The only reason soccer clubs got into the routine of single year age group teams was for administrative convenience. In the 1970s and most of the 1980s all teams fell into the following age groups: U8, U10, U12, U14, U16 and U19. There were no U6 teams until beginning in the late 1980s and early 1990s. During the ‘80s and ‘90s the soccer boom was so rapid that the numbers of participants increased dramatically for local clubs annually. In order to manage the numbers from a logistic and administrative perspective many local soccer organizations began having single year and/or single gender teams. However, there was never a purely soccer reason for these groupings.
As is presented in the “Y” License course we can easily group the children into two year age groups and they handle it just fine. Clearly the children of the ‘70s, ‘80s and ‘90s have handled those groupings in stride. Currently many local soccer organizations have two year age groupings because they do not have the enrollment numbers to have a management need to have single year groupings. We teach in the course two year age groups. We discuss the pick-up game of yesteryear when kids in the neighborhood played together and learned games from each other and those games were mixed age groups.
For player development, in fact, it is a benefit to have the children in the two year age groupings. The younger players learn from the older ones and they learn that they must play more skillfully and intelligently because they most likely will not outrun or outmuscle the older kids. The older kids learn leadership skills. This cycle continues up through the U19 age group. Some of the stagnation of the development of the American player is due to single gender and single year age groupings. If the circumstances in your club allow you to have two year age groupings I actually recommend it as it will have a positive impact on the growth of your players.
Please do not hesitate to let me know if the US Youth Soccer Coaching Education department can be of assistance to you.
1 comment:
I grew up playing in a soccer community where the age groups were two years. I have been saying for years that the value of learning from an older player, maybe not being a starter, and then progressing to playing more and being a leader in the second year has tremendous benefits for the player. I am glad to see these views shared in your blog. I wish that clubs would look more closely at this model for grouping players, and not just look at it as a means to solve a numbers issue.
Great Blog Sam!
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