MAPLE Politics

[Unregistered]

From a pure economic model, when there is a truly competitive market there is no such thing as being hosed.

Sure, there's freedom, but the notion that very few parents are performing little to no due diligence is laughable. These decisions are often very emotional. Are they hosing themselves? OK, fair enough. LOL

[Unregistered]

so from my experience with my son (who also plays club soccer) is that he and other kids love to play soccer because they love playing soccer with their friends and classmates. It has nothing to do with costs. I dont expect the town coaches to have the same qualifications as his club coaches, just want to make sure they know the game and that the kids have fun. So i keep my expectations realistic and as long as he is having fun playing on his town team, so be it.

[Unregistered]

I'd say the truth is in the middle, meaning each side has their distinct slices of the blame pie, but I don't disagree with you. I'm not making an argument against having the choice, as stupid as it is for those to act on it. of blame share of blame pie.

My "7th team" is referring to a large NEP-member club and the "A team" is referring to TOWN. The placements (real life example) were appropriate. If there was a 3rd bracket, the club team belonged in it, not the town team. Moving the town A team from 2nd to 1st bracket play would have been a ****show for them.

But you're right, there's a lot of duplicity and hype clouding the decision-making for the consumer. Ultimately the parents feel good about putting their kids in any environment, even if it's a waste of time and terrible quality, clubs talk a lot about development, but certainly most aren't happy even with just being competitive, and many aren't, they chase winning because it sells, and the circle is complete with parents buying results, reputation and the like that really belongs to and was created by other kids and whatever spin is thrown into the message, causing them to lose all or most of the objectivity they need about their own kid to make a smart choice.

Ultimately a lot of this falls back on MYSA. In other states the State Soccer Association actually controls who can start clubs and where. In Mass they basically just let the towns and clubs do whatever the heck they wanted as long as they didn't cross over into each other's territory and paid them for the privilege of putting names on rosters. The roots of today's problems go back to the whole separate but equal thinking behind having both town leagues and a club league instead of one unified system where they both competed against each other.

[Unregistered]

so from my experience with my son (who also plays club soccer) is that he and other kids love to play soccer because they love playing soccer with their friends and classmates. It has nothing to do with costs. I dont expect the town coaches to have the same qualifications as his club coaches, just want to make sure they know the game and that the kids have fun. So i keep my expectations realistic and as long as he is having fun playing on his town team, so be it.

Is it unrealistic to say that as the costs increase so to do the expectations?

[Unregistered]

So where should those players play if they want to? Their town program?? The wholesale gross failures at the town level are basically what created the demand for club soccer in the first place. If it weren't for the fact that most of the town programs have zero labor and zero facility costs which allows them to be just plain cheaper they probably wouldn't even exist any longer. The real problem here is that you have the situation you describe as one club's A team playing against another's 7th team. 7th teams should compete against 7th teams and it should be apparent that if another club's A team is competing against them that in fact they are really a 7th level team. As it stands now the system hides that little tidbit under gobs of marketing hype supposedly in the name of development.

Perfect examples are the ECNL/NPL. When you think about it, all USCS did was stick a flag in the ground and tell everyone their leagues were "Elite". There was never any real vetting process that proved that the teams in either of them were actually good. We think they are good simply because they have the "A" from some of the largest clubs in the country but at this point what are any of those teams actually proving?

[Unregistered]

Think that this is germane to where this discussion is at

Quality Pro Player Development or Recreation? People don’t know the Difference.

http://blog.3four3.com/2013/01/03/re...r-development/

[Unregistered]

Awesome article!!

[Unregistered]

I call bull****. The idea that people don't know the difference between recreation and "pro player development" is beyond absurd. The idea that this is a zero-sum situation with nothing in between is nonsense.

I can count on one hand the number of people I know with "pro" aspirations (players or their parents with national team experience or potential). I know players and their parents who are truly "recreational" (they don't have aspirations of playing HS varsity). There is a super-majority in between.

It is not zero-sum, where you qualify as pursuing pro player development or relegated to recreational. That is not the reality of the pay-to-play club soccer market. Any attempt to create that narrative takes the marketing relationship between parents and clubs to a disingenuous next level.

[Unregistered]

Awesome article!!

I was leaning more towards tedious...

"Key Takeaways

There exist two camps:

1. Those who ultimately view soccer as recreation.
2. Those who are about creating professional footballers of the highest quality.

Both have vastly different requirements. And finally, since FAR greater than 99% at all levels are in camp #1, whatever few camp #2 people exist have enormous pressure to conform and pander to camp #1 mentality (ie mediocrity)."

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

[Unregistered]

Awesome article!!

A ridiculous and shallow attempt at promoting a extreme minority agenda.

[Unregistered]

A ridiculous and shallow attempt at promoting a extreme minority agenda.

Perfectly stated.

[Unregistered]

A ridiculous and shallow attempt at promoting a extreme minority agenda.

Extreme and proud of it, but not alone when you have people out there blogging about this

Isn't this the thread where people are complaining about club soccer being a money grab and whining about how diluted it is? Seems that article hit several things being talked about in this thread right on the head.

Why is it perceived to be a money grab? Answer given in this thread, because the outcomes are not commensurate with price charged (the whole 7th team vs A team thing). If it were really just about the experience (which is the recreational mindset) then the outcome wouldn't matter would it? If the outcomes matter then by extension you do get to a fish or cut bait point where this blog post is coming from. That is the inevitable objective of competition.

Why is it perceived to be diluted? Answer given in this thread, because we have clubs fielding so many teams that the quality has gone out the window (the whole kid getting cut from the town A team but making a club team thing). If it is NOT ok to cut kids and teams(again a recreational mindset) to improve the quality of play, why would dilution even be an issue? If you follow that mindset the outcomes just get in the way and aren't supposed to matter. If the quality of play is so important though you do get to a point where only the extreme players are able to actually play the game because it becomes to fast and physically demanding for the average player. You don't build that type of player by blunting their edge.

Clearly you are one of those that deep down inside have a recreational mindset because you apparently think that there is some sort of commonality between an average player and the type of pro player this blogger is talking about. So much so that you scoff at him for being extreme. Well of course he's extreme, he's trying to harvest the diamonds (the 1%) and makes no bones about it. You obvious think that type of player is a myth and scoff at the pursuit as being ridiculous. Really what you are doing is making excuses and ultimately just moving the bar down for the middle ground who exist in between the truly recreational and elite players. You are exactly the person that blog was talking about as the problem with you sports. .

[Unregistered]

Reading the article, as a parent and soccer supporter, I definitely think I'm in the Pro Player Development, but yet I am not one bit invested in getting my kids to be professional soccer players. My goal has always been to help direct them to clubs/programs that will simply get them to be the best soccer player they can be. Not sure where that puts me in the end, but I think in life in general I have more of a competitive/professional mindset so I appreciate that stance more. Hmmmm, kinda thought provoking actually.

[Unregistered]

NEP has always been very clear what their philosophy is and it is decidedly recreational so why are we ripping it in this thread? It is doing it's job and so aren't the clubs that have teams in it. The real issues are with the NPL and ECNL. Those are the ones that are supposedly catering to the players that have higher level aspirations. I personally think that many of the criticisms levied in this thread are more appropriately directed at those two leagues. You have to know that is what a guy like that blogger is looking at and criticizing, not a development league like NEP.

[Unregistered]

Does MAPLE have a philosophy?