One of the problems with NTX soccer

I have been part of the NTX soccer scene (at the Academy level) for a couple of years now and thought I had a pretty good understanding of how things operated, but yesterday I witnessed a first. This has to do with ringers/guess players. I understand most of the logic behind using guess players (getting a feel for the team, getting extra touches, helping team "x" get more wins...) and I'm fine with that, but yesterday during a semifinal indoor game (8v8) for the 08 age group we were playing a coach that had two squads, an A and a B squad. Our team had been playing the B squad during league play all winter. Being that this was a semifinal I figured the coach would probably bring a player or two from her A squad to help this team win the game (only normal for this area), but to my amazement that wasn't the case. She didn't bring a couple of guess players she had brought a whole guess team. She brought the entire A squad and had left the B squad at home I guess. In the end it didn't matter because we beat them anyway, but if this is what we are teaching our children at a very young age then there are bigger issues in NTX than just USWNT placements. I'm sure this has happened before, but how often does it happen here, and what are we demonstrating to our children by doing so.

Don't worry because it gets better. At U11 it's called Club Player Pass and at U14 it's called Dual Rostered.

The parents will cry foul just the same but no one listens because we won a trophy at the of the season.

In your specific situation, I'm sure the coach was just getting ready for the change to calendar year age groups and was trying out their AP team.

What is a guess player? Is it kind of like "guess" who is going to show up today?

Is it different than a guest player?

My Money Pit wrote:I have been part of the NTX soccer scene (at the Academy level) for a couple of years now and thought I had a pretty good understanding of how things operated, but yesterday I witnessed a first. This has to do with ringers/guess players. I understand most of the logic behind using guess players (getting a feel for the team, getting extra touches, helping team "x" get more wins...) and I'm  fine with that, but yesterday  during a semifinal indoor game (8v8) for the 08 age group we were playing a coach that had two squads, an A and a B squad. Our team had been playing the B squad during league play all winter. Being that this was a semifinal I figured the coach would probably bring a player or two from her A squad to help this team win the game (only normal for this area), but to my amazement that wasn't the case. She didn't bring a couple of guess players she had brought a whole guess team. She brought the entire A squad and had left the B squad at home I guess. In the end it didn't matter because we beat them anyway, but if this is what we are teaching our children at a very young age then there are bigger issues in NTX than just USWNT placements. I'm sure this has happened before, but how often does it happen here, and what are we demonstrating to our children by doing so.

Mistake #1, you assume NTX soccer is about the children.

My Money Pit wrote:I have been part of the NTX soccer scene (at the Academy level) for a couple of years now and thought I had a pretty good understanding of how things operated, but yesterday I witnessed a first. This has to do with ringers/guess players. I understand most of the logic behind using guess players (getting a feel for the team, getting extra touches, helping team "x" get more wins...) and I'm  fine with that, but yesterday  during a semifinal indoor game (8v8) for the 08 age group we were playing a coach that had two squads, an A and a B squad. Our team had been playing the B squad during league play all winter. Being that this was a semifinal I figured the coach would probably bring a player or two from her A squad to help this team win the game (only normal for this area), but to my amazement that wasn't the case. She didn't bring a couple of guess players she had brought a whole guess team. She brought the entire A squad and had left the B squad at home I guess. In the end it didn't matter because we beat them anyway, but if this is what we are teaching our children at a very young age then there are bigger issues in NTX than just USWNT placements. I'm sure this has happened before, but how often does it happen here, and what are we demonstrating to our children by doing so.

Just to play devil's advocate -

May I ask why the other team doing this bothers you?

"Just to play devil's advocate -

May I ask why the other team doing this bothers you?"

My guess would be because they were going to have an easy path to the elusive 8v8 indoor championship.  The fact that the opposition busted out the A team made it more difficult.

I wonder where the problem lies in this.  They got to play better competition and still won.  Seems to me that someone focused on "development" would be happy that the situation occurred as it did.  

Win/Win.  Not sure I see anything wrong with this.

yellowcard5 wrote:"Just to play devil's advocate -

May I ask why the other team doing this bothers you?"

My guess would be because they were going to have an easy path to the elusive 8v8 indoor championship.  The fact that the opposition busted out the A team made it more difficult.

I wonder where the problem lies in this.  They got to play better competition and still one.  Seems to me that someone focused on "development" would be happy that the situation occurred as it did.  

Win/Win.  Not sure I see anything wrong with this.

Do you not think it's unfair to the B team? Those girls earned the chance to play in the championship game, but the coach comes in and tells them "good job girls! now step aside"

Our North Texas system is plagued with issues like this.

The end result: how many USWNT players are North Texas Soccer alumns?

ElClassico wrote:

yellowcard5 wrote:"Just to play devil's advocate -

May I ask why the other team doing this bothers you?"

My guess would be because they were going to have an easy path to the elusive 8v8 indoor championship.  The fact that the opposition busted out the A team made it more difficult.

I wonder where the problem lies in this.  They got to play better competition and still one.  Seems to me that someone focused on "development" would be happy that the situation occurred as it did.  

Win/Win.  Not sure I see anything wrong with this.

Do you not think it's unfair to the B team? Those girls earned the chance to play in the championship game, but the coach comes in and tells them "good job girls! now step aside"

Let's be honest, the likelihood of that happening is not very good. More likely is that a)the B team had some sort of conflict or b)the OP was exaggerating about rolling out the entire A team or c)the B team has been treated like this before and left the club, leaving only the A team available to play.

No coach in their right mind would play a particular team all season only to say, please leave now and let the A team finish this out. That would be coaching suicide and a sure way to lose an entire team of revenue generating players.

Is it really feasible to think that 10-12 sets of parents all sat back and let a coach do that to their kids? It would be plastered all over this place, by them, not the opposition.

See this sort of thing all the time. Maybe not the entire team, but close enough. 18-19 kids at 9v9 outdoor game. 3-4 "platinum-level" players to "support" a full-rostered silver-level team. One guy tried to sneak 2 players into a 5v5 final indoor game that weren't on the team all season. The other team asked for a roster check and when the 2 were not allowed to play - the parents and coach actually cried foul - loudly!! How dare they not let us cheat! Extra touches!! Development!!

Could easily name 5-6 coaches and 1 or 2 clubs that do it consistently and are still in business. And thriving. Most parents are sheep.

The D-word has become the great catch-all phrase to cover a multitude of ills with youth sports. Concepts like fair play and sportsmanship are buried deep in the muck.