U-11 practices

I am new to the whole "Select" concept. I am wondering if some of the other parents on this site can give me some feedback on how many days/week their BB's practice and how long each practice lasts. I am concerned about "burn-out". I feel we may be working our 99's too hard on the team we are on. I am very curious about how other teams are conducting practices.

If your BB LOVES soccer, then I doubt he'll be burnt out. Mine practices twice a week, from 6-7:45. He also takes private lessons twice a week, an hour per lesson. Whenever he gets out of line, I punish him by not taking him to private lessons. We saw results right away after the first lesson...Confidence on the field.

I think it should be the bb doing the pushing. 2 practices a week seem to be the norm. My bb also does an extra practice with older kids and goes to his sisters practice and kicks by himself. He wants to do a skills that we may be doing soon. It is a fight with us to make him put the ball down and read a book or play a video game or something. If the kid wants to do it the it's probably okay if the parent is pussing the kid too then it could be the path to burnout

Thanks for the feedback Smurf and 99. Yeah, my kid pretty much loves the game and I have broken "stuff" in my house to prove it. He likes the occassional video game too, but soccer is his first love . I had to ground him once for playing in the house . You two are kind of validating my concerns though. Sounds like the early polls indicate two days a week, while we are practicing more like 5 plus the games on Sat. I dunno, just seemed a little excessive to me but since we have never played "Select" before I wasn't sure. I have been wanting to discuss with the coach but wanted to get some ammo first. I'll see what some of the other bloggers say. I can see 5 days a week in HS but at the age of 10? BTW, I agree that if a kid loves something it is hard to get it out of his/her system but with six days a week filled with soccer...not 100% sure I'd wanna make "Whoopi" that much...hmm...

5 sessions a week is an awful lot if you ask me, especially for a 9 year old... There are some clubs that will push very hard pre-season with two-a-days etc and lots of practice, but back off one things get going, which is reasonable... As the other two said, two sessions per week is more likely the norm... mine does two practices a week, and then an hour skills session on Sundays..

Wow. 5 days a week is way too much. I think the FC dallas juniors which is at the top level of youth soccer practice 4 days a week. I am fighting hard to hold down my bb soccer time. 2 required practices and everything else he choses to do and we play it by ear. If he looks a little tired that week or something else comes up then we don't do it. The other things are basically a 10 yr old saying dad can we go to this or that and for his fun. You are right to be worried about that much required practice.

yea I agree 5 days is way too much! the coach probably needs to play some video games himself!

5 days a week is plain outrageous ! If I may ask, who (or which club) is that ?

I don't care who you are, that there is funny!

omega striker wrote:yea I agree 5 days is way too much! the coach probably needs to play some video games himself!

gababa wrote:5 days a week is plain outrageous ! If I may ask, who (or which club) is that ?

I kinda don't wanna say, for obvious reasons. Not ashamed to be there or anything, just don't know who else might be viewing these posts. I will tell you this though, if you can figure it from there more power to you, it is not helping us win games against the other D1 teams!(Not that winning is everything at this age anyway, the focus should be on player skills and team concepts). If anything, our team looks tired on Saturdays and it is a shame because I think the boys do have some ability. They just run out of gas in the second half of games and tend to start slow too.

Sounds like KS , EP, or HN if the teams are doing bad.

sillymom wrote:Sounds like KS , EP, or HN if the teams are doing bad.

Don't know what any of that means but I like the emoticons all the same. Thanks for playing along. Anyway, I pretty much got what I anticipated from the responses that came through. I wasn't expecting a ton because the topic isn't something people get real fired up about unless they're the one doing some sort of soccer function 6 days/nights a week. Incidentally, we have a game tomorrow and we have practice tonight

Ironman67 wrote:

sillymom wrote:Sounds like KS , EP, or HN if the teams are doing bad.

Don't know what any of that means but I like the emoticons all the same. Thanks for playing along. Anyway, I pretty much got what I anticipated from the responses that came through. I wasn't expecting a ton because the topic isn't something people get real fired up about unless they're the one doing some sort of soccer function 6 days/nights a week. Incidentally, we have a game tomorrow and we have practice tonight

You can always count on us. We can make anything controversial. As for practicing right before game day... yuck!

Here is my two cents.
if you love the sport, you don't get burned out. Look at European/South American kids. They play soccer EVERY day. Before school, after school, at recess, at night, over the weekend... they bring a soccer ball whereever they go, just in case there are a couple of minutes to get some kicking in.
If you as a parent have to push your kid to pick up a ball, then maybe he is not that much into soccer as you are.

playhard wrote:Here is my two cents.
if you love the sport, you don't get burned out. Look at European/South American kids. They play soccer EVERY day. Before school, after school, at recess, at night, over the weekend... they bring a soccer ball whereever they go, just in case there are a couple of minutes to get some kicking in.
If you as a parent have to push your kid to pick up a ball, then maybe he is not that much into soccer as you are.

Valid point, I guess, about the kids in other countries. I don't know for sure because I don't live there, I live here. If you say it is that way in other parts of the world I have no reason to doubt your sincerity in the viewpoint.
As far as pushing the BB goes, I don't push my children to do anything and I'm not really into soccer at all. I expose my children to various activities and let them choose what fits for them (Raise up a child in the way he should go and when he grows old he will not depart from it). I had friends who played soccer when I was a kid and I always thought it was kind of a stupid sport. I couldn't understand why they couldn't use their hands. Every sport I competed in allowed the players to use the entire body. Of course, watching both of my children play the game has radically changed my viewpoint. I actually find it to be more exciting to watch than American Football. If I was the one pushing the sport I wouldn't be on this website trying to determine if our team is practicing too much.

playhard wrote:Here is my two cents.
if you love the sport, you don't get burned out. Look at European/South American kids. They play soccer EVERY day. Before school, after school, at recess, at night, over the weekend... they bring a soccer ball whereever they go, just in case there are a couple of minutes to get some kicking in.
If you as a parent have to push your kid to pick up a ball, then maybe he is not that much into soccer as you are.

He has that partially right. South americans "PLAY" soccer ever day not go to practice everyday. there is a difference. My bb always has his ball he takes it to school and play every chance he gets but I would not let him have a practice everyday.

go99 wrote:

playhard wrote:Here is my two cents.
if you love the sport, you don't get burned out. Look at European/South American kids. They play soccer EVERY day. Before school, after school, at recess, at night, over the weekend... they bring a soccer ball whereever they go, just in case there are a couple of minutes to get some kicking in.
If you as a parent have to push your kid to pick up a ball, then maybe he is not that much into soccer as you are.

He has that partially right. South americans "PLAY" soccer ever day not go to practice everyday. there is a difference. My bb always has his ball he takes it to school and play every chance he gets but I would not let him have a practice everyday.

That's what I'm talkin' about! I guess "Play hard" didn't read my post earlier in this thread where I explained that I have actually had to get on my BB for playing in the house! When the weather is bad outside it's hard to keep him down. He always has a ball on his foot. BTW you have it right. It is an entirely different circumstance to play a "pick-up" game with neighborhood kids or shoot goals on your dad in the back yard than it is to run laps, sprints etc and then have someone critiquing your moves or pushing you to shoot with your off foot. There is a time and place for both. My whole point to this thread was just trying to see where our team stood in comparison with other 99 teams that are playing competitive soccer and I feel that I have my answer. Sometimes less is more.

yes it is. Hope you get it all worked out. The kicking in the house (drives my wife crazy) and playing with his dad are the things that will teach him the love of the game and the true creativity. It will also be the things he remembers forever.

go99 wrote:yes it is. Hope you get it all worked out. The kicking in the house (drives my wife crazy) and playing with his dad are the things that will teach him the love of the game and the true creativity. It will also be the things he remembers forever.

Well, you try sleeping through the thunking in the morning! Three boys "quietly" dribbling in the house.  Nothing drove me crazy more than when I caught Dad doing it.  Too much testosterone can drive us crazy, too.

Ibystander wrote:

go99 wrote:yes it is. Hope you get it all worked out. The kicking in the house (drives my wife crazy) and playing with his dad are the things that will teach him the love of the game and the true creativity. It will also be the things he remembers forever.

Well, you try sleeping through the thunking in the morning! Three boys "quietly" dribbling in the house. Nothing drove me crazy more than when I caught Dad doing it. Too much testosterone can drive us crazy, too.

Get some ballons or nerf balls . The smurf wants her beauty sleep.

Does the kid like it? In Texas, we have 2nd and 3rd graders practicing American football 4-5 nights a week for 1-2 hours, and they don't seem to get burned out. The most any of my kids ever practiced soccer was 3 nights a week until high school, where it's 5 days a week at school plus 2-3 practices per week with the club team. No sign of burnout there, either.
I think when they were younger, the boys sometimes had 4 practices in the summer or between seasons, but at least one each week consisted of fun small sided make-it, take-it. I think those practices are the U.S.'s answer to the South Americans playing in the street. It's hard to find a pick-up game for 10 year olds where we live, so the coaches just pretty much organize it, call it a practice, and let the kids play.
As for 5 organized, drill oriented practices--yuck!

playhard wrote:Here is my two cents.
if you love the sport, you don't get burned out. Look at European/South American kids. They play soccer EVERY day. Before school, after school, at recess, at night, over the weekend... they bring a soccer ball whereever they go, just in case there are a couple of minutes to get some kicking in.
If you as a parent have to push your kid to pick up a ball, then maybe he is not that much into soccer as you are.

Except your missing the biggest point. European/South American kids play together with their friends, NO coach, so no shouting or pressure just playing and making games up themselves. 5 practices a week will burn him out I can assure you. Now 2 TEAM practices and 3 with his friends wont (because he is making the choice). This still leaves a problem.....where to play. Coppell wont even allow you to play in the local park. No wonder the US will never win the World Cup with idiots like theses running the local parks!

cityslicker61 wrote:

playhard wrote:Here is my two cents.
if you love the sport, you don't get burned out. Look at European/South American kids. They play soccer EVERY day. Before school, after school, at recess, at night, over the weekend... they bring a soccer ball whereever they go, just in case there are a couple of minutes to get some kicking in.
If you as a parent have to push your kid to pick up a ball, then maybe he is not that much into soccer as you are.

Except your missing the biggest point. European/South American kids play together with their friends, NO coach, so no shouting or pressure just playing and making games up themselves. 5 practices a week will burn him out I can assure you. Now 2 TEAM practices and 3 with his friends wont (because he is making the choice). This still leaves a problem.....where to play. Coppell wont even allow you to play in the local park. No wonder the US will never win the World Cup with idiots like theses running the local parks!

No kidding! The officials would rather them look fantastic to the passer byers then actually get used. Ugly fields dont draw potentioal homebuyers but nice looking ones do.

Between my two BBs, we practice Monday-Friday. Games are Saturdays and Sundays. We love this stuff and can't get enough of it! My yongest played yesterday and clobbered a team 20-1. I couldn't keep the kids out of the net and rotated the whole team evey 5 minutes. BTW- The US will win the World Cup! The kids of our kids will do it!!!

Can someone please explain the definition of "burn - out"? I see alot of people use the term, it seems to me that there are many different situations that are labeled burn out.