re: I know now why USA soccer sucks IRT the rest of the world

7-9 are Academy ages, where competition isn't valued as highly as quality touches. 10-12 begins the competing theory and training, and U13 is where kids really start being judged against each other. I know there are exceptions to that, but you are slap crazy to think they aren't intensely trained from 10-13. I'd say it's the most competitive sport in that age bracket period. Kids start absolutely separating themselves when they put it all together and genetics starts playing a role. The best kids get better faster and faster and good luck to kids who don't 'live it'.

I think if there's any weak development age it's Jr high and high school, these kids want to play for their team and often the competition is a shadow of what they were competing against at club level U13 and U14. If you haven't been discovered and picked up by then you'll have trouble competing against the European players who come over here on soccer scholarships. Small colleges have an amazing number of Europeans that are great ballers. They AR our club tournaments and are usually great guys.

quote:

---

Football is a lot more structured than soccer. You can't take everything from football and apply it to soccer. Soccer requires a lot more thought and creativity from each individual player than most sports.

---

Bingo. Over-coaching is a major problem. Yes, you have to drill the techniques and mechanics of the game, but the creativity and understanding of play is not something that can be "yelled" into someone.

I think OP is right in the sense that lack of parental knowledge of soccer is huge. I was on a run in my neighborhood yesterday and saw four different dads outside playing teaching sports to their 5-9 year old sons. Two of them were instructing how to throw a baseball, one shoot a basketball, one how to run routes for football.

Just like school success has a huge correlation with the emphasis and exposure a child has to books and academic thinking at home, athletic success has a huge correlation with being introduced, encouraged, and taught at home in formative years.

The first big soccer generation in the U.S. are probably in their early 30’s now and just starting to have kids reach youth sports age. I’m hopeful that those dads will be exposing their kids to soccer, dribbling with them in the yard, taking them to parks to practice shooing, that will provide a skill and tactical foundation for more formal coaches to build on the way we see in other sports

quote:

---

I also think if access to watching European leagues was around when I was younger, I would have understood the game sooner and see how professionals play and think on the pitch.

---

Coaching a high school team, I wish my players would watch professional soccer. Seeing how the game is meant to be played and the way tactics work when done properly is such a great learning tool. They just won't watch, and I don't get it. But it's also a small town in Tennessee. The general soccer IQ is rec soccer long ball.

quote:

---

They just won't watch, and I don't get it.

---

When I was in high school, the only soccer I would watch is USMNT games and the World Cup. Although that was also about the only soccer we got on TV.