planoaggie123 said:

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So one of the FC Dallas teams invited my son to join. The team is 15 kids with 1 coach. Wife went to one practice and said it seemed very informal with limited instruction. Is that ratio normal? Are Sting and Solar and Renegades smaller ratios? Leaning towards passing on the offer and just doing Vedral and his rec team until July and then maybe look at other clubs.

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All depends on the coach

planoaggie123 said:

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So one of the FC Dallas teams invited my son to join. The team is 15 kids with 1 coach. Wife went to one practice and said it seemed very informal with limited instruction. Is that ratio normal? Are Sting and Solar and Renegades smaller ratios? Leaning towards passing on the offer and just doing Vedral and his rec team until July and then maybe look at other clubs.

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What age for your child?

15 for U11-U13 seems reasonable.

For U9 and U10, feels pushing it slightly but could still see it.

If they're U6-U8, that's too many.

Son is birth year 2015....U9.....

at that age they're either playing 7v7 or maybe 9v9. 15 is a lot.

That is the feeling we get. Basically 2 squads and then will he even get much / any playing time on the games? I might just stick w/ Vedral Academy and his rec team for the next few months and try and spend more time looking at smaller clubs....

Do you know if it's 7v7 or 9v9? Based on our experience expect a couple of kids to not show for practices or games a given week.

9v9, I wouldn't have a problem with 15. 7v7 if ask if they are going to run two teams for league or keep single team. If single I'd probably look elsewhere.

Yes, 9v9 with 15 on the roster might be ok. 7v7 is definitely too much.
I would ask:

• What league(s) are you playing in
• How many on the field for that league (7v7 or 9v9)
• How do you sub
• Do you blend with other teams (have some of your teams players play on another team, or have guest players join your team).

For question 1, some clubs may be playing in multiple leagues. Like maybe an outdoor game on saturdays and a indoor or futsal game on sundays.

For question 4, this would be the one I would be concerned about. If they shuffle players around, that is a mess and would be a no-go for me. You don't get that team cohesiveness and a host of other problems. Alphaforms does that and its horrible. As far as other clubs doing that, its not really a club thing as much as two coaches getting together and doing that.... or a coach having multiple teams.

Curious, who is the coach?

That should be 7v7, so I wouldnt be surprised if they have two different outdoor leagues lined up for the Spring.

Either way, if you arent getting a good feeling from the training I would hesitate to commit before checking out other clubs. There are no contracts at this age, but once you sign up there is an investment in uniforms, registrations, etc.

Redzic would be the coach.

I'm in Colleyville with kids currently playing rec league U7 and U5. I take them to free clinics every week with Evolution Soccer. I've seen some of you reference them and just wondered what your thoughts were.

And I guess I'm looking for broader help with getting kids going, Rec vs Club and when to consider switching.

My daughter is almost 7 and has played about 5 seasons now. She will dribble around the yard with ease, using both feet like it's nothing. Even at 4 she was the only kid out there that would NEVER run around a ball to get to her dominant foot. She'll chip a ball in any direction from any angle. Dribbles really well and has always had soft feet. It drives me insane because in a game she basically refuses to engage. Just runs around the blob watching everyone else play.

Very frustrating because I don't know if it's something she'll grow out of, or something I can help with. Like most kids she doesn't want to hear it from me. the Evo clinics seem really good and she learns a lot, but as soon as they start doing more 1 on 1, or drills to promote competition she completely shrinks and sometimes gets really upset.

She seems to have fun and want to be on the team, so I've just been letting it play out and don't want to be "that guy."

Element_AG said:

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Much like the layers of play have multiplied over the past 5-10 years, or muddied may be a better description, so have the sources of information. txsoccer.net used to be the Texags of North Texas Soccer, but it has largely been abandoned and now most people follow some facebook groups, most prominent being North Texas Soccer v. The World, but in my opinion it has become flooded with ads and other nonsense.

I've been coaching in NTX for 19 years, having coached both boys and girls. I also have four kids of my own who have all gone through competitive soccer in NTX.

I wish I could give a brief overview, but honestly it would take pages to break it all down. Here's what I would say for boys. Prior to U11 (2014s and younger) competitive soccer is known as 'academy'. There is no long-term commitment and you can generally pay month-to-month for training. Beginning at U11 (which will be 2014s next Summer), 'select' or 'club' soccer begins, and you sign a contract with a club to play for a year (July to the following June).

With academy, you should be looking for a good coach that will develop the players touch and skill. I would strongly encourage you not to worry about being on the best team or winning. Vedral is great, but at the academy level you should be getting a lot of the same stuff in training. There's no need to wait until he catches up. Find a good coach that has a spot for him on any team and start training.

At U11, the priority should change. Training should be much more team-focused. I like to say academy is for training the player, select is for training the team. This is when I start telling parents that we can't focus on individual skills and touch in practice, so they need to continue that training but they need to get it outside of our team practice. I strongly encourage all of my players to do separate individual skill training (it can be at home on their own, with a private skills coach, or a place like Vedral, Salient, etc.).

At U11/12, where the team plays really doesn't matter. It can be Plano or Arlington, Classic League, NPL, RPL, Pre-ECNL, etc. Parents will get caught up with wanting their kid to be on a Classic D1 or Pre-ECNL team, but again good coaching is the most important thing.

At U13/14, you want to start thinking about being on a more competitive team if they are serious about the sport and are starting to think about wanting to play in high school or even college. It can be Classic League, NPL, MLS Next, or any level of ECNL (ECNL, ECRL, or ECNL-RL-NTX). This is just because you want your son playing at a more competitive level than RPL, Plano, etc.

At U15/16, if they are still loving the game and want to play at the next level (thinking more college here), I would strongly recommend MLS Next or any level of ECNL.

Of course, this could all change by the time your son reaches this level. Nobody ever thought all the different leagues that have tried to come in and chip away at Classic would ever be successful. So many tried and failed. ECNL is really the first to do it successfully and they have surpassed Classic now. Here's how I would break down the leagues on the boys side currently.

1. ECNL
2. ECNL-RL-Texas (known as ECRL) /ECNL-RL-NTX (on the girls side, ECRL is definitely a step up from ECNL-RL-NTX; on the boys side, ECNL-RL-NTX is more competitive week to week)
3. MLS-Next (the FC Dallas MLS Next teams are good and can certainly play with 1 and 2 above; the other MLS-Next team is maybe Classic D2).
4. Classic D1
5. Classic D2
6. NPL-NTX
7. NPL-Red River
8. Classic D3, Plano D1, Arlington D1, RPL, TCSL, etc.

NPL-NTX is run by the same guys that run ECNL NTX, and their aim is to get to #4 on the list. Basically, they intend to be a step down from ECNL and possibly even a feeder to ECNL some day.

My focus as a coach has always been to get my players to college if that's what they want to do. To do that, by U15/16 they need to be playing in a competitive league so that they are accepted to and show well during Showcase tournaments, which is where most of college recruiting happens. For boys, this really begins to happen during the U16/17 years.

For others reading this, a lot of this is the same for girls, but there are some slight differences and other leagues for girls not mentioned above. Also, for girls, colleges also start to look a little earlier as recruiting is more competitive. That's because there are something like 1500 colleges that have women's soccer, and about 800 that have men's soccer.

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Bringing this back up. Element, great post. Do you have recs for individual skill coaches in either Frisco or Prosper areas?

Check out elevate in prosper.

380Ag said:

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Check out elevate in prosper.

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I second this.
If your looking for a good one on one coach there, look at Franklin.

Tryout season is upon us ladies and gentlemen. Choose wisely.

My daughter has been offered another spot on our 10G ECNL team. So although we'll still "try out" the stress is a little less this year.

Nice. How did season with Dani go?

She resigned in March out of the blue. Apparently discussions started on next years team assignments and she didn't like the outcome and resigned on the spot. Ben Williams took over for her and we couldn't be happier. He's great.

Element_AG said:

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If the coach is good and your son is improving, that's exactly what I'd recommend. I know it can be hard when there are all these leagues/teams that are a 'higher level', but if he's enjoying it and getting better there's no rush at 11 to find something new.

As others have mentioned, there's nothing wrong with doing research now, finding some targets you may be interested in, and then when open practices begin in the May time frame take him to some different training/tryouts and see what you guys think.

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following up on this, we attend an open practice with a very good team that plays in an elite league and my son fit right in and did well. he was extremely nervous beforehand but he absolutely loved it, much different level of intensity and competition than his current squad's practices. its basically a team of kids who are as good as him or slightly better instead of 3-4 really good players mixed in with a bunch of kids who are just not at his level in skill or athleticism.

our next practice with current squad should be pretty eye-opening i think. he already seems to be understanding that it might be time to move on, will be interesting to hear what he thinks after comparing the practices back to back.

That's nuts. She did the exact same thing at FCD. Hopefully the new coach is a big step up for y'all.

He is. Has won national championships with Solar in the past. He's also the ECNL Director at Sting so he has great connections and is a great coach to boot.

We're trying to figure out our next move as well. My girl just started the club world last year and has now had a year in, and with a great coach. He's already hinted to me that my kiddo probably wouldn't make the team next season. While it stinks for my kid, I hope it pushes her a bit to work outside of the regular practices for next season. They may have enough for a second team, which I hope is the case. I prefer this coach and the parents are awesome.

The entire team has grown up together and we were the outsiders, but meshed well. I didn't push my kid to do anything outside of the normal practices, but did offer and suggest. The amount of games, practice, travel etc was all new this past year and I didn't want to burn her out. She's not far off from being on the same level as the majority of the team, and I would say is better than some. She definitely has improved and has room for improvement.

Should I seek out another team or let the cards fall where they may? She has signed up for speed & agility classes all Summer. That was her idea because she knew she needed to get faster. So she's starting to see the light. She'll be in 5th grade next year, so I'm still not going take away the joy of playing the game that she loves to play...meaning make her go to private classes when she doesn't want to etc. I think not making the team my be a blessing, but I hope it doesn't crush her spirit.

finding a skills coach my kids (around the same ages as yours) really liked was a total game changer for us. they actually prefer skills to team practices most of the time.