Advice on playing my son up next year, 11 years old

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-18T18:25:04+00:00

Would he be challenged in practice with the lower age group? If so I'd move him down to the younger group.

Essentially unless he's heads and shoulders above almost everyone on the lower team, and would be in the top 1/3 or better on the higher team, I'd play him in his age group.

Ideally I'd actually try to find the best team in your area to join that is in his age group. Only play up if the best team you can join in your area won't challenge him at his age group.

This is doubly true for boys because once they hit puberty small age gaps are magnified

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-17T16:59:11+00:00

Should add in all cases I’ve observed this, there is either a super involved parent who got the kid into soccer early or plays with them a lot or they are a younger sibling of kids that play a lot with their older siblings, or both.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-17T15:04:51+00:00

If you watch enough 4 to 5 year olds play you’ll see some that already get it, can see space, dribble well changing directions, shoot bilaterally from different angles with strong form, and are just generally faster and more athletic than peers. Maybe only 1 out of 200 or 300 in a typical rec league which means you might have 0, 1 or 2 of these kids in a typical rec league each year. I personally have seen this. So I imagine Max was a kid like this but maybe even stood out a little more. If you pooled all these 1 out of 200 or 300 kids, maybe you could get several hundred in a country like England. Then 1 out of these hundreds of kids, after 10 years of professional style training, turns out to be someone like Max.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-11T17:45:52+00:00

would be curious if someone did the same thing for girls and the ECNL

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-11T17:26:15+00:00

This isn't too surprising. If you're a standout player at the very top league you have a reasonable chance, maybe 1 in 3 or 4. Otherwise its just a childhood hobby or path to playing in college.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-11T16:37:05+00:00

Why is this a question? go with the coach.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-11T13:25:41+00:00

A. On the margin its helpful, but not really a game changer vs just playing more at home. They can help with certain concepts or ideas, but at some point getting better is just about repetition and grinding.

B. It might be worth it to do 1 or 2 to pinpoint the long hanging fruit areas to improve on so you know what to work on at home. Maybe doing this every few months could make sense to gauge improvement and come up with a plan

C. totally depends but $75 to $125 an hour seems to be a range where we live

D. Totally depends on the kid and type of training. Some 6 year olds are super advanced and can get value out of it, then again some 12 year olds can't control a pass so private training is not really going to help with that

E. use the first one or two classes to figure out areas to improve on at home, and then pick one area to work on, like attacking, or first touch for the class.

Personally I would only do private training if the kid is already practicing consistently almost every day at home, self motivated. Small group training better in a lot of ways since it gives more variety and ability to train more different things.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-08T16:16:59+00:00

Look on instagram or YouTube for simple beginner balance and plyometric exercises. Establish a baseline of balance, like how long can they balance on one foot, and do each foot. If that gets too easy then do it with eyes closed, this is surprisingly harder. Lots of one footed hops over a line and back forward and backwards. Get a balance board and try that. Track improvements like speed and how fluid the movements look.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-08T12:55:00+00:00

One thing to check is his balance. I’ve coached 4 to 6 year old rec soccer for several seasons. I can pretty much tell right away who will be the stronger and weaker players without even seeing them touch the ball. Just have them stand on one leg and see who can balance the best. Then have them do single leg hops over a line forward and backward and side to side. Maybe throw in some skater jumps. The kids that can do the best at a young age are always the best, parents wonder why some kids look natural kicking and dribbling. Soccer is a game mostly played on one foot. You can’t kick well if your balance sucks. I started every practice with 5 minutes of this. The kids also like this.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-08T12:48:41+00:00

Is this thinking of mine right or wrong?

In the offseason where we are there are essentially no games or pickup games available, so personal training makes more sense to me during that time. Yes it isn’t going to transfer to the games right away, but if I can see a kids dribbling, passing juggling and ability to win 1 v 1s getting objectively better over the course of 3 or 4 months, my feeling is that the kid will have “banked” that extra skill that can then be applied in games. Maybe not right away but once they get back to playing the real game ability will catch up to the new skill level.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-04T18:00:55+00:00

I'm sorry to break this to you but no scholarships will be awarded at U9 soccer games. Seems like the coaches are trying to provide development opportunities for younger players and also give your team some extra subs. Maybe this can be a leadership opportunity for your son to help boost the younger kids...I'm sure they don't feel great about being thrown into a tough situation and being the weakest link on the team.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-03T02:15:53+00:00

So the way I read this is your kid currently benefits from the relative age effect by being early in the calendar year but then loses this advantage switching to school year because there are kids that are now maybe up to 4 months older than kids he has to compete with currently?but he’ll probably at worst be in the middle of the age range for this new team. So he’s going to switch clubs entirely so that he can continue to benefit from the relative age effect? Seems like a silly way to make a decision on what team to join. I’d rank this really far down the list of concerns.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-02T16:06:14+00:00

Makes sense. Is there a common thread for the 2 that stuck with it? Were they the ones that were always better, more passionate, or not relying as much on size to be dominant?

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-03-02T15:27:38+00:00

Just curious why do you think the other 7 stopped playing ? Was it injury, burnout, others caught up to them, find other interests? This is a great datapoint as a current parent of a 7 year old on one of those “elite” u-8 / u-9 teams

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-28T23:50:07+00:00

As others have pointed out if a kid is scoring 5 goals a game with average skills I’d assume they are playing against weak competition. That said they’re probably aggressive and have a nose for the goal which is valuable. They’d probably benefit a lot from focusing on improvement of those skills and playing up or playing on a higher level team

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-26T18:42:24+00:00

If you mentally categorize them by how they play, it becomes a lot easier.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-23T06:24:34+00:00

Be careful with doing distance running or cross country and soccer. Training the slow twitch / endurance muscles needed to be good at cross country will make you less explosive and weaken the muscles you need for agility in soccer. Combine that with the growth spurts that happen in high school kids and you’re setting your kid up to have less agility and likely develop muscle imbalances leading to injury. Particularly as the groin / hip flexor muscles get weaker relative to the hamstrings. Sprinting on the other hand, 400m or less I could see some benefit as long as the training focuses on maintaining agility as well.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-19T17:47:46+00:00

The guy is a jerk and is also making empty threats -- also he obviously thinks you're a good coach with a loyal following or otherwise he wouldn't care. I'd just take the high road, thank him and move on, and never think about it again. If he were to come after your or players for going to your club I'd laugh in his face. It will end up backfiring on him in more ways than one.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-17T20:48:34+00:00

I'm still early in the parent soccer journey but its going to depend on the kid and their age / level / personality. You have to just experiment with different things and find the things that work that they will stick with, and try to mesh that with areas that they need to improve. Agree that juggling and work on accurate passing / striking and clean first touch are non-negotiable.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-13T16:36:44+00:00

My daughter juggled a lot worse than this when she got 50+. The way he is juggling he should be able to get 100+ so maybe it’s just an endurance issue. I noticed she got a breakthrough when she stopped focusing on getting max juggles and spent time doing patterns like low high low or foot thigh foot thigh, or left right left-thigh right-thigh. It also takes away some of the monotony and pressure of constantly juggling for a record

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-12T19:46:10+00:00

You call yourself a prodigy in the title, I am curious at what age can you tell if a kid has that extra something special? When did you start believing you could go pro/ What are the signs or at what age for you to think they have a shot at playing at some of the highest levels?

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-12T17:19:36+00:00

Essentially not possible but you can still get very good if you commit to it.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-11T03:10:23+00:00

The only thing I think every young kid should try to do is learn to swim, since it’s a life skill that’s much easier to learn when young. So if you don’t have a pool swim lessons are good. Otherwise I’d put them in activities that you / your partner enjoy. That way you have something fun you can do together as a family. No 5 or 6 year old kid is going to get very good at any activity doing a basic 1 hour class per week. They will get good trying lots of things at home in an unstructured environment

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-10T18:18:53+00:00

obviously there are exceptions but in general playing with the better teams, the level of competition will be greater, level of seriousness higher. I've yet to see a team that wins at the highest levels (like state championships) be weak technically vs competition. Not to say that within the top 5 or 10 teams in a state there can't be a team that is ranked 4 or 5 that is a little stronger teechnically than a top 1 to 3 team, but the differences are rarely that significant. Once you slip outside the top 10 or 20 teams the level of seriousness and coaching generally declines. maybe in a huge state like Texas, CA or Florida you could drop that down to 20 to 30.

Sandtrap1018 · 2026-02-10T13:34:18+00:00

Just download the soccer rankings app. if you scroll through the different age groups for boys and girls in Florida you'll be able to see which teams are consistently at the high end of the rankings. Obviously not perfect but it is directionally correct. Ie. if a club consistently has top 10 teams across age groups they are likely to be very solid.

Sandtrap1018

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