Playing 11v11 Takes More Skill?

Travel Soccer Mom:

moving to full field.....???

---

okay, now i am curious...

i hear people say "what a team does at U10 doesn't matter, you'll see how good of a team they are when they move to 11x11/full field". is this a general thought of most??

wouldn't a u10 team that has great passing skills on a short sided field be just as good(with additional players of the same quality) on a full field? i mean they don't forget how to pass and play as a team, they just need to get used to playing on the bigger field? the same as all the other teams in their age group.

---

 Loghyr:

This is a real common quote from baseball about going up to a 60/90 field.

There the thought is that little kids can dominate in Rec leagues based on early development, age, etc. With the onset of puberty, that all starts to even out.

As they go to the larger field, there is actually less room for error. Being slightly off on a throw on the smaller fields is okay - with the longer basepaths, that small deviation will get magnified. Line drives to the outfield are now driven straight to the short-stop for an automatic out, etc.

In general, your technique has to be spot on and you can't make mental mistakes.

To pull it back to soccer, U10 is typically your last recreational year. You are going to tryouts and all of the kids either want to be there or their parents are committed to them being there. Everyone practices, everyone gets better. And yes, a good passing team can stay a good passing team, but now they have to add power to the pass and it is against a team with speed.

The monster is now playing Academy. Another kid just made the transition as well - he was a great keeper in our Rec league. He got his lights put out at the first practice against the A team - speed, accuracy, aggression - all of the kids had it. This kid relied on being a better athelete and coming off his line to get the ball. Now he has to learn technique and patience.

---

 Clark C:

I look at team success in phases:

1) Talent dominates at the U10 and earlier ages. Very few players are that good defensively, so the great dribblers, passers, and shooters just control the game. Just 2-3 really good ones on a team will make that team win a lot.

2) Everyone hits puberty at slightly different times, and the U11-U14 age groups are skewed by who has the big fast players, even more than by who has the most talent. Because people see that the dominant U10 team is not necessarily dominant any more, they think that the U10 success was somehow transitory or a fluke. Defenders are also getting better, and dribble hogs are finding success harder to come by.

3) U15-U18: Everyone has put the onset of puberty well behind them, so the factors in #2 start to recede, and the talent/skill factors rise back to the top. Unfortunately, the turnover on teams makes it hard to really correlate U16/U17/U18 success back to U10 success. The best U10 players are still on the team. Some of them might still be dominant, others might just be good at the older age. Some of the merely good U10 players might now be dominant. Some of the merely good U10 players might have been dropped to B teams, changed clubs, etc., because they hit puberty a little later and their abilities were short changed in evaluations compared to kids who hit puberty a little ahead of them. They might eventually resurface at another club, change sports, etc.

The physical factors in #2 not only coincide with age group, but they happen to affect big field play a lot more than small field play. So, when you hear people talk about the size of the field, a lot of factors are coming into play at once: speed, endurance, dribbling vs. passing, defensive improvement.

---

 http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?t=438070