22 Youth Players On Team????

[Unregistered]

Any comment on this thread needs to state what age/gender they are talking about. Appropriate strategies for roster size and playing time vary drastically for different age groups.

[Unregistered]

And name the club/coach so we can see if it's a trend or an isolated incident.

[Unregistered]

It's about money. Hoarding local talent has a dynamic effect. First, the club gets more revenue, hence, coaches get more $. Also, a larger pool for extra training = more $. Other clubs they're hoarding from have less competitive teams which makes some parents/players want to leave for the better team. Less players for other clubs leads to less $ and higher fees (IE tournaments). Also, coaches at other clubs don't make as much $ and now can be swayed to leave their club and join the hoarding club. The hoarding club can now sway other clubs better coaches to join them. All this is about is MONEY! Who suffers? Everyone, your kids playing time will drop which will drive some parents absolutely batsh** for their first time. Kids will start getting disgruntled and may drop the following year. The other clubs kids will deal with the pain too. Not as much talent on the team. Not as productive as prior years. The one benefit they will get though is a crap ton of playing time. GREED, GREED and some more GREED.

Dead on. I would add that the parents have a miserable experience too, for the listed reasons, but also because you don't have a lot of love for the kids on the team competing with yours for PT. It is a toxic environment, and we walked away from it for a "right sized" team, even a level down,, and have never looked back.

[Unregistered]

Youth soccer is a business. Some coaches approach youth soccer as a full time job. This is how they make a living. They make money by coaching teams, supplying extra training tournament travel and camps. Do you blame them if they want more players on the team? I don't. They just want a bigger pool of revenue.

[Unregistered]

TBU TBU TBU TBU TBU!!!! is that good enough.

[Unregistered]

TBU TBU TBU TBU TBU!!!! is that good enough.

It's not just TBU.

[Unregistered]

but, they are the main ones in the area

[Unregistered]

I am looking for some feedback on what reasoning is behind this. Why would a youth soccer club place 22 youth players on a roster for one team? Every game someone is upset with limited playing time or required to be there with no playing time. Comparing to other teams 16 players seems to be the norm. I have not seen a competing team yet with 22 players. What positive reasoning would make this worth the tears for kids not playing the game?

16 good, 18 top, 20 excessive 22 ridiculous. At 22 you have a practice squad. Why would a parent pay to have a child not play but 5 minutes of a game. Stupid Once your kid stops having fun the game is over for them.

Worse still are all those kids of age, or did the team allow some to play up a year and steal playing time from of age players? Playing up should end at U14, maybe earlier.

[Unregistered]

TBU TBU TBU TBU TBU!!!! is that good enough.

Yes! The roster size is not good for anyone..., if you are at the bottom end, you have to sit out games or get minimal playing time. If you are a starter, you get pulled and the level of play drops so 'everyone' gets playing time. That's not going to happen in college. No one is happy. At the ECNL level, with all the money and travel involved, it makes for a bunch of unhappy girls and families. My heart breaks when I see stress, worry and crying on the sidelines by players. Just be honest with girls and their families and .carry a roster of 17/18 and if needed pull from the lower team. It's just not necessary to upset people and make girls feel terrible?

What happens for showcases? Everyone gets to play, the chemistry is off and no one looks good?

[Unregistered]

Youth soccer is a business. Some coaches approach youth soccer as a full time job. This is how they make a living. They make money by coaching teams, supplying extra training tournament travel and camps. Do you blame them if they want more players on the team? I don't. They just want a bigger pool of revenue.

THAT... is the root of all issues with US youth soccer and player development.

[Unregistered]

Yes! The roster size is not good for anyone..., if you are at the bottom end, you have to sit out games or get minimal playing time. If you are a starter, you get pulled and the level of play drops so 'everyone' gets playing time. That's not going to happen in college. No one is happy. At the ECNL level, with all the money and travel involved, it makes for a bunch of unhappy girls and families. My heart breaks when I see stress, worry and crying on the sidelines by players. Just be honest with girls and their families and .carry a roster of 17/18 and if needed pull from the lower team. It's just not necessary to upset people and make girls feel terrible?

What happens for showcases? Everyone gets to play, the chemistry is off and no one looks good?

Or, it seems like EVERY game a different player is asked to sit to be fair to everyone. I'm sorry this is not Rec soccer. There really are like 5-6 players that are difference makers and to make them sit is just stupid! Like the previous poster said, this is supposed to be high level soccer and this will not happen in college. Parents are paying too much money and sacrificing too much time for someone not to be honest with them. At this level, it should be about talent and winning games, not getting every player time when the roster is too big and there is a huge drop off in talent.

[Unregistered]

16 good, 18 top, 20 excessive 22 ridiculous. At 22 you have a practice squad. Why would a parent pay to have a child not play but 5 minutes of a game. Stupid Once your kid stops having fun the game is over for them.

Worse still are all those kids of age, or did the team allow some to play up a year and steal playing time from of age players? Playing up should end at U14, maybe earlier.

Again, depending on the age!

Sixteen is NOT enough for older age boys, you have 2-3 injuries/sick/etc, and you have just a couple of substitutes. That is unacceptable even in a two-game weekend, let alone a showcase tournament with 3-4 games over a long weekend.

[Unregistered]

I am looking for some feedback on what reasoning is behind this. Why would a youth soccer club place 22 youth players on a roster for one team? Every game someone is upset with limited playing time or required to be there with no playing time. Comparing to other teams 16 players seems to be the norm. I have not seen a competing team yet with 22 players. What positive reasoning would make this worth the tears for kids not playing the game?

Sounds like a good way for the club to maximize revenue and gives the coach greater odds to bang a mom

[Just a Coach]

72 to 96 hours of recovery time is not long enough to maintain a low injury rate in soccer. Players who played two matches a week had a six times higher injury rate, including a five times higher rate in the incidence of severe injuries, than those who played once a week [Dupont, G., Nedelec, M. & McCall, A. (2010) Effect of 2 soccer matches in a week on physical performance and injury rate. American Journal of Sports Medicine, (38), 1752-1758]. In the current system, when kids have to play as many as six games in three days during certain tournaments, high school and college calendars are extremely congested, one way to manage recovery time for players is to have large enough squads to rotate everyone. Perhaps, the first and the second team should train together and players should be allowed to freely rotate between the two teams. Of course, the schedule of playing twice a day and on consecutive days would still be unmanageable even with this system. Many coaches keep rotating players within the game. However, this way our kids will never learn soccer, at least not the game that the rest of the world plays.

[Unregistered]

Again, depending on the age!

Sixteen is NOT enough for older age boys, you have 2-3 injuries/sick/etc, and you have just a couple of substitutes. That is unacceptable even in a two-game weekend, let alone a showcase tournament with 3-4 games over a long weekend.

When there is a two day weekend or showcase event with four games, can they bring 22 and switch up the rosters for each game so a few sit out each day? Or does a team have to keep the same roster for the entire event?