The idea for this site stems from how hard we found it to get good information about how “the soccer system” works in the U.S. We are parents of a young athlete currently playing his first year as a senior (19) in Madrid, Spain. His goal is to go pro, so he will have to impress and work his way up the ladder – his current club is in the semi-pro 5th tier of Spanish soccer (which by U.S. standards is pretty high). We found there was no comprehensive source of information relevant to parents…we had to educate ourselves through a trial and error approach involving web searching, talking to other parents (many of whom didn’t know much more than we did), coaches, following social media accounts, and general networking. You’ll have to do this too, but we hope this site as a starting point will make it a lot easier and help you cut to the chase every step of the way.
Our son decided a little late (around age ten) that he wanted to play organized soccer. We had no idea where to start, but fortunately he had two friends who were playing on the recreational level team of a local club in New York City (for each age group they have a basic level team, and intermediate team, and a “travel team”. So naturally, we started there – with the first club we came across and had a connection to.
There’s nothing wrong with a young athlete picking almost any club and getting started. Most players are in it for fun and won’t really aspire to make it to the travel team, and a top club. As they age, the number of players and teams gets smaller. However, in retrospect we do wish we had known more about the lay of the land – how the system works, not because we had in mind pushing our player to rise to the top (he decided that for himself after about three years of playing), but because we would have approached things a little differently in order to keep options open as he progressed. Unfortunately, to some degree, playing on the right clubs and teams at the earliest stage makes it easier to find the right teams as an intermediate, and then as things start to align for a college or pro track in the middle teens, being on a feeder club. The club we started with was not top-tier, but fortunately was good enough to prep our son to trial with and get picked up by an MLS Next club at age 15 (he then moved to Spain at age 16 – more on that later).
We want to help and will be looking to update the content on this site as we go, and discover new information, resources, and “hacks”. If you see anything missing, please let us know by sending us a note via our CONTACT US form and we’d be happy to add it.
