A good article about Coaches and Parents here in America

I never suggested that the leagues stop tracking the scores. Just that they stop making the info available online for the parents to see. That’s an easy change to implement and could have some positive affects. There’s no reason I can think of that the results of every game need to be known online by anyone that wants to see. Again it’s the adults that are looking at the results, not the kids. Then we tell them whether the team they are playing are good or not.

The promotion/relegation (along with the tournament trophies) is what the coaches are chasing (and what's distorting the focus on development). So the only thing your proposal would do is just hide the info from the parents (which would have the unintended consequence of making the bracket a team is in even more important to the parents). And so long as there's an "official" score to report for a match, some enterprising fellow will find a way to get it out to the parents (since there's a market for the information being hidden from them, but which would still be available to the coaches/DOC since you'd need transparency for purposes of promoting/relegating [none of them will accept CalSouth arbitrarily telling them they got promoted/relegated without an explanation as to where they stood] and setting up scrimmages)
 
The promotion/relegation (along with the tournament trophies) is what the coaches are chasing (and what's distorting the focus on development). So the only thing your proposal would do is just hide the info from the parents (which would have the unintended consequence of making the bracket a team is in even more important to the parents). And so long as there's an "official" score to report for a match, some enterprising fellow will find a way to get it out to the parents (since there's a market for the information being hidden from them, but which would still be available to the coaches/DOC since you'd need transparency for purposes of promoting/relegating [none of them will accept CalSouth arbitrarily telling them they got promoted/relegated without an explanation as to where they stood] and setting up scrimmages)
The brackets are already extremely important to parents but I agree it's not a major fix and someone would likely create a "pay to see the scores" website for the same info but it could be a first (baby) step in sending a message that we should refrain from focusing on standings/rankings at the younger ages if we want to keep kids playing sports and develop better soccer players. A lot more could be done but this would be an easy one to implement.
 
I agree it's not a major fix and someone would likely create a "pay to see the scores" website for the same info but it could be a first (baby) step in sending a message that we should refrain from focusing on standings/rankings at the younger ages if we want to keep kids playing sports and develop better soccer players. A lot more could be done but this would be an easy one to implement.

One of the other issues in youth soccer is the lack of trust between clubs and parents. The impression among some [many?] parents is that the track suited ones are only in it for the salary and use the kids like tools when it suits them. The impression among some [many?] coaches is that the parents are fickle and insane, chasing the wins and club hoping when it suits them. Then there's the lack of communication generally re playing time, expectations, coach's strategy etc. Hiding this information from the parents but making it available to the clubs is going to make that worse.

I agree we have to move more away from competition and towards development at the younger ages. But I don't see any easy fix for it as long as we have the bracket system (and we need the bracket system or you'd have gold teams pounding bronze teams 20-0). If it were easy, it would have been done already (but US soccer didn't even have the guts to make its development initiatives mandatory).
 
The fix is what AYSO does for their spring league.
Play 4 or 5 games against teams that you think are the right level for you. If a team smokes everyone, they get moved up against the next group. If a team gets crushed, they get moved down. Then play 5 games in the newly shuffled group. Will take a bit of work on the part of the scheduler, but with so many games being played at Great Park, SilverLakes, Oceanside, Del Mar - the field allocation is less of an issue than when were playing at random middle schools.
In a competitive league, nobody should go undefeated. And nobody should lose every game.
Wrap it all up with an open draw tournament for 2 weeks at the end of the season.
 
In a competitive league, nobody should go undefeated. And nobody should lose every game.
.

Agree but there's usually a team out there (at least at the bottom of the silvers and bronze) that something happens (they lose their coach, they lose their top player to an injury, they have drama) and they disintegrate mid season (ending up at the bottom usually having lost everything or near everything). Coast also usually insists on every team starting in the bronze (I can see the rationale but it leads to crazy results like my son's United team really only having had 1 team in competition against them in the entire bracket and smoking bronze teams 20-0 even placing the keeper on the field and instructing them to connect before shooting, but then not being ready when they move up against the tougher silver teams in tournaments/cups) which isn't good for the bronze teams that are properly placed but getting pounded (likewise for rare teams promoted to silver or silver elite which should be even higher levels). There was one United Team in my son's age group that swept the summer tournaments 20-0 against silver, silver elite and pre-academy teams (they had like 4 kids that could pound it from the top of the 18 over the keeper's head and just took random shots from there) that it took pulling teeth to get them to start at silver (they didn't even play good soccer...just have a few good kids that can shoot accurately and hard beyond what's usual for the age expectation, but the brackets should be more about playing for appropriate levels instead of "earning" higher placement). And then you have teams like my son's team 2 years ago which take the promotion to silver but probably shouldn't...but again because the brackets are viewed more as saying how good you are (like pro teams in their league tiers, instead of being about appropriate competition) they felt obligated to accept.

With an area as big as Socal, the other problem is the driving distance and the number of teams you'd have to schedule. You could break up SoCal into various league (which is maybe one of the reasons why we already have as many leagues as we do) but then distance becomes even more of a problem as does coordination. AYSO has the advantage of having a lot of teams captured in the same location...you see the system begin to fall apart on the AllStar and Extras level as larger regions tend to have a larger pool of talent.

If the brackets are going to be about how good a team is (instead of about getting teams appropriate competition), it's probably time for a more restricted "dance with the one that brung you" rule....if you accept promotion, you can't forcibly drop more than 1 or 2 players for the first season of promotion, to prevent the upgrade dance that players and teams do every try out season.
 
If you look at SCDSL as an example - Most teams are within 30 miles of each other. And most are certainly within 30 miles of the Great Park or Silverlakes.
There does need to be a complex of fields a little further north for the Long Beach/LA/Valley teams.

And now with so many "other" (DA, ECNL, DPL, ECNL2) leagues, SCDSL could be a game changer by putting this in place. But they'll probably just add another layer of Flight 1 instead.
 
There's a tremendous piece on this month's "real sports with bryant gumbel" about youth sports in norway, with some great lessons for us all. they dominate winter olympics and have the world's best female soccer player.

until 13 years old, they don't keep score (or winners and losers in track events), they don't do "travel teams" and they don't rank anybody. it's all purely for fun.

After that, major programs, funded in large part by sports gambling(!!!)
There is something to be said for an atmosphere of peace. Keep in mind college is free.
 
The fix is what AYSO does for their spring league.
Play 4 or 5 games against teams that you think are the right level for you. If a team smokes everyone, they get moved up against the next group. If a team gets crushed, they get moved down. Then play 5 games in the newly shuffled group. Will take a bit of work on the part of the scheduler, but with so many games being played at Great Park, SilverLakes, Oceanside, Del Mar - the field allocation is less of an issue than when were playing at random middle schools.
In a competitive league, nobody should go undefeated. And nobody should lose every game.
Wrap it all up with an open draw tournament for 2 weeks at the end of the season.
Isn't this just promotion relegation? Won't coaches use their "final group" or whatever as a recruiting tool to get more good kids?
 
The fix is what AYSO does for their spring league.
Play 4 or 5 games against teams that you think are the right level for you. If a team smokes everyone, they get moved up against the next group. If a team gets crushed, they get moved down. Then play 5 games in the newly shuffled group. Will take a bit of work on the part of the scheduler, but with so many games being played at Great Park, SilverLakes, Oceanside, Del Mar - the field allocation is less of an issue than when were playing at random middle schools.
In a competitive league, nobody should go undefeated. And nobody should lose every game.
Wrap it all up with an open draw tournament for 2 weeks at the end of the season.

They do something similar in club Volleyball, one tournament a month, play 3 or matches and teams constantly move up and down the ladder based on performance. They is a beginning of season/year tournament to set the baseline.

I’m all for development in all sports, but if you are going to play or do anything competitive anything at any level or anything, don’t you need to keep score? That’s what a competition is:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/competition
 
The brackets are already extremely important to parents but I agree it's not a major fix and someone would likely create a "pay to see the scores" website for the same info but it could be a first (baby) step in sending a message that we should refrain from focusing on standings/rankings at the younger ages if we want to keep kids playing sports and develop better soccer players. A lot more could be done but this would be an easy one to implement.



The rankings do not affect the player at all. If anything it affects the parents and they take it out in the kids.
 
Isn't this just promotion relegation? Won't coaches use their "final group" or whatever as a recruiting tool to get more good kids?
Coaches/clubs will find a way to spin it regardless.
“We went undefeated in the 1st half of the season and then the league knew we had to get moved up. Took us some time to adjust to the faster pace. We just need an impact player to get to the next level.”

And on social media they’ll only post the wins and include the name of the team they beat.
 
The fix is what AYSO does for their spring league.
Play 4 or 5 games against teams that you think are the right level for you. If a team smokes everyone, they get moved up against the next group. If a team gets crushed, they get moved down. Then play 5 games in the newly shuffled group. Will take a bit of work on the part of the scheduler, but with so many games being played at Great Park, SilverLakes, Oceanside, Del Mar - the field allocation is less of an issue than when were playing at random middle schools.
In a competitive league, nobody should go undefeated. And nobody should lose every game.
Wrap it all up with an open draw tournament for 2 weeks at the end of the season.
Also add with csl doing the nonsense bronze approach kids won’t develop as they should by trashing weak opponents. It basically kills half of a year of dev. Then they go to state cup at level they shouldn’t be at too. Not hard to get a new csl team a friendly against a few teams at different levels and place them. They overthought that process just to be complete opposite of scdsl
 
It’s interesting to see how much blame coaches get on this post and very little blame is on the insane parents. I am a recovering insane parent! Lol.

With my Olders, I pushed them too much and they quit by the time they got to high school.

With my young one it’s a do-over for me. We are not doing soccer camps and no private lessons. She is getting her soccer minutes playing with boys during recess hours every day. She played basketball in the spring for 8 weeks to give her a break from soccer.

I also know that more than likely she will be done with club soccer by the time high school starts. I’m ok with this. I believe that the amount of school work kids have to do in high school is a big reason why kids quit sports.
 
It’s interesting to see how much blame coaches get on this post and very little blame is on the insane parents. I am a recovering insane parent! Lol.

With my Olders, I pushed them too much and they quit by the time they got to high school.

With my young one it’s a do-over for me. We are not doing soccer camps and no private lessons. She is getting her soccer minutes playing with boys during recess hours every day. She played basketball in the spring for 8 weeks to give her a break from soccer.

I also know that more than likely she will be done with club soccer by the time high school starts. I’m ok with this. I believe that the amount of school work kids have to do in high school is a big reason why kids quit sports.
Thanks for being honest. I tried to get mine to play in the DA, skip HS all together and move up to San Jose for better training so she could make The List :) Crazy stuff we do for our kids and maybe for us too :)
 
It’s interesting to see how much blame coaches get on this post and very little blame is on the insane parents. I am a recovering insane parent! Lol.

With my Olders, I pushed them too much and they quit by the time they got to high school.

With my young one it’s a do-over for me. We are not doing soccer camps and no private lessons. She is getting her soccer minutes playing with boys during recess hours every day. She played basketball in the spring for 8 weeks to give her a break from soccer.

I also know that more than likely she will be done with club soccer by the time high school starts. I’m ok with this. I believe that the amount of school work kids have to do in high school is a big reason why kids quit sports.

Ive noticed over the years at least in sports parents take the blame in the end for their kids just not having it. It's easier to take the fall then face reality. (not saying this is your situation)
 
I was embellishing and thinking in my own mind that's how u get your kid "in." My dd would never move to San Jose for soccer unless someone offered her 5 year contract for $1,000,000 :)
Have you seen some of these videos? Please, no one post them here. It's not the point. I find it disturbing and it's not about what the girls are trying to do trust me. It's what daddy is trying to do. My dd loves me and needs me but not around her 24/7. One of them is not even playing on a team but is looking for opportunities flying around the country. Already letting the world know she is going pro, a 10, which I guess is attacking CM that everyone wants to play and the position that seems to have the ball 50% of the time these day or more. "Lead singer or else." I hope you can sing because if you can't the band will suck! We had one show up a couple years ago to one of my dds practices. Wanted to show all the girls how the TC drills are done and how the girls drills weren't up to par. Well, let me say that didn't go over very well with the veterans who have been in charge since they were 5 with the club. I have spoken to well qualified soccer coaches who have said this is hurting all the girls. It's like all the girls are in a "social class" by league status and success. TC, DA, ECNL, YNT,ODP, ECNL II, DP or DPL, going pro, private coaches, professional video's with ads on them. The mirage is dads think this is what you have to do to go pro. I went there for a "few minutes" and tried to dream that one and it was a nightmare quickly.
 
I was embellishing and thinking in my own mind that's how u get your kid "in." My dd would never move to San Jose for soccer unless someone offered her 5 year contract for $1,000,000 :)
After she graduates HS with all her friends in HS.
 
Back
Top