College Soccer Guy advises parents on picking youth clubs for kids 10-13, saying join MLS Next or USL teams early and add private coaching if needed. But only if your kid is actually obsessed with soccer. Real passion matters more than the club.
How do you know which is the right club team in your area for your son or daughter or for you to play on? I'm a youth college soccer guy. I'm the College Soccer Guy on my other page, and I'm trying to help players between the ages of 10 years old to 13 take the right steps so when they come to me as a senior— uh, sorry, as a freshman— they actually can take the right steps, because I keep finding that they're not, and that's a problem. So to find the right club team, here's the simplest, obvious one: if there's an MLS Next team or USL team in your area, get involved right away. If there's a camp, if there's a clinic, if there's a coach you need to make pay to be a private coach of yours, get involved right away. Even if you're not good enough at that age, they can coach you on how to become good enough, especially when you're that young. And you're gonna find you're competing with other kids. Now as a parent, your job is just to put your child in this environment, assuming they're addicted, right? If they're not obsessed, like I was obsessed, I was dribbling a ball in the bathroom, I was sleeping with the ball. If they're not obsessed, then don't bother. But if they're obsessed, then you want to put them in that environment, see how they do, and nurture them. Because if they can stay in that environment, they're really on the best train track to one day having a great high school career. Even if they choose not to play college soccer one day, they're just going to be a happier person because they're going to be good at something. And when you're good at something, you usually tend to have more confidence and even make more friends and everything else. For example, my younger brother and I, we play soccer together on like the best Sunday league teams in LA. If my brother wasn't good like at soccer— I have two brothers, one of them doesn't play soccer and one of them does. I'm equally Obviously love them equally both, but my middle brother Ari, he and I get to play soccer together all the time because we're both good at it. So just being good at it in itself, I think, is worth it. And then it would eventually maybe give them an opportunity. If you want more help, give me a DM. We'll talk about it. Bye.
