Super teams in rec

Is this just accepted that they exist?

It seems an easy preventative measure is to disallow a parent to request a specific coach/team.

I stepped up to coach as i bought the, “without parent coaches the games don’t happen”. We are getting slaughtered by teams who’ve kept their rosters year-over-year. Meanwhile, I have several kids who have never played organized soccer.

Top replies, most upvoted first

• (+19) Generally yes. It’s rec. kids want to play with their friends. Teams like this are often a bunch of kids who are friends outside of soccer. Busting that up at the rec level just isn’t worth it. That said- coaches who run up scores are jerks. I do all I can to not run a score up once we have an obvious lead.
• (+13) It’s a double edged sword, staying together keeps the development and coaching consistent. I get where you’re coming from though, some rec leagues only allow a certain amount of coach requests.
• (+12) The best rec leagues I’ve found have divisions. Super teams happen when you have a tight friend group with a knowledgeable coach. That’s good Make them play other teams like that and let the beginners play the begonners
• (+8) Our AYSO region tries really, really, REALLY hard to balance teams competitively. No friend requests past the U6 level, and even at those levels, only one buddy or coach request per player. I have been-- all the coaches have been-- in the room when ratings were assigned to players and when teams were assembled blind, based on the assigned ratings. Everyone agreed the process was as close to perfect as was within our power to make it. I gotta tell ya: the teams are still not balanced. I've been on both ends of it over the years. It has really, really driven home that I can't judge my success...
• (+5) It's rec soccer. Purpose is fun not good competition. People who work harder for longer generally have more fun.
• (+4) I coach a super team. We are u12 and it's the same group of girls since kindergarten and they are all best friends. Would be dumb socially to split them up just because they are good.
• (+3) My rec league has always had a 1 friend request and up to 3 coach's pick, and uses grades from other years' coaches make new teams each session.. The drawback really is that there's not much continuity and there's not that level of familiarity with teammates that a more consistent team would have. But it really does make the games mostly close and prevents any one kid from consistently losing and maybe give it up because of that. Posts like this really make me appreciate my local league.
• (+2) You coach the kids you have. Learning to lose is a really important part of rec soccer. The dominating teams should be coached to build soccer skills. When one team is up 4-0, their coach should be challenging their players to make passes before their next shot on goal. My third grader has been with the same coach for 3 years. We dominate some games and get totally smoked in others, the skill level is so variable at this age and positions are confusing.
• (+2) I'm on season 6 of coaching my son's rec team. We have been consistently losing our best players to our rec club's "super teams". It's a combination of the parents wanting their kid to be on the super team and the coaches wanting to build the super team. They just request it as wanting to play with a specific friend and the club approves. It's not supposed to happen but it does. I don't complain because I don't want those parents with this attitude toward rec soccer involved in my team anyway. We've kept a core set of players over the years. We achieve our goals (having fun, playing hard,...
• (+2) I'm confused by what people are calling Rec in this thread. Is rec where you are only playing other kids in your town? That is what I understood as Rec. Those teams should definitely be mixed each season. I guess asking for one friend to be with you maybe but that seems like bad slippery slope policy to me. Town travel always had teams grouped by skill so many times the teams would stay together year over year.
• (+2) I am on the board of a rec team. To provide some perspective, kids play rec because they want to play with their friends and don’t want to practice all the time or whatever. We have rec teams who are U11, U13, who will enter tournaments with club teams and win the tournaments or come out runners up. Players of course to leave for club, but sometimes they come back because they want to stay with their friends. It’s fundamentally different from the club player experience though. The “super team” team may be able to hold its own, but the individual players are not as skilled as their...
• (+2) I’m with ya man. I’ve been coaching my son’s team for the last 4 years and every season (not year) at least half the team is new and most never played before. We’re in U13 and it still is happening and there are teams that have the same kids every season. I even tried to get my son on to one of them just so he can see how a team should play together when you’re not spending most of the time teaching half the team basics. But apparently those spots are for returning team players and their friends.