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The US youth system is skewed towards those who shine at talent ID try-outs and give late developers too much of a mountain to climb, argues Chris Hall
Imagine two young girls, Avery and Beth. They have played soccer together in a grassroots team, coached by a local parent, since they were four years old.
They love playing soccer. This year, at U9s, they face a first selection at their local club. The girls are nervous, but excited to continue with their soccer.
The club will select two teams of 10-12 players each, as they prepare to play 7v7 for the upcoming season. Avery and Beth both go through the try-out process.
Avery’s mom gets a phone call on their way home - her daughter is being offered a place on the first team, under Coach Fran, who has coached at the club for 15 years, has a youth coaching license and an A license. She coaches full-time and helps design and implement curriculum at the club.
Avery’s team will practice three times each week at the club’s professionally-maintained practice fields and be offered supplemental futsal sessions once per week.
If a practice session is threatened by weather, the team will be moved to an indoor synthetic turf field so they will never miss a practice. Avery is excited when her mom tells her and they accept her place in the team.
Beth’s mom gets a phone call the next afternoon. Her daughter has been offered a place on the second team.
Beth’s coach will be Coach Jenny, who has assisted at the club part-time for two years but also works full-time at a local restaurant. It will be her first time coaching a team of her own.
Beth’s team will practice two times per week at an all-purpose field the club uses at a local university.
Unfortunately, they cannot reschedule in the event of cancellations as they share the space with a local rugby club.
Beth’s mom is happy that her daughter has a place in the club and Beth accepts her place in the team.
A year passes and the club is ready to select for the rising U10s age group. The advantages in the top team environment - training frequency, coaching quality, elite facilities and so on - have now widened the once small gap between Avery and Beth as players.
One year on, maybe Beth can jump the gap, get into the top team, and gain access to all those high-quality resources.
"It is a disservice not only to the players, but to the programs doing the selecting..."
Two years on, the odds against become greater - while 10 years on, the advantages have compounded to put an ocean between Avery and Beth on the soccer field.
This is how we currently do youth soccer in the US. We pick the best performers at a ridiculously young age, give them advantages over their peers in every area, then marvel at our ability to forecast potential when the selected become the best.
Clubs do it for their select programs. National federations do it for their youth teams. In both cases, it is a disservice not only to the players, but to the programs doing the selecting.
What if selection were delayed? What if we kept the player pools exposed to the best environments and given the best resources as large as possible for as long as possible? What if Avery and Beth received the same resources for another year? Or another 10 years? Would Avery still turn out to be the better player?
In a rush to choose the best performing youth players, we at best miss - and, at worst, destroy - the possibilities contained in the far larger number of players who don’t get selected in primary school.
Early selection is a fool’s errand. Sadly, every year coaches, clubs and national federations line up to eagerly play the fool.
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