Figured I should spend a moment writing about the soccer drama going on recently. There’s not much I can do about it, and Matthew isn’t primarily affected by it….but, almost every conversation I have with a soccer mom or dad turns into a discussion about what’s going on.
So what’s going on? The explanation requires some explanation…..I’m not sure if I’ve mentioned this here before or not, but, Matthew plays U10; that’s the team with all the boys who are Under 10 years old as of
August 1, 2011. You can not ‘play down’, on a U9 team, under any circumstance. You can play up, on a U11 team, if you are good enough and you choose to. That’s essentially what Matthew did when he played with the CASL team I coached.
Many clubs are very strict about this, if you are U10 you play U10…..the clubs we played last fall for the most part were strict about that, the club Matthew plays for now is pretty strict about it at the older ages. But right now? There were at least six U10s playing up as U11s in the fall.
You may have a few questions at this point: Could Matthew play up? Certainly….he’s big enough size wise and he’s good enough talent wise. I’ve always thought it better for Matthew to learn to dominate in his age group AND Suzanne and I are very happy with Matthew’s coach. Why do other kids play up? I think, for most of them, it’s that they started with that age group when they started travel soccer and have just continued to play with that group. A few of them play up because, in my mind, their parents want to be able say that their kid plays up.
There’s two other things I want to point out…1) having all of these kids play up dilutes the talent on Matthew’s team….it’s one of the reasons I think we fared poorly last fall, those clubs had their 12-13 best U10’s, and our club has pushed/allowed 6 of our U10s to play U11 and 2) the worst part is that the U11 teams just aren’t that good….Matthew’s team dominates the 2nd team and has played the 1st team four times…we’re 3-1.
The beginning of the drama I have no real issue with; one set of parents decided the best thing for their U10 was to come back down for U11 to U10. I’m sure if their son was playing on the first team they wouldn’t be making this choice, but, he’s on the 2nd team, and they asked and he started practicing with us in January. I don’t have an issue with this, in fact, I’ve been trying to get good friends of ours to do the same thing with their son (a U10 who plays U11 but is on the 2nd team); I think we play better competition and we’re a better team. So, he’s practicing with us and I think he’s doing pretty well; our coach has him playing more forward/midfield instead of the mid/defense that his U11 coach had him at.
So now our team has one extra player, and at mid-year evaluations the coach has decided to have a few players move back and forth between the the U10 1st team and U10 2nd team. I don’t like this because it hurts team continuity (and I’ve said this in the past) but I understand why the coach does it, it allows a boy to play with the 1st team and you can see how he plays with better teammates and it allows a player to move down and perhaps regain the confidence to dominate if he is feeling overwhelmed against the better competition of the 1st team.
So, the coach has made the decision to move four players up and down. No parent is going to be happy hearing their son is going o have to play down, and when I heard the names I was ok with three of them but was a little surprised by the fourth. I haven’t seen the one kid at a practice since the announcement, and the other parent has been understandably disappointed but has resolved to approach it with their son as a challenge to show the coach he was wrong.
Third part of the drama is the part I have the most issues with….the U11 coach, for reasons that make no sense to me, has decided to invite two of our U10s to play with the U11s in the third indoor session. I’m not sure why he chose these two kids….I guess the think that gets me the most that if he made this decision because of his keen evaluation of soccer talent (the coach is the owner of the club) than I respectfully disagree; the two kids he chose aren’t even in the top 4 by my thinking. What these two kids do do, at times, is score goals if they can get the ball and maybe make a move….they are largely disinterested in doing much else on the field at other times.
I’m not sure what I would have done if Matthew would have been asked; my understanding was that the offer is only for the indoor session so we probably would have done that to play more, but, under no circumstance would Matthew have gone permanently up to U11….we’re very happy with his coach.
So now you have the rest of the team going “Why them?”…and now, last Monday, another U10-playing-U11 decides that they want to come down and play U10. Matthew’s first impression of this kid wasn’t all that kind (Dad, he’s cocky) and I remember when the first kid that came down played with us in 2011…he was that way “Oooh, I’m a U10 playing U11 and I’m better than you guys”; it took a little bit of time with us to stop that attitude”. And rumor has that this switch may now be permanent, two go up, two come down.
Every practice now, almost every conversation, is about this player movement and the impact of the moves or if they are going to happen. I think the club is just outright stupid to have allowed all of this to happen, you’ve made two or three parents happier but pissed off at least that many other sets of parents and given a negative impression to that many more parents.
Impact on Matthew (since I guess that what’s really matters)? Limited, I think the team chemistry suffers as we adjust., Best-case? The two U-10s that went up for indoor come back and the two new kids stay; to me, that pushes two of the not-so-good kids off the roster to the 2nd team. Worst-case? All four play but nobody goes down and everyone loses a little bit of playing time.
Just don’t understand why it’s even happening at all…..
