever, I will say it again ever, email or talk to the club or coaches about your kid, playing time, etc. You will immediately be placed in a crazy parent camp no matter how justified you are.

LOL. Chance is still there? I thought he would have been sacked after the Reign collapse. Yeah, I can name three good coaches there, but many of the best ones left a few years back. Eastside is a fine club and no different than any other big club. The secret sauce is if your kid is a stud, then everything is good. Doesn't matter which club.

[Unregistered]

If your kid is not developing you have a couple of choices ..Coerver , ..go to a new club do not sit there and hope that he will get better development is important most of all he/ she should be able to play multiple positions if development is correct

There are a few smaller, focused clubs where the coaching, philosophy and environment are vastly superior to Eastside FC. Search them out. Would not recommend focusing on Coerver as what they teach is about 10% or less of what a player needs. Helpful and important, but not everything a player needs.

[Unregistered]

Lol I am surprised it took this long for someone in the forum to post something negative about Eastside. Eastside has it's good points and it's bad points like every other club. There are a couple of coaches there that are really really good. Like maybe 3 at most. (If you are an EFC coach reading this you are probably not one of them).The rest are old school Chance Fry kick and run direct athletic biggest kid wins soccer practitioners. The soccer is honestly some of the worst most ancient kick and win 50/50 ball soccer you will experience across both genders and all age groups. Most of the Eastside parents have no idea what good soccer is, they only see winning and strength as important. This is evident from weekend games when they all cheer when kids get a break away at midfield. It's a weird terrible soccer bubble because athleticism can consistently put you as a 3rd place team across the age groups at premier soccer. The good points to EFC are typically the coaches are nice on the surface to your kid. Not alot of coach yellers and the club is also organized well. Your kid will definitely be benched though if you don't get in line with the direct physical style of play. My advice to you is to sign up for any training you can get that involves lots of touches. Also try to get games from indoor, Futsal, guest play, etc. De-emphasize EFC to your kid as a great place to play by allowing them to play in more technical places and experience how bad the soccer and coaching is at EFC. Then next year run for the hills to any other club. At 09 your kid will languish at EFC and you won't even realize it because you feel trapped in the yearly soccer system. If you don't believe me then just go watch any EFC team play on the weekend and you will see how unskilled it is. Or just go to Preston on a weeknight and look across the fields. All of the training groups are doing crossing drills, big boots during what should be possession games, cone passing drills, lots of standing around being coached at instead of touching the ball, no focus at all on any individual tech skills, etc....

And do not ever, I mean ever, I will say it again ever, email or talk to the club or coaches about your kid, playing time, etc. You will immediately be placed in a crazy parent camp no matter how justified you are.

You sure you have even the slightest idea what you are talking about ? Cone drills and being coached at ? Yeah good one ! At 09 it should be quick small sided games in tight areas technical first touch work and playing with their heads up . Other then that it’s all about enjoying the game without the joy being trained out of them . It’s artists we are creating and not robots .

[Unregistered]

In the pay-to-play system, we are consumers. Act accordingly.

[Unregistered]

You sure you have even the slightest idea what you are talking about ? Cone drills and being coached at ? Yeah good one ! At 09 it should be quick small sided games in tight areas technical first touch work and playing with their heads up . Other then that it’s all about enjoying the game without the joy being trained out of them . It’s artists we are creating and not robots .

Are you sure you read my post right. If you read it again it clearly is saying cone drills and crossing and boot ball posession is bad not good. And that is the norm for EFC. Which is bad not good. Which is why EFC defaults to physical play over skill. Please work on your reading comprehension. There are some good Kumon books that can help you with that.

[Unregistered]

There are a few smaller, focused clubs where the coaching, philosophy and environment are vastly superior to Eastside FC. Search them out. Would not recommend focusing on Coerver as what they teach is about 10% or less of what a player needs. Helpful and important, but not everything a player needs.

You totally hav you head up your ***** and don’t know what you are talking about when it comes to Coerver

[Unregistered]

You totally hav you head up your ***** and don’t know what you are talking about when it comes to Coerver

Explain! Here is another point of view: https://playerdevelopmentproject.com...-got-it-right/

[Unregistered]

If you think coerver is all skill drills in a vacuum you've obviously never attended a session. That's 1/3 at most of a typical training session

[Unregistered]

My 09 child is coached by someone who seems to be retired on the job. I like the club, however the coach, who is one of the oldest there, appears to be retired on the job. Practice often entails 1 simple drill, and then asking another team or age group to scrimmage with little input. It appears that other teams have began to decline to scrimmage with this coach. Other 09 teams both higher and lower level are learning what would be advanced skills in comparison.

The coach probably was great in his first 40 years of coaching, however he shows little effort or passion for teaching kids now.

I don't think writing the club is a good idea because I fear the possibility of retaliation or my child being held back from advancing.

The season just began and my hope is this coach won't be coaching the same group next year and someone better will be in his place. Besides the fact that parents are paying thousands of dollars per year, I am concerned that my child will be left behind skill wise compared to others the same age.

How many seasons would you endure a coach who isn't coaching?

Any thoughts or input is greatly appreciated.

Get her better so she can move to the A team or has the ability to move to another A team. She is already being pegged as a B team player at U11. Sad, but true at these big clubs. Never endure any bullsh*t from these big clubs. Unless you want to leave the club midseason there isn't much you can do from the club side.

She needs to do drills and ball touches every day at home. Coerver is good if you have the time and money. Indoor is probably your best bet for touches and game like play. Futsal is always good. You need to go beyond what they are doing at club.

This is key point: My kid is at the recruiting age and will definitely can play college ball if she chooses. Every player we know at this level did coever, privates, indoor, etc. Your dd has to put in much, much more if she wants to be on the A team and play college ball. Messed up I know but that is the state of pay to play soccer. Good luck.

[Unregistered]

Explain! Here is another point of view: https://playerdevelopmentproject.com...-got-it-right/

For $20K you really have your head way up there

[Unregistered]

Explain! Here is another point of view: https://playerdevelopmentproject.com...-got-it-right/

I think the article makes a valid point on drills vs game situation and learning. In my view they did not discredit Coerver though like the title says. Maybe Coerver is implemented differently throughout the world but my comments will focus on what I see in WA.

I would argue that Coerver does add value to the situational creativity that the article is trying to explain. Yes we all sit at Coerver and sometimes the skill circle goes to 45 minutes and a coach gets over zealous about forcing the kids to do it correctly. However the rest of the time they are doing random games in a small sided format with an attempt to get the kids to take people on 1v1 and use moves or skills. Don't get me started on the 2v2 drills at Coerver. I see no point to 2v2 at Coerver because the kids have it in their head that they should dribble and dribble and dribble and pull moves and never pass so 2v2 time is frustrating to watch as well. Others can disagree and I wouldn't argue if you see value in 2v2 that I missed at Coerver. The scrimmage at the end can be frustrating depending on your group of kids for the same reason the 2v2 is frustrating, however I see it as a fun chances to group play for 15 minutes and the one touch goal rule forces ball turnovers and working together. So keep the scrimmage ditch the 2v2s or fix the 2v2s to force working together.

I do not think anyone in the soccer community thinks Coerver is a holistic approach to a kids soccer journey and we should be doing 7 days a week of Coerver. It is a training method once a week that exposes them to new things and repeats others. It is a missing piece that clubs just do not provide. At the start of practice some teams do toe touches or dribble in between each other in a small space for under 10 minutes. Basically Coerver is that on steroids. You can tell which kids have done Coerver by their touch at club practice and which haven't as well. The amount of touches kids get at Coerver I think is unmatched at any other training. If you are just tracking touches then that is a big positive. I also think just replacing that 2 hours per week at Coerver with Rondos would not magically create creative players either. Rondos and variations of such are also an important part of the soccer journey and firmly hold their place in a necessity of training but they are not 100% of the solution either. Not to start a Rondo debate but most clubs also fail at using Rondos for any real purpose as well.

I think people try to discredit Coerver or don't see value in it for 2 main reasons. At least how it is run in Washington.

1) The program is kind of disorganized and TR is a love or hate type of guy. If you hate TR you hate Coerver and vice versa.

2) Parents in WA seem to see it as skills shenanigans. I have witnessed many times where a kid pulls a scissor or step over or any creative move in a game and the parent community (and coaches in many cases) immediately chastise the kid for messing around in games. (Who cares that the other kids turned the ball over 50 times without using skills.)Before you jump to conclusions I do agree too much creativity with skills in a game can be bad. But then again where else would a kid learn how and when to use their creative skill appropriately in time and space and pressure without failing at it at young ages in games.

3) Sorry I added another reason. Parents and clubs and coaches all want to win at every age. I see it everyday. At 09 like the OP said, the next year of winning and losing games has literally zero importance. There is no case where you can argue a Saturday win for a 9 year old matters in their life and makes them better at soccer. They forget about it the next day. What makes that 9 year old better outside of training and during the games (win or lose) is lots of exposure to touches in the game and attempts to try things and good ideas and thoughts from a coach. Let them pull 50 Maradonas in the game. Then a good coach will say, great job Billy, I really like that one Maradona you did to move into the space and beat the defender. Then emphasize how that move created space to pass to the best available player. Then maybe a discouraging word in a positive manner about a good thought on the other 49 Maradonas and to see how they didn't work. After time the player will narrow down failure moments with skill moves into limited purposeful moves in a game they had success at. The problem is the 50 Maradonas I just spoke of really upsets parents who spent their whole weekend flying to tournaments in SoCal just to watch a 9 year make a mistake and lose a game. They then blame that on Coerver silliness or players using to many skills.