Which is pretty much my stance. But what chaps my ass is this belief that you'll never play college or D1 if you don't play travel ball. It's pure horseshit.
I have to disagree. The Dutch arguably have the best youth developmental coaching in the world. Johan Cryuff, a Dutch soccer legend, built Barcelona's youth system in the image of the Dutch developmental system, and I'm pretty sure that has been a huge influence around Spain. As it is, Barcelona has been the best club over the last few years, and the best three international teams are Spain, the Netherlands, and Germany. I'm confident in saying the excellence of all those teams is largely due to their youth system, and with the possible exception of Germany, they all use a similar system. Germany changed their youth development program 10-15 years ago, and I would bet it's similar to that in the Netherlands, but I'm not sure.
That's fine. I'm not going to argue about a sport I care about once every four years. Just an observation.
Your observation was accurate, but I think that is an unrelated issue. The lack of a "sixth sense" has to do with our elite athletes simply not being soccer players. That is my take.
My little sister was told she had to play on a travel team if she had any hope of playing on the middle school team, by her coach. He flat-out said if a girl wasn't willing to play on a travel team, then they weren't committed enough to play for him.
I have had my issues with know-it-all travel team dads that think they are HOF material because they watch the sport on TV. They feel this makes them an expert and entitled to tell me and other coaches what they would do. If you don't like the way we run our team, tske your kid and go home.
I think this problem is overstated. While it would be nice to have more elite athletes playing for the national team, the past world cup confirmed my belief that speed isn't our biggest issue. I feel like most here either won't understand or care about much of what I say if I elaborate so I'll leave it at that.
I would be most interested. I am writing about soccer quite a bit these days and would love to know your thoughts. Feel free to PM.
Pins and needles over here, brah. Spill it. I think most sports fans, even if not soccer fans, would love to be able to shove it in the world's face once every 4 years.
Name one good communist soccer team ever. Go. The irony is that managing selfishness is one of the biggest challenges with a good team.
i care. elaborate if only for me. i played travel, high school, indoor, and AYSO soccer. i played year round. travel in the fall, indoor during the winter, and high school during the fall. i can say without question that the most competitive soccer i played was on my club team. i had a family member who coached his son's travel team and a family friend who coached his son's travel team as well. i could have played on their team's if i would have made the age requirements or lived near them, respectively. when i was a senior in high school, i quit the high school team because it wasn't fun anymore. it had turned political and it was clear i wasn't going to play for the varsity team anymore. freshman year was the only season that was fun and that was because we made it all the way to the state finals. i played AYSO with a bunch of friends and it was the most fun we ever had. you can't play against elite players with elite training in high school soccer. this new thing it what it is because high school soccer is what it is.
Their 74 team beat west germany (in west germany) and made second round of world cup. That's all I've got.
I agree. Look at basketball. We are the best in the world and the reason is because there are kids playing all day on the playgrounds, being creative and not being restricted within a specific program. If we want to develop soccer into a world power, go play with the Mexican kids in the park, not put them on some stupid ass travel team that plays politics and values winning over skill development. My son is a pretty good soccer player and I did a cursory look into the travel team stuff. It's ridiculous. Thousands of dollars, shit parents living vicariously through their kids and it's not like you're getting Jose Mourhino to coach your kid, anyway. Total scam.
