What should be the primary goal of competitive youth soccer?

[Unregistered]

What should be the primary goal of competitive youth soccer?...to be competitive or to develop?
As you answer, keep in mind that club structure may be different based on location and volume. Larger market clubs may have the volume to create multiple teams where smaller markets may not.

I ask this question because it boils down to two basic philosophies:
1) select the best players available for your team and field the team that give you the best opportunity to win (not everyone makes the team and you have to make the team each year). Continued development is a focus, but not the primary.
2) Selections are not based on the best available but rather on growing club numbers with idea that the club should be developing player or coaching them up. Players get equal playing time and winning is the goal but not the primary, development is.

I look at most other sports: Lacrosse, Hockey, Baseball and Basketball youth competitive travel teams and it appears these are based on a true competitive models...try out, best players are selected and the best players start and play the majority of the game. The goal is to win. They rely on the rec programs as the primary feeders systems. Continued development is a focus, but not the primary.

Having done the soccer thing for years now, I will give you my opinion. It is first, up to the parent to identify the best team, coach for your kid U8 - U12. That coach should be open to letting the kids train and play at multiple positions from U8-U10. Any coach that sticks your kid in 1 spot at the young ages is an A-hole. From U12 and up you should be willing to switch teams if your kid has developed into a very good player. Be willing to drive a bit further to get on that better team and into a better league. Your kid will now be positioned and most likely the coach will be playing to win so expect to compete for your starting job. From U15 and up you can expect the same if your kid even wants to continue.. many other sports begin to compete for their time as does high school.

Point being, in the end only a small handful still play, and even fewer are on the top teams that make it worth all your years of prior time and money. So that being said, it is all the more important to avoid the A-holes of coaching early on. If your kid is not having fun and the game is about the coach going for the win and yelling their stupid head off at the smallest things, you need to leave that A-hole ASAP. Your kid deserves better, and for your time and money so do you... ! PERIOD

Lastly, play for the love of the game and learn to avoid the club B.S. about "development." They want your $$ above all else. YOU need to look after your kids development and happiness.

[Unregistered]

People forget the very essence of the sport. PLAYING THE GAME !!! We as Americans cannot compare the love and obsession the rest of the world has over futbol. It is like what football is to the USA, Times Ten. And everybody plays the sport. In the streets, backyard, everywhere, everyday. We here kept debating on training, winning, willing to drive for an hour to the 'best' clubs. But we are so lost on what is really needed. Simple PLAYING THE GAME. Our kids play the sport in scrimmages maybe, and in season games & tournaments. How many kids can just go a field and play a pick up game? How many kids play it at their neighborhoods just like what they do with basketball or football?? To be great in one sport, it always start in simply playing it for hours and hours because it's just fun. You can't train a 9 year old everyday and expect him to be the next Messi. A kid from Mexico of the same age with no formal training will just be better coz they just eat, breathe and play soccer all the time. ANd Mexico is a poor country.

All we need is to make playing soccer so accesible. It is so easy to set up soccer goals in the millions of parks we have. US soccer should step in and make it more a part of everyday in P.E.too. Have it indoors too even in gyms. Training is the next part of it, NOT THE FIRST. I can go on and on but I'll stop there for this one. You get the point.

But for the main question? Primary goal is to make every kid that play "competitive" understand and love the sport. How many 9 year old understand off sides? If a parent pays over $500, the kid should at least know that even if they play without offsides. More than 90% of club players at any age level are so poor with their skills. They are being taught to win but never how to properly play the game. Whenever I see teams doing jogs,sprints, so called agility training, for just a twice a week practices, I say FAILURE. Coaches is having their excuses right there in what they are supposed to do. Without these kids playing games anywhere, don't watch games on tv, and the idea for getting them ready is just to jog?? For twice a week? Of course these kids are playing 5 years below the level of their International friends, or worst.
Kids here don't play soccer, it's KICKBALL disguised as soccer. Only 1 out of every 20 kids can play soccer. What age does competitive start? 7-8? And what is taught? It's more how to win than how to kick the ball properly. Passing is not even encouraged as long as kids can kick to the goal! No wonder why even at U13, kids can't make a pass or make a move, or have a decent touch.

Put the blame 100% on the clubs, for allowing that level of coaching at competitive prices. They should be ashamed. That is nothing more than a con. Your kid may have had potential, but has now lost key years of training they will never get back.

[Unregistered]

Put the blame 100% on the clubs, for allowing that level of coaching at competitive prices. They should be ashamed. That is nothing more than a con. Your kid may have had potential, but has now lost key years of training they will never get back.

your kid will never develop good technical skills if you rely on your club sccer coaches. the kids with good skills have parents that played soccer or are just kids that are true 24/7 junkies...yes, there are kids like that, they just don't exist in mexico.

your club soccer coach - if he's good- runs a good team practice focused primarily on possession, intelligent play and 1v1 drills. at no point can or should the coach take one kid aside and spend 1/2 hour on how to receive a ball.

[Unregistered]

This may have been true in your generation but with advancing technology fewer and fewer kids are spending all their free time playing sports . . . ANY SPORTS . . . around the world. Sure the US was impacted first as we had instant access to vast TV channels, electronic games, the internet, video games, etc, earlier than other regions but as the world develops you will see that kids are all the same. Most would rather sit in a room playing games, chatting with friends, watching movies and TV, than going out and exercising.

The level of soccer will improve because technology will also advance training, facilities and components but it will come at a loss of overall participants for most of the world.

And if you think most kids in South America, China or Africa would rather go run around in the sun kicking a ball around than sitting in their air conditioned rooms playing XBox . . . just wait for those situations to become more common in those areas and then you will learn the bitter truth. Humans are inherently lazy and just want to have fun.

Not true, I lived in Germany for a few yes and let me tell you, those kids are always out kicking a ball around. Anytime we went to a park or just walked around there were kids and adults out playing with soccer balls. Kids as young as maybe 5 or 6 were juggling with no issues. Like it has been said, they love the sport and they do it as a pass time rather than being forced into it and maybe enjoying it eventually like most kids in the states.

[Unregistered]

This may have been true in your generation but with advancing technology fewer and fewer kids are spending all their free time playing sports . . . ANY SPORTS . . . around the world. Sure the US was impacted first as we had instant access to vast TV channels, electronic games, the internet, video games, etc, earlier than other regions but as the world develops you will see that kids are all the same. Most would rather sit in a room playing games, chatting with friends, watching movies and TV, than going out and exercising.

The level of soccer will improve because technology will also advance training, facilities and components but it will come at a loss of overall participants for most of the world.

And if you think most kids in South America, China or Africa would rather go run around in the sun kicking a ball around than sitting in their air conditioned rooms playing XBox . . . just wait for those situations to become more common in those areas and then you will learn the bitter truth. Humans are inherently lazy and just want to have fun.

I also disagree. I can tell you have not lived much outside the U.S. It's a broader discussion than soccer but in this country we are all turning into blobs that consume things. Our suburban lifestyle is our worst enemy. While other countries may have some of the items we have here (including a/c which you take for granted as available everywhere - but its not) they do not grow up in suburbs (a grossly inefficient way to develop land) and they come from cultures that largely value social interactions more than ours. I cannot imagine kids from South America, Africa, southern Europe, becoming like our suburban kids, at least not in my lifetime.

[Unregistered]

I also disagree. I can tell you have not lived much outside the U.S. It's a broader discussion than soccer but in this country we are all turning into blobs that consume things. Our suburban lifestyle is our worst enemy. While other countries may have some of the items we have here (including a/c which you take for granted as available everywhere - but its not) they do not grow up in suburbs (a grossly inefficient way to develop land) and they come from cultures that largely value social interactions more than ours. I cannot imagine kids from South America, Africa, southern Europe, becoming like our suburban kids, at least not in my lifetime.

Also, soccer teaches the kids self confidence and how to work with others