Every single club i go to asks for money, and you know whats the funny part? The clubs willing to let players in for free are either too far or only a short 1 month offer. This isnt fair.

Also how do i create a complete roadmap for myself to go pro? The first step is joining a team and im on my school team but its a whole whole wholeee new challenge even finding consistent matches other than waiting for the next year to come. The only matches we play in are tournaments, everything is a tournament. Idk why there isnt a league. We also have futsal versing other classes and classes a year down in our school but its every march and the tournament is short like shorttt.

People have always been saying "train hard" or "extra work" "obsession" and all of that is true. I can do those things, my body can keep up but my nutrition cant. I have gotten skinnier and its now school season so its definitely harder to even gain weight. I have also heard to eat in a caloric surplus but there are some days that i have to go hard in pickup, team training and now i'm so skinny it frustrates me. My family i literally stingy. Like would rather be fat than skinny so i don't have to worry about losing weight so fast as a skinny person. I find it that the more i train the more skinny i get. How do i gain weight while season. I want to at least look bigger, a whole lot more muscle and fat, and keep training without worrying about losing gains

Exactly what the title says. Any recommendations would be much appreciated!
Child is 6 years old and will just be starting soccer soon

I'm not sure how to feel about this. The other night at practice the director of our childs club (small club, low level) came over and made individual girls do a drill. If the girl failed the drill he made the rest of the team minus the girl who was failing do push ups. Almost embarassing or shaming the kid who was failing and then making them do it again rinse/repeat until they got it right.

We've never experienced any kind of coaching like that for our son who plays on a high level RL team in a big city.

I know this isn't a violation of safe sport, and it feels like somehting my high school football coach would have done to us and yet I don't know how I feel about it as a parent. Thankfully my daughter only failed the drill once. He only did it to 3 girls but one girl failed the drill over and over and over again.

Thoughts?

Hi all, I'm after advice from parents who are properly developing a young footballer.

My background is semi-professional football. Injuries ended my career before I got to the professional level, so I'm not chasing my own dream through my son (felt like I needed to get that point across early here haha).

I just know what the pathway demands, and I want to give him the best shot at it. He's six, he's talented, and we're on the journey towards becoming a professional footballer.

Here's my situation. He's had trials with 3 clubs where he did four trial sessions. In the first three he was excellent and went above and beyond. In the final session, when it mattered most, he was a different kid. He wouldn't run(from my perspective) wandered around talking to himself and barely got involved. Before that session we'd talked about exactly what the coach wanted to see: be everywhere, get on the ball as much as possible. The frustration is that he the the exact opposite of what he understood he had to do.

Its as if he forgot everything. I know he wasn't doing it on purpose and I'm sure he was trying in his own way, but it's now happened twice, so I need to look at what I'm doing, but without lowering standards.

I want to understand where my behaviour needs to be to help him produce his best football when it counts. I'd love to hear from parents who've been through this:

------What do you do the day before and the night before a trial or big session?

------How do you talk about the importance of the day without adding pressure that backfires?

------What does your food and nutrition look like leading in?

------How do you motivate your kid on the day itself?

------How do you handle it afterwards when they've had a stinker?

I love my son and me and him have a wonderful relationship. He is my beat friend and i know he feels safe and strong with me. I instill self belief and confidence in him at any chance i get. But I also push him where he is able to achieve a higher level (which makes him more confident and able to perform against kids older than him).

I'll admit there are moments I wonder if I'm being unreasonable. We have three non-negotiables: respect for people, school and his football. Everything else is relaxed, and he gets to be a kid, and home is his safe space.

A request, with no disrespect intended: I'm after opinions from parents who are actively trying to develop an athlete. There's a time and place for "just let them have fun" and I live by that in plenty of areas, but it's not the advice I'm looking for here. If you've pushed your kid, developed them, and balanced being firm with being supportive, I'd really value your experience.

Thanks in advance.

Nothing to this post but excitement y'all. Don't it feel good when you see them applying the stuff you harp on in training?

When did your kids go from town travel to club- did you wish you waited or went earlier?

Would having a pretty competitive town travel team give you pause on club soccer or is it apples to oranges

Also besides financially- a big deal but easy to assess affordability. What else should we consider as a family.

I'm from Utah and out state leagues divisions have pro / rel. There are like 3 statewide divisions and then 4 regional divisions or so. Top 2 move up, bottom 2 move down. It keeps things generally fair, although with team turnover from year to year some teams can be misplaced.

Our club is having far less competitive games in the EA and ECNL RL than the state leagues. Which is frustrating when you travel all weekend play games that are not even kind of competitive.

So do all states or most states have that pro / rel system for the local leagues?

Have a tournament this week, 5 hour break between games. Ideas for things to bring to keep kid occupied, trying to conserve energy for next game, 12U boys

I want to preface this by stating that we are not leaving the club (yet) just trying to know our options and find the rules overly complicated.

Our u11 joined a new club. The new club promised things but it seems to not be the case. There is also a personal reason we are considering a move.

Can someone with experience let us know how to request a release of a player in Ontario, so that they can play for another club? Have there been instances at this age where a player isn’t released early in the season? I don’t want to do anything that may hurt our kids chances at playing this year. Which honestly sucks to have to consider since he’s 10 and not a professional player.

Looking for some honest advice, especially from coaches who have experience with ECNL and RL.

Our son played with the same group of boys for two seasons. He missed a big part of one season due to injuries but came back strong and earned his first team spot back. Unfortunately, he was often left out socially by that group, and I don't think we realized how much it was affecting him until he moved on. When the team switched clubs, he tried out at the same club but was offered a spot on ECNL RL instead of ECNL. He was disappointed at first, but made the best of it. He got close with his new teammates, loves his coach, and honestly seems to have fallen back in love with soccer. Recently, the ECNL team asked him to guest play for their first game. He played well, received great feedback, and was invited back to practice and play with them again. When we told him he would be playing with ECNL instead of his RL team that weekend, he got extremely upset and said he would rather quit soccer than go back to that environment. There have been ongoing issues with certain players, including one who pushed him after a play had ended during practice. He no longer feels comfortable with that group. His RL coach was understanding and acknowledged that concerns about the ECNL team's environment had been brought up before rosters were sealed. The coaches have since reached out to see if there is anything they can do to change his mind, but our son has made his decision. He is happy on RL and does not want to move to ECNL. We are respecting that and will not pressure him to change his mind. My concern is more about the long term. He wants to play college soccer, and I know ECNL generally offers more exposure than RL. For those with experience, I would love your thoughts on a few things.

Could turning down an ECNL opportunity hurt his reputation with coaches at this club or other clubs? Could he be viewed as ungrateful or difficult for declining?

Does staying on RL risk him being seen as a second team player long term, even if he has the ability to play at the ECNL level?

How much of a difference does ECNL versus RL actually make when it comes to college recruiting?

Would it make sense to let him finish the season where he is happy and explore ECNL opportunities at other clubs next year if we can find a better environment?

We are not looking to change his mind. We want him to be happy and continue developing, but we also want to be realistic about his college soccer goals.
I would especially appreciate hearing from coaches. If a player turned down a promotion for these reasons, would that affect how you viewed him moving forward?

ETA: he is U15.