Picture this, your son or daughter has just played their first season of soccer with a recreation league. He or she is scoring lots of goals, is faster than the other players, and even kicks harder than most of the other kids. You get excited and see more and more parents compliment your child’s skills. Does this mean that they are ready for a higher level of competition?
Are they ready for Club Soccer?
This is a tough question for many parents. It basically comes down to the child, whether they enjoy the sport enough to continue and compete.
As a parent myself to a one year old baby girl, I hope my daughter grows and shares the same passion for soccer the way I do one day. Throughout my experience as a player and coach, I have witnessed parents push their child to compete and train to a point of discontent. The child grows to dislike the sport and only participates by force. There should be constant communication between the parent and child on how things are going and what their goals are.
These types of conversations should be every few weeks to make sure there is a balance.
When your child gets scouted, or when you the parent thinks they are ready for academy or club level training do your research. Parents need to do their homework and see if they are able to really commit to that level of training. Lots of parents have the mentality of treating club soccer like a recreation level team and show up to training or games when its convenient.
Willing to go the Extra Mile?
There are a ton of “sacrifices” on the parent’s end as well as the child’s effort and commitment to the team to be there. Parents must really ask themselves can they make 2 practices minimum a week and possibly 1 or 2 games each weekend as well as traveling long distances for the games. Am I ready for club soccer as a parent?
This takes a toll financially as well as sacrificing time away from the seasonal lifestyle you might have if you have had your child in a rec league. Are you willing to commit? If you and your family have said yes so far, then that’s awesome! If not, you may want to evaluate your current position and give it some time.
Once again, am I ready for club soccer?
How young is too young?
How young can my child start playing at a club level? Nowadays, there are some clubs or academies that start playing as young as U7 (6/7 year olds). I have personally seen some U7 teams play better than some U15 teams, the talent is amazing!
This is not the norm but the chances are much better for your child to becoming a well rounded player if they start playing at a high level very young. The best thing to do is to have them start playing organized soccer at a young age, maybe AYSO, the YMCA or at your local recreational park. The cost is much lower than club training and the kids just go out there and run around together burning some energy. But if you are looking to have them start training and learning the game much sooner there are clinics club teams offer so they can start learning.
Great Coaching
I have the philosophy of educating the youngest players on my U6 team to know the fundamentals. If you have a great coach that knows what he or she is doing and you are seeing results in your child, stay where you are at. But if you feel that your child could be learning more and the coach is not as qualified to develop your child, by all means please find a new coach for your child.
If your child does not develop into a great player after playing youth soccer after 4-5 years, you can not blame the coach, you must blame yourself for not looking for better training.
Where do I look?
How do you really know your child is ready for club soccer? The only way to find out is to have them go and tryout for a local club team. There are multiple levels where your child can play at. For example in Southern California, there is the Coast Soccer League where they have Bronze, Silver, Gold and Premier.
There is a higher level league focused on more of a developmental approach called Southern California Developmental Soccer League or SCDSL that has 3 tiers. You have flight 1 which is the best, flight 2 which is pretty competitive and flight 3 which is also pretty competitive but focused much more on making the team competitive.
Now if your child does not make the cut for a local club, ask if they can be a practice player for the time being until they improve to possibly make that team or prepare for another tryout with a different club team. The most important thing is to get your foot in the door, if you and your child want to really improve and compete you must be willing to put in the work to see results. Some kids are extremely talented, but most of the professional players you see today just worked harder than the most talented players growing up to get where they are at today.
Make sure they are happy
I will leave you with this, finding a club team is not easy. Find a team and club where your child is happy. Make sure the coach does a good job to keep the team chemistry and develops your child. There will always be a better coach, but what are you willing to sacrifice for your child to be on that team? It always comes down to sacrifice, I am truly grateful for my parents who did make this sacrifice for my brother and I that gave us the opportunity to play club soccer. Not sure how they did it, but they made it happen for us and thank them for everything they continue to do.
Join us!
If you live in the Los Angeles area and looking for club level training for your child, let us help you. Ole Soccer can help find you a team or if your child is between the ages of 3-13 we do have teams available for them to come out and develop with. Our focus is on the youngest ones starting at age 3 to show them the fundamentals that go a long way.
As a parent myself who’s son is 6yrs old and In rec team and with ole soccer clinics I can actually say I’ve seen the difference from the beginning. I don’t know if he’s ready for a club yet but for now he’s just having fun. We’ve kept him in both leagues because we know he likes to practice and play. Not worried much about him getting into a club yet because of his age. We’ll jump that hurdle when we get there. We do talk to him before after his practice and games and we get the same answer “I love to practice and play soccer mom” and I can see that he does. Sometimes I don’t feel like taking him to a practice because I get home tired from work but this kid knows the days he practice with both his coaches. What in trying to say I guess is that we don’t push him to play or to practice. he just loves the sport. Period! I can’t emphasize this enough ole soccer clinics you guys are awesome! I’ve told you this before and I’ll tell you again my sons confidence level self esteem are through the ROOF!!!
Thank you so much for your input Sofia! This means a lot to us and what we try to do is provide quality training for everyone. We remember when Alvaro first started training with us, we could tell he loved it. Now we see his self esteem, skills and knowledge of the game at another level. He will only improve and we want to help him get to the next level. We appreciate you making the effort to get him to practices and games, I know he does as well. Thanks again and we look forward to developing all the kids!