Congrats on the hardware.
Weird deal re not playing. TSC and WSA both had multiple teams playing both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. They played soccer all weekend in Dallas as well….and yes, it was brutal.
Youth soccer club
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Weird deal re not playing. TSC and WSA both had multiple teams playing both Saturday and Sunday afternoons. They played soccer all weekend in Dallas as well….and yes, it was brutal.
Apparently the health dept. had some say in it. My wife did some research and when that figure gets above 90 it's recommended that for every 15 minutes of work/play/physical exertion, that you spend 45 minutes indoors in cool down mode.
Curious if the Health Dept will allow high school football to be played this Thursday and Friday if that’s the case.
Again it's more the wet bulb temp index vs temperature and heat index is what I've been told. In he research my wife did she said for football, when that measure reaches 90, players should not practice in pads and get a water break of 10 minutes for every 15 minutes of work. One of the ways to combat that is delay the starts of games until 8:00pm. Not ideal for those teams playing on Thursday of this week (like Union) but a lot safer. And to be honest, I'd be more worried about the referee crew because if you've paid attention to HS referees in OK, they're not always in peak condition.
It's a 'newly used index' that we have played football in for years over the temps they are recommending. Gives them something to throw fits about, act as if we've never had temps/weather conditions like this before, and imply it is 'all' because of climate change.
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It's not new though. My understanding is the military has been using it for many years. My wife's company used it while working on a project about 25 years ago when they were outside all summer digging up toxic sludge (they were also apparently in some sort of hazmat suits). I really just want to know what the measurements consider and how they arrive at the index number.
Yes, that's why I put the above phrase in, because the index is not new.
It is just being 'newly used' by most consumer based weather reports now. I thought that was self evident in the way I phrased it.
The Covid effect should be diminishing over the next year or two. How does the portal decrease the number of net scholarships available in women’s soccer ? Aren’t these girls just moving around and not adding to the overall net pool available ?
Huffy, I’ve been meaning to ask you. You obviously have a very critical opinion of youth soccer. Most of it is justified imo. Can you briefly describe your experience and how you came to such a strong disdain for the current landscape ? Asking because I’m starting the college and national recruitment starts in earnest for my kid this year.
They are going to have to quit offering as many incoming transfers and recruiting HS players across all sports eventually. If not, then they are going to diminish the talent pool quickly. Not all of them will go to a junior college or d2 school and get picked up from there by a D1 program.
This situation could provide a 5 or so year dearth of talent in the pro and the college landscape if they aren't careful. Not all kids will find a way to get to school and/or be discovered there. I feel sorry for the kids who have to deal with covid and athletic scholarships during this period. I'll be interested to see how many Coleton Smiths we gain over the next couple of years.
The end of covid 6th years, and tightening of transfer rules should bring this on quicker though. The transfer pool should go down, and the high school recruits taken should go up in the next couple of years. Hopefully it reaches something like normalcy by '26 at the latest.
Often times its just feelings and not a fact based inquiry, but if you talk to parents or youth soccer coaches of kids who are seniors and maybe would have gotten an offer in 2015, but didn't get one the last two years, they will tell you that the portal is giving older girls second and third and sometimes fourth chances at different schools whereas before maybe they only got one second chance and that was all they deserved.
The perception for some of those folks is that coaches will lean towards girls who are older and more physically developed, but have attitude, grade, or teammate problems, rather than developing talent right out of high school. So at least for the next couple of years, until the CoVId thing plays out, elite high school talent will still get calls, but girls who are on the cusp of FBS ability and might develop into fine players once they arrive on campus with professional coaching, are not being given opportunities. Instead, those roster spots are going to grad transfers. That's the theory anyway.
Probably a little more of my soul than you needed to see. But what you are going through is a straight up scam. And way too many parents fall into the trap of allowing youth soccer performance to become the measure of how they did as a parent or their social standing in the neighborhood. It becomes less about the girl and what’s best for her ten years from now, whether she’s still playing or not, and more about parents insecurities. Or worse, high functioning parents who have succeeded at everything in life up to that point and expect youth soccer to be something they will succeed at and therefore the daughter must succeed. The idea of an average result is abhorrent. But the reality is there are a lot of exceptional and well compensated doctors who were average soccer players.
That’s part of the monetized manipulation. Don’t give into it. Some parents know exactly what is happening and still fall for it.
What’s tough for many parents is when your kid really wants something and is willing to sacrifice to achieve that objective it’s hard not to support that kid and do everything you can as a parent to help her go as far as she can go. I would remind all parents how important school is for those kids who aspire to play in college. Grades are a significant part of the process.
Exactly. That’s one of the most important points in that video. And I talk with kids and their parents about it afterwards and point that out in particular.
Jimmy wasn’t recruited out of high school. He had to apply and try out for a G5 school. Where he was good enough to start.
He wanted to play on the best team in America and was good enough to start for UCLA immediately, but they STILL were only interested in him only because he made good grades at the G5 school and even then they didn’t give him a scholarship (for athletics).
We started ECNL league play yesterday with win over TSC. Next up is Real Colorado and Colorado Rapids over the Labor Day weekend. Four Colorado teams were added to the Texas league for the 2023-2024. More travel….go figure.
So my son played in a scrimmage for the 05/06 RL team at Blitz. Turns out the #1 GK for that team is playing football for Jenks this season and the #2 is still recovering from injury he picked up last week. I told my son to ask the coach if he was needed for next week's games in Memphis and the response we got is "I'd like him to be on standby in case "name" can't go". WTF. My wife is pretty pissed. We're not driving to Memphis if he's not guaranteed playing time. We told the coach that. Not to mention, my son is playing some of the best soccer of his life right now and in that scrimmage against another area RL team, he kept a clean sheet and got his team out on the counter several times (something the aforementioned GK cannot do b/c he doesn't see the field very well nor does he make decisions based on what he sees as quickly as my son. The difference...the kid is 6'4" vs my son at 5'11. My wife sent a text response to his text that basically said she wants the coach to show the same commitment to my son as my son shows. Case in point, my son rearranged his Saturday work schedule (on Friday evening) to be at this scrimmage because the coach needed him there.
Right now we're signed up to do games as part of the WSA Labor Day tournament. We told the coach once we get game assignments for that, we're committed to doing that. He's more than welcome to check with us on Saturday if the GK can't go to see if my son is available but we're not going to put our lives on hold. Different story if it's OKC or local, we can make those work easily enough. We're talking a 6-7 hr drive to the east side suburbs of Memphis.
Is it bad I hope this team gets lit up next weekend?
Right now we're signed up to do games as part of the WSA Labor Day tournament. We told the coach once we get game assignments for that, we're committed to doing that. He's more than welcome to check with us on Saturday if the GK can't go to see if my son is available but we're not going to put our lives on hold. Different story if it's OKC or local, we can make those work easily enough. We're talking a 6-7 hr drive to the east side suburbs of Memphis.
Is it bad I hope this team gets lit up next weekend?
I know I cannot be 100% objective, but I do have a coaching license, have been through the GK coaching sessions, have observed pro- GKs teach my son and others and have gotten some honest evaluations from coaches. My son is the better overall GK. Maybe in 1 area he might not be considered the better GK and that would be shot stopping but I can't 100% say the taller kid is better at that. My son gets to a ton of shots because he simply reads plays well and has great GK instincts, part of that intellectual side. I've actually had 2 coaches recently tell me they think his soccer IQ is one of the best they've seen. So I honestly think over the course of a season the other kid might make 1 extra save over my son all things being equal (which they rarely are because when they've both played games the other keeper usually starts and gets a fresh legged 11 while my son comes in the 2nd half and they may be drained. But for all that, my son actually prevents chances and can kickstart the counter with his distribution. Over the course of his last 5 outings with these teams, he's given up 3 goals. 2 were direct results of 1 particular defender making absolutely egregious mistakes and letting the attacker walk in. No GK is winning 100% of their 1 v 1's. By contrast, the other GK gave up 2goals in his last outing in the 1st 5 minutes before getting injured and my son taking over (and playing lights out for a side who was gassed in the heat).
Weird thing is the 3 GKs in the age group are likely the starters at Jenks, Bixby, and Union come the Spring.
Me too. And it's not really rooting against the kid or teams, it's more against the coach and his arrogance and his inability to be completely honest and objective with some players he's been coaching for a number of years, including the GK. He's got a number of kids on that team he keeps up there and plays a lot of minutes despite them not being the best players for those positions. Blitz really screwed things up a few years ago when they brought the Highlanders team in to join the group. This coach was the coach of the Highlanders group (and the GK was his keeper) and they decided not to put together an A team and B team and instead kept the 2 intact and they ended up with 2 average teams. The same is happening with the addition of the Eklund "Sheffield" team. There are some players from that side who should be moved up and some players from the existing Blitz teams should be moved down there. But again, this is the same problem with every club. No one wants to tell a kid to move down for fear of losing that kid's parents' money.
The height factor on the girls side might be more significant than the boys side. The difference between 5’5” and 5’8” from a college coach’s perspective is night and day. Often the telling factor between D1 and D2 or lower. Regardless of the quality of the player. Club coaches are biased as well. See it all the time.
It’s not so much height, as it is leg and arm length. Particularly for girls, tall girls tend to mean longer legs. Especially at the defender/6/7/11 position. While height gives you leverage and typically greater strength, especially in the air and set pieces, what height really gives a defender is the ability to insert a limb as a disruptive tool to regain possession or to legally obstruct an offensive player from advancing the ball. And it’s a game of inches and two inches can make a huge difference. Then you want to look at their core strength ability to burst. Doesn’t matter how tall you are if you can’t get there. Then mindset. Will she stick her head in the fan when it’s flying? All of these together gives you a pretty good defensive frame that shorter strikers with lower centers of gravity aren’t going to be able to dribble or run around. And that’s the catch right? Tall enough to defend opposing defenders on set pieces, compact enough not to get beaten by the mighty mouses at 9 and 10.
It’s like Paul Pressey. He wasn’t unusually tall. And being tall wasn’t what made him an elite defender off the press. But he did have an unusually long wing span and an uncommon and unpredictable explosive first step, even off his back foot. And a mind set to be disruptive.
Jay DeMerit, same thing. Long legs for the frame. Explosive uncommon burst from core. 100% on the mindset.
Coaches looking for height in strikers in the American girls game should be treated as suspect. That tells me they aren’t really knowledgeable or maybe interested in really coaching football. They are looking for a route one kick and run athletic contest. Avoid.
Well of course. That little difference may be the difference between being able to cover the bar or not. I understand the difference between 6'4 and 5'11 and most of it is perception. I assure you my son can cover the bar. He also does a better job of getting to the high balls than the taller kid simply b/c he moves his feet better and reads plays and makes decisions a lot faster. For instance in one of the scrimmages a couple weeks ago, a ball gets crossed in to the near post. it wasn't a great cross and was sort of lobbed in a high and loopy arc. Tall GK waits and then goes after it but loses a 50/50 battle to a forward on a header for a goal. I 100% know my son would have actually beat the attacker to the ball and raised his arms above his head to snag it out of the air. If my son grows another inch or 2 then there is no question in anyone's mind on this. (There is family evidence that he'll grow another 2-3 inches after his 18th birthday; apparently the men on my wife's side of the family enjoy growth spurts in early adulthood. Her brother grew 2 inches after his 18th birthday and she has a couple of cousins who have grown 4 and 5 inches after their 18th birthdays).
Again, the actual evidence of watching both play games against the same teams would cause anyone watching to conclude my son was the better overall GK both from the technical side of goalkeeping and the instinct side. IMO, Matt Turner is a great goalkeeper because he has a superior GK instinct about him. I don't think he is the most technically sound GK in the US pool (that actually is Slonina), but combined with superior athleticism, Turner's instinct for the game give him a leg up right now.
So my son has freakishly long arms and big hands for his height. His feet are also stupid big for his body type. Leads me to believe he still has a couple of inches in growth in him. And when you are able to put 6'1" on a college recruiting questionnaire vs his current 5'11", people tend to look a little longer at your tape and profile.
HAHAHA. One of my son's old club coaches and now an assistant at Union is expecting his first son with his wife and someone asked him what position he is going to play and the answer was "Anywhere but keeper" 😂
I been found out lolY'all quit talking trash on LEC!
So the politics and drama around my son and which team he is actually playing for continues on. Last night at 8pm we found out he'll be going to Arkansas this weekend for games with the 2nd team. We hadn't planned on this so my wife lit into the coaches about this. Because now she is taking him this weekend (I'm down with COVID) .
Last weekend, the 6'5 kid gave up 4 in 2 games. 1 was a really late equalizer he butchered. The 2nd game was 3 GA in. 3-2 loss. 1 was an awful goal against and a mistake by the keeper. Anyone analyzing the film would question his positioning on many of the chances against. Like no one taught him about angles and where he needs to be when the ball is in certain places. Most GK coaches would tell you my son's positioning is something they don't worry about with him, it's something he has done well since he started playing the position at 9. Thanks to a friend's dad who came out and taught him about the angles and "his arc" to be able to cover post to post. Whatever, I'm going to continue to hope the big kid gets lit up until someone is honest with the assessments and they acknowledge the only reason they think he's ahead of my son is he's tall.
Last weekend, the 6'5 kid gave up 4 in 2 games. 1 was a really late equalizer he butchered. The 2nd game was 3 GA in. 3-2 loss. 1 was an awful goal against and a mistake by the keeper. Anyone analyzing the film would question his positioning on many of the chances against. Like no one taught him about angles and where he needs to be when the ball is in certain places. Most GK coaches would tell you my son's positioning is something they don't worry about with him, it's something he has done well since he started playing the position at 9. Thanks to a friend's dad who came out and taught him about the angles and "his arc" to be able to cover post to post. Whatever, I'm going to continue to hope the big kid gets lit up until someone is honest with the assessments and they acknowledge the only reason they think he's ahead of my son is he's tall.
Good luck this weekend. Must be incredibly frustrating to see your kid outperform his counterpart yet remain behind him in the club depth chart. This is one reason I like clubs who pay their coaches of older level teams in part on team performance or at least give bonuses based on meeting certain team performances. I would not apply to academy level as coaching should be 100% about development.
It's going to be interesting what happens because these are FCL games and since both the 2nd and 3rd teams at Blitz in this age group are in the same league/bracket, there are limitations what they can do in terms of rosters. Not sure why the other kid isn't making the trip or why the kid from Jenks hasn't suited up yet (other than the fact that he is playing football for Jenks too which seems less than ideal for him to be playing club soccer). Whatever...hopefully my son and his team play this weekend. This division of FCL should be a "nicer" one than the Tx division he played in a couple years ago where it was a side league for a lot of the ECNL sides down there.
Son's team lost to a Sporting AR team yesterday 3-0. The first half was one of the worst halves of soccer I've seen from this group, time after time allowing 1 v 1s with the keeper. And some really bad defending on set pieces as the 2nd came from a cross where no one seemed to notice a kid standing at the back post...not a defender with in 5 yds. 3rd goal was the same...kid standing in the middle of the 6 and no defender marking him.
2nd half was a better half. More focus, more possession, more drive for the ball. At least they made the GK make a couple of saves. My son actually played pretty well considering how lackadaisical his team was for 45 minutes. It's tough to convince coaches when they see the score line though.
2nd half was a better half. More focus, more possession, more drive for the ball. At least they made the GK make a couple of saves. My son actually played pretty well considering how lackadaisical his team was for 45 minutes. It's tough to convince coaches when they see the score line though.
I’m watching a girl’s game now. High school varsity. I always like to play the game: “Name the coach’s kid.” Took me two guesses this time. Passes to nowhere twice and starts complaining to the assistant ref about infringement all down the sideline.
My daughter is four games into league play. Mixed results thus far. Opened with a win over TSC. Next traveled to Colorado and beat a really good Real Colorado team 1-0 on Saturday. Played a poor Colorado Pride team the following day and ended up with a 0-0 draw. They put 9 in the box and we looked like we had never seen a congested box before. Very disappointing result. We played a very good DKSC side yesterday and came away with a 2-0 win. Three straight clean sheets is a positive but still struggling to score goals.
Real Colorado and DKSC both made Champions league last season. 3-0-1 keeps us on track to qualify for nationals but we can’t afford to only get 1 point against inferior teams. Next game is Saturday against a good Sting side.
Real Colorado and DKSC both made Champions league last season. 3-0-1 keeps us on track to qualify for nationals but we can’t afford to only get 1 point against inferior teams. Next game is Saturday against a good Sting side.
2nd game of the weekend today. 1-0 loss. The goal came off a cross to an unmarked back post runner...sound familiar? I actually saw the run develop and even yelled it out. Same kid got beat as he tends to get sucked way over when the ball is in the de of the field opposite of where he plays. It was a better overall effort by the Blitz team today. My son actually played really well and he picked out a couple of runners and breaks with his distribution. Hit about a 70 yd frozen rope on a side volley punt that cleared the defender and sent his player in on a mini break.
His hands were really strong today, intercepting several crosses and corner kicks and holding strong. One was probably to the limit of his extended reach while jumping too.
These fields in Arkansas are dreadful. You'd think with all he money in the Bentonville/Rogers/Springdale area that they'd be able to afford some nicer fields. These things were essentially goat pastures that hadn't been mowed.
His hands were really strong today, intercepting several crosses and corner kicks and holding strong. One was probably to the limit of his extended reach while jumping too.
These fields in Arkansas are dreadful. You'd think with all he money in the Bentonville/Rogers/Springdale area that they'd be able to afford some nicer fields. These things were essentially goat pastures that hadn't been mowed.
Where were you guys? There are some fields right by Crystal Bridges that were decent when I was messing around with my son there after a playground visit.
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