How to Evaluate a Soccer Club as a Parent

For a parent looking at clubs to place their kid(s) at, it feels like an important decision that will make or break the game for them. And we’ll be honest: if your child plays soccer for more than a season or two, their club will have a huge impact on their journey. 

The thing is, it doesn’t affect their journey the way many parents think. And your athlete’s needs change with age. That’s why we’ve put together this guide of what to look for in a soccer club as your child gets older. 

Based on these changing needs, here’s how to tell if you’ve found the right soccer club for your child at different points of their journey:

Ages U5-U10: Nurturing Your Passion

Many soccer parents are very future-oriented. They believe their athletes should start building their technical and tactical skills as early as possible, in order to prepare for increasingly heavy competition. 

But in our experience coming through youth soccer and making it to the highest levels of the professional game, this shouldn’t be the top priority for soccer clubs when children are this young. Instead, the main focus should be ensuring your child has fun.  

Why? Because having fun allows children to develop a genuine passion for soccer, and passion is the fuel behind a long and successful career. If your athlete associates soccer with happiness, they’re most likely going to continue playing. When training starts to get really intense later on, your child’s passion will give them a reason to keep going when the going gets tough.

An important note: at this age, all growth in technical skills comes from getting touches. The kids getting touches at home are going to be more advanced at 11 than the kids just getting touches at practice twice a week.   

Ages U11-U13: Building a Complete Game

When your child is 11 or 12 years old, having fun should still be a priority, but not the only one. Clubs at this stage should start implementing some tactical aspects to their training. 

In these age groups, players are going through transitions. Puberty is starting, middle school is starting, and they start moving towards a different level of commitment in sports. 

So while there still needs to be a keen focus on developing technical skills, you want a club that helps players learn tactics – and this often looks different than many parents think. 

We commonly see clubs that lose a lot of games in these age groups are the ones you want your kids playing for in older age groups. It’s because they are letting their 10, 11, and 12 year olds make mistakes and try new positions.

The clubs that regularly have teams at the top of their leagues in these age groups often prioritize early developers, over-coaching from the sidelines, and/or getting players to specialize in a position. Of course, this isn’t always the case, but it is common. 

Take a look at a club’s top team in these age groups from last season and see how they did. Then compare them to the older age groups (U14-19). If they’re winning now but not in the older groups, there’s a good chance there’s something they’re missing in developing their players at this age. 

Why is this important? Getting started on tactical knowledge before they get to U14 gives them a massive leg up instead of having them behind. And getting them into the club you want them in from U14-U19 in these age groups will make things easier for the next stage. 

U14-U19: Starting the Recruitment Process 

Once kids hit 13-14 years old, their technical development needs to be elite if they want to play college or professionally. At this point, their development needs to move on to prioritizing their strength, their speed, and their decision making. 

For getting the attention of pro scouts and college coaches, this is when the league the club plays in matters – you get a lot more visibility if you play on a MLS Next/ECNL team than if you don’t. 

That being said, not all MLS Next/ECNL/Girls Academy clubs are created equally. Players on teams that are at the bottom of the table of those leagues have a much tougher time getting recruited than those at the top. 

The Unspoken Key to Success

While there are key technical, tactical, physical traits you should be looking to clubs to help your child grow, there’s one key aspect few clubs help with – and it’s the one skill set that truly separates the good players from the great ones: building their mental strength. 

Having fun from U5-U10 helps build mental strength. Learning from mistakes – and developing the mental resiliency that goes along with it – is key from U11-U13. And navigating your individual path the whole way, learning from setbacks and consistently growing as a person is essential for your child to find success in soccer. 

These are the skills we help our mentees develop at Beyond Goals Mentoring. If your athlete wants to make it to the next level, let’s set up a mentoring session today.