A Little History

We had 18 U10 girls in our Academy program last year. We put the top 12 players after last year’s tryouts on a true U10 team, and placed the other 6 on a U11 White team. Though this turned out to open the door for some complaints, especially by the true U11 players on the U11 White team, our only other alternative at the time last year was to turn all the kids away who did not make the top U10 and U11 teams. We did not want to do that and I don’t think the players involved would have wanted us to do that.

As you can imagine, the U11 White team felt that they were treated as second fiddle all year. We placed a very qualified coach with the group, offered Age Group Training throughout the year where the true U11 girls on the U11 White team could train with the other U11 girls from the U11 Blue (top) team and the U10s on the U11 White team would train with the U10 Blue team girls. Also, most of the fall, winter, and spring training was handled by myself and Andy Kaasa, who were also dealing with the U11 and U10 Blue teams.

Even with this, when all was said and done the U11 mixed White team did not find the success on the field (games and tournaments) like the two true age group Blue teams did, and it made for some disgruntled parents. Situations like this are almost a no win for me. If the U11 White team wanted to find success (success as defined by results in this case), they could have played at the U11 C3 level – the lower of the two U11 competitive playing levels with C2 being the highest. However, we played the team at C3 in the fall of 2006 and they didn’t find much competition, finishing the season in the State Tournament semifinals.

For me, a team is at an ideal playing level when they are around the .500 mark. Winning some, losing some, but matched up well in most contests. For development reasons, the White team should not have played at the C3 level in the summer, and they didn’t. However, playing up at the C2 level, although the girls faced tougher competition day in and day out, also meant a not-too-stellar-looking win loss record. It was all too easy for the White team parents to compare their results on the field with the two true age group U10 and U11 Blue teams, both of whom saw many favorable tournament results and hardware collections. The end result was that U11 White team parents saw their season as a failure based on the measuring up against the Blue teams, and thus the parents were blinded to development that each and every girl clearly (to a trained eye) experienced.

Half the girls from our 0607 U11 White team opted to not return to the Academy for this year. Some left with bitter feelings, most left because the yearly commitment to our program no longer fit with their family plans.

Only 2 of the U10 players on that White team opted not to return. One didn’t feel the commitment fit with their daughter’s interests, and one had a major hockey commitment.

As for the U10 Blue team last year, we played MYSA Fall’s league in 2006 and absolutely demolished all competition. Most of these girls have been playing together for years already, “handpicked” from an Oakdale rec program and given lots of experience in playing older girls in Corner Kick indoor leagues. They are a tough, athletic, competitive bunch and, with the addition of some talent from other areas (Blaine, Lino Lakes, Hudson (2), Hastings, and Woodbury) were too much for most other U10 teams to handle.

We sent the girls to Chicago in October, with the addition of a couple of Woodbury guest players, and the girls won the Chicago Sockers Nike Cup (Chicago, IL). This was the first time we had sent a team this age to a strong regional tournament, and it was really amazing to see the success they found there.

In 2007, we had the U10 Blue team forego U10 MYSA league play and register as a U11 Tournament Only team. They played a handful of events at the U11 level, winning most of them. We also played a few events at our own age level under US Club Soccer, mainly to showcase the team and let it be known out there that we had a team at this age group as we looked to pick up players for next year.

Is that fair to our current players that we are always looking to pick up additional talent each year? Yes. Why? Well, first, my goal has always been to form 2 solid teams at each age group we deal with in the Academy. Two in each geographic Academy (N, S, E, and W). These numbers would then allow us to develop a larger pool of players, as anyone who has been around the coaching circles for a time knows that good at 10 doesn’t necessarily mean good at 16. I’ve also seen many “B” team players at 10 develop into dominant “A” team players later in their careers. The larger numbers helps to ensure that we CAN form a second team at this age group and minimizes the chance of missing that type of “B” team future talent.

Larger numbers also give additional credibility to the program, helping in turn to attract more numbers.

Lastly, if the parents and players know that we are constantly on the look out for additional talent, it helps avoid the I’m-on-the-“A”-team-this-year-and-will-probably-be-on-the-“A”-team-again-next-year-regardless-of-the-effort-I-put-in-this-year syndrome. Complacency stunts individual and team development, as well as stunts the growth of passion for the game.

I constantly tell my other team (now U14 girls) that they have to work harder than everybody else out there to retain their spots. We don’t have 90 girls coming to tryouts to make the “C” team. They are coming to take your spots each August and you need to put the work in over the course of the entire year to keep your places – if you want them.

Anyway, in addition to the playing up to the U11 tournaments this past summer, we also sent the U10s to Indiana for the Arsenal Elite Invitational in April. We wouldn’t have sent the team on its own to an event this far away, but we had a number of other teams going on buses and thought it would be a good experience for them as well. The players AND THE PARENTS would get a taste of some of the top U10 teams in Region II, and it would surely be eye opening for all. Moreover, as coaches we could really get a sense of where this group is at relative to other teams in top Region II clubs and get a sense of what we needed to do developmentally to get to that level.

All in all it was a very productive summer for the girls.

That left 16 U10 players from last year in our mix for this year, all of whom had already played a year of U11 soccer on the big field with offsides, all of whom had improved tremendously over the course of the last year. This would be a great core group to build off of moving into the 2008 season, all of whom had already had a full year of 8v8 experience – something that would give them a huge edge coming into their true U11 year.

When I put together the core group of my current U14 team in the fall of 2004 as U11s, 11 out of the 14 girls at that time had been playing up to the U11 age group (and the larger 8v8 field) that past year. This was of tremendous benefit as we looked to begin getting regional exposure through tournaments that fall in Iowa, Wisconsin, and Illinois, as well as allowed us an edge over MN competition which helped build our programs’ rep in the area (which led to us attracting other talented players in the years to follow).

And by the way, when I say put together, I mean put together. I knew I would be taking the team in the fall of 2004 and actively identified talented players and recruited parents to the program. I have no hesitation in stating this. I know the game, I knew what I wanted in young players, and I know potential when I see it. There were girls in this group who did not show well at tryouts and who the evaluators and board members involved in the team formation committee did not want to place on the top team. I fought hard for these players, trusting that I saw what others did not. I eventually got my way, and these players are still around on the top team today.

Looking to the 0708 season, the idea with this current U11 group is to model the development scheme used with the current U14 team, a model that I feel has resulted in some serious player development in all the players involved.

0708 Team Formation

When all was said and done after tryouts this past August, we ended up with 28 girls in our U11 East pool.  We also have 4 or 5 US Club Soccer guest players who will fill in at tournaments throughout the year. 

Looking at the current group, I feel we have 20+ who are currently at or above the level my U14s were at this point in 2004. 

The dilemma we now face is in splitting the kids into eventual Blue and White teams.  We have done a fairly good job in getting the parents to buy in to our pool training concept.  Our coaches will train all the kids in the pool, not in teams, for most of the fall season.  We will split the girls into Blue and White teams for the NSR Gold Cup (Naperville, IL) over Labor Day Weekend, but not make a final split until likely just prior to the Just For Girls Fall Invite in Des Moines, IA in late September.

True, splitting the group prior to Labor Day, even though we will be clear that these are temporary Blue White teams, may lead to some issues with parents of bubble players who were put on the Blue team for this event and who end up on the White team.  I’m prepared to deal with this and may yet come up with a way to try and minimize this type of issue.  The other alternative is to split the teams evenly (form balanced teams) for this firs event.  We’ve tossed around this idea, but this again opens up the door for complaints from parents of the top players in the group.  Interesting dilemma, but a good problem to have based on the numbers interested in our program.

Our fall pool training will allow us (coaches) to better gauge which players will eventually be placed on the top team as we can work with and observe the players in a training environment for an extended period of time.  This is as opposed to placing kids on teams after a 4 hour tryout.  Yes, we’ve seen half the kids involved for a year already, but what about the new players who we haven’t seen?  How will they react to our training environment?  How will they react to regional competition?  How do we see all this without pool training? We don’t, so we do.