ODP-Club Collaboration

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I don’t know anyone who thinks Opd supplements club....
If you need to supplement your club training you need a new club.

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True. A good club will meet the needs of its players. Players shouldn’t need to be shlepping to ODP practices to supplement subpar training and development at their club.

Seriously, did you not read this post in the other thread set up to bash ODP? It pretty much speaks right to your point. The problem with all of the club teams is they push players of wildly different playing abilities together. Even on DA and ECNL teams you have potential mid tier D1 prospects playing with D2 and D3 prospects. It's not healthy for any of those player's development.

I have a daughter who played in college. She made the ODP Regional pool at 11 and was in the NT pool by 14. I always thought that the biggest advantage to the program is it was the only avenue out there that really pushed the best players together. It’s the only program that actually recognizes that all players are not equal and try to force them to play with others of different abilities. True story. One summer at ID camp when mine was roughly a sophomore in high school and had been training with the NT pool for about a year she was getting frustrated in the regional pool training sessions because players weren’t going where she was expecting them to go and do what she was expecting them to do, nor did they have the technical skills to play the way she was accustomed and she was feeling pressure because of her status to perform in spite of what she saw as chaos around her. She had come over to me to vent in private when one of the regional coaches came over to her and started by saying that she needed to recognize that the rest of the players were ONLY regional pool players and by definition we’re not as physically talented nor did they have the ability to see the field as she saw it and at the pace she saw it. He said the regional and national team scouts knew this and what they were actually looking for from her was for her to obviously recognize situations and look to make the play that should have been made but then react and seamlessly form a secondary solution from it. The ultimate message to her was to control her obvious frustration and learn to make plays with lesser players knowing that the coaches recognized other players mistakes and did not hold her responsible for them. It was a profound message for her. I will also say that back on her club team that situation was an even bigger problem for her because there was a lower overall talent level on it than the regional pool even though she was playing ‘up’ with older teammates and the level of team was certain equal to a high level ECNL team. That short conversation really helped manage what was becoming a huge issue and I think helped propel her to where she ultimately got. Those of you who think the DA/ECNL is the whole answer are kidding yourselves. It certainly is a piece of the puzzle just not the whole puzzle.

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Seriously, did you not read this post in the other thread set up to bash ODP? It pretty much speaks right to your point. The problem with all of the club teams is they push players of wildly different playing abilities together. Even on DA and ECNL teams you have potential mid tier D1 prospects playing with D2 and D3 prospects. It's not healthy for any of those player's development.

Correct. No team, including ODP anymore, will have all high level players. College teams don't either. Even the top club/college teams have some kids that can't keep up.

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Correct. No team, including ODP anymore, will have all high level players. College teams don't either. Even the top club/college teams have some kids that can't keep up.

Here's the difference, at the college level those kids don't play much, if at all, and then get replaced over time by incoming recruits. On a decent college team the range of talent is actually much tighter. It's only the unsuccessful teams that have extreme ranges of talent on the roster and that generally is the reason they are unsuccessful

[Unregistered]

Seriously, did you not read this post in the other thread set up to bash ODP? It pretty much speaks right to your point. The problem with all of the club teams is they push players of wildly different playing abilities together. Even on DA and ECNL teams you have potential mid tier D1 prospects playing with D2 and D3 prospects. It's not healthy for any of those player's development.

Enough already, BTNT.

[Unregistered]

Seriously, did you not read this post in the other thread set up to bash ODP? It pretty much speaks right to your point. The problem with all of the club teams is they push players of wildly different playing abilities together. Even on DA and ECNL teams you have potential mid tier D1 prospects playing with D2 and D3 prospects. It's not healthy for any of those player's development.

Then what , pray tell, do you suggest to make the environment “better”. Less clubs, but more selective? How do you expect to fill out these rosters, when the pool of players isn’t all
that deep to begin with? Should kids just abandon soccer at a certain point, because they are not high D1 material? I think a lot of these clubs would be doing families a favor by not accepting mediocre talent. But they will never , because they need to fill out rosters and generate $$$$$$. Perhaps if clubs weren’t so greedy, and parents weren’t so gullible, there would be more recreational opportunities to play soccer for longer. Ultimately, 99.9% of kids won’t do anything with soccer in their adult life. I’d rather see people play it longer for general fitness and a love if the game.

[Unregistered]

Personally I would do the following to start

1) institute a known hierarchy for the leagues ie DA #1, ENCL #2, NPL #3 (doesn't actually matter to me what league is in which position) and make access to all the leagues open based upon the strength of the team as opposed to which governing body the club is in bed with.
2) institute a promo-relegation process in and out of the leagues to ensure better quality competition
3) abandon specific age groups (ie 2056 or U15) and replace it with broader age groupings more like grammar school, middle school and high school and then base the rosters strictly on talent (ie all the best middle schoolers on the Middle School "A" team and so on)
4) institute strict roster sizes of 18 to prevent clubs from expanding rosters for money
5) institute a roster drop add process to ensure players only play for one team at a time in order to try to prevent clubs stacking ringers in key games
6) institute a minimum playing time requirement of a 1/4 and a maximum or 3/4 of each game to ensure everyone on the roster gets to play and or doesn't get over played
7) institute a yearly cap of games for individual teams to work against the gross over use the clubs tend to put their players through.

I could probably go on with more but that should be enough to start you B&Ming.

[Unregistered]

Personally I would do the following to start

1) institute a known hierarchy for the leagues ie DA #1, ENCL #2, NPL #3 (doesn't actually matter to me what league is in which position) and make access to all the leagues open based upon the strength of the team as opposed to which governing body the club is in bed with.
2) institute a promo-relegation process in and out of the leagues to ensure better quality competition
3) abandon specific age groups (ie 2056 or U15) and replace it with broader age groupings more like grammar school, middle school and high school and then base the rosters strictly on talent (ie all the best middle schoolers on the Middle School "A" team and so on)
4) institute strict roster sizes of 18 to prevent clubs from expanding rosters for money
5) institute a roster drop add process to ensure players only play for one team at a time in order to try to prevent clubs stacking ringers in key games
6) institute a minimum playing time requirement of a 1/4 and a maximum or 3/4 of each game to ensure everyone on the roster gets to play and or doesn't get over played
7) institute a yearly cap of games for individual teams to work against the gross over use the clubs tend to put their players through.

I could probably go on with more but that should be enough to start you B&Ming.

More echolalia. Yeah, 6th graders with 8th and 9th graders makes a ton of sense.....maybe for the 6th graders.

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More echolalia. Yeah, 6th graders with 8th and 9th graders makes a ton of sense.....maybe for the 6th graders.

What about the almighty high school game, that nobody wants to give up? Isn’t it freshman through seniors in the mix?

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More echolalia. Yeah, 6th graders with 8th and 9th graders makes a ton of sense.....maybe for the 6th graders.

Echolalia? Haha! Really? Are you browsing the dictionary for a big word, to compensate for something small?

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Echolalia? Haha! Really? Are you browsing the dictionary for a big word, to compensate for something small?

So YOU had to look it up. I've been using the word here for at least 8-9 years. As for your allusion, to quote the famous DT, I am "perfect" in that area.

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What about the almighty high school game, that nobody wants to give up? Isn’t it freshman through seniors in the mix?

Again....how does that advance the very special needs of the extraordinarily talented high school senior, who if you follow the BTNT logic, should be playing against high end D1 college seniors and not high school frosh? The argument is always made for the younger kid because that was his complaint. He has NEVER cared about anyone else and hence not a single second thinking about his grand plan for US Soccer does nothing for the older kids in the groupings.

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His point has been that the leveling is wrong. You seem content to just include as many kids as possible and let them just play which is fine when the goal is more recreational in nature. The disconnect comes when the goal becomes developing the best players possible. That always means pruning the herd and putting training resources into best players in that herd.

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More echolalia. Yeah, 6th graders with 8th and 9th graders makes a ton of sense.....maybe for the 6th graders.

Why not? Why can’t kid play against kids they go to school with. Believe they have been doing that for generations on school based teams. If a 6th grade kid is good enough to play with high school kids why shouldn’t they be playing with them?

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What about the almighty high school game, that nobody wants to give up? Isn’t it freshman through seniors in the mix?

Seriously! How many parents seriously believe that their kid should be playing for the varsity? If the kid is that good, why shouldn’t they be?