Hi all,
I run a kids football team that play in a weekend league.
We have 2 teams at this age group. It's worth noting that 'technically' they are both mixed ability teams - there is no official 'First and Second team' and it's rare that players move between the 2.
However, one of the teams (Mine) do play at a lot higher level. Its factual. The league have placed us in a higher division and when we play friendlies between the 2 teams, my team often beat the other by a big goal difference.
The problem - the club is very much a "every child gets a chance" regardless of abilities, which I understand. However, we have 2 new kids training with us, that had never played before in any capacity, and they've been assigned to my team and their parents are pushing for us to sign them on and play in matches.
They would be much more suited to our other team given the level they play at etc, but they have a full squad and can't accommodate anymore players.
I'm all for giving every child a chance but I just don't see any benefit in any way by putting these 2 players into matches in my team. They'll struggle in games, it'll stand out a mile that they aren't at that level, the team will therefore struggle, results won't go our way, we'll likely end up being moved down divisions, and likely to lose a couple of the better players. (I've seen this happen many times) and it'll basically be a big step backwards on what we've worked on as coaches.
Now I know there's other clubs in the league that do have A and B teams etc and the shift players around based on ability etc but we don't do that and the club aren't interested in doing that, which is a shame because I actually think our club are holding themselves back because of this.
I'm actually pretty new to this myself and tbh I'm not sure what advice I'm after here, except hoping someone has been in the same situation and can give their experience. I kind of feel the club have stitched us up a bit here and we as volunteer coaches either have to take the hit on performances/results etc or be the bad guys and tell the parents that their kids just aren't good enough players for our team. The club have kind of left us to it on this and sadly I don't think they'll back our decision if we were to tell them they aren't at the right level of ability for our team.
Sorry if I sound like an a***hole here btw, I don't want to hold any child back etc, but I'm just struggling to see what benefit this is going to add. I actually don't care about winning games, I just want our group to have competitive matches win or lose, but I feel it wont be competitive if I have to start giving these 2 the same game time as our more experienced players given we're only 5 a side at this age.
It just kind of feels whats the point. we're going to ruin everything we've worked on and as a volunteer, I honestly don't need the stress and cr4p thats going to come of it all.
UPDATE: Our other team (that play at a lower ability) are going to take them for the time being as they have players at a similar level anyway so training will be much more suited all round.
Tbh neither team has capacity to get them into a match day squad, purely from a numbers perspective and giving the existing squads a good amount of minutes. The parents were made aware of this when they first joined anyway - but off the back of this the club are going to look into having a 3rd team - but likely to be from next season given were in the back half of the current season.
Thanks for everyones responses - I appreciate it.
I run a kids football team that play in a weekend league.
We have 2 teams at this age group. It's worth noting that 'technically' they are both mixed ability teams - there is no official 'First and Second team' and it's rare that players move between the 2.
However, one of the teams (Mine) do play at a lot higher level. Its factual. The league have placed us in a higher division and when we play friendlies between the 2 teams, my team often beat the other by a big goal difference.
The problem - the club is very much a "every child gets a chance" regardless of abilities, which I understand. However, we have 2 new kids training with us, that had never played before in any capacity, and they've been assigned to my team and their parents are pushing for us to sign them on and play in matches.
They would be much more suited to our other team given the level they play at etc, but they have a full squad and can't accommodate anymore players.
I'm all for giving every child a chance but I just don't see any benefit in any way by putting these 2 players into matches in my team. They'll struggle in games, it'll stand out a mile that they aren't at that level, the team will therefore struggle, results won't go our way, we'll likely end up being moved down divisions, and likely to lose a couple of the better players. (I've seen this happen many times) and it'll basically be a big step backwards on what we've worked on as coaches.
Now I know there's other clubs in the league that do have A and B teams etc and the shift players around based on ability etc but we don't do that and the club aren't interested in doing that, which is a shame because I actually think our club are holding themselves back because of this.
I'm actually pretty new to this myself and tbh I'm not sure what advice I'm after here, except hoping someone has been in the same situation and can give their experience. I kind of feel the club have stitched us up a bit here and we as volunteer coaches either have to take the hit on performances/results etc or be the bad guys and tell the parents that their kids just aren't good enough players for our team. The club have kind of left us to it on this and sadly I don't think they'll back our decision if we were to tell them they aren't at the right level of ability for our team.
Sorry if I sound like an a***hole here btw, I don't want to hold any child back etc, but I'm just struggling to see what benefit this is going to add. I actually don't care about winning games, I just want our group to have competitive matches win or lose, but I feel it wont be competitive if I have to start giving these 2 the same game time as our more experienced players given we're only 5 a side at this age.
It just kind of feels whats the point. we're going to ruin everything we've worked on and as a volunteer, I honestly don't need the stress and cr4p thats going to come of it all.
UPDATE: Our other team (that play at a lower ability) are going to take them for the time being as they have players at a similar level anyway so training will be much more suited all round.
Tbh neither team has capacity to get them into a match day squad, purely from a numbers perspective and giving the existing squads a good amount of minutes. The parents were made aware of this when they first joined anyway - but off the back of this the club are going to look into having a 3rd team - but likely to be from next season given were in the back half of the current season.
Thanks for everyones responses - I appreciate it.
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