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Convoluted Canadian System ......

RL RCD

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You also have a club system in men's amateur soccer (locally) that is not amateur and does not breed loyalty....with a few notable exceptions ( Columbus, Inter, Richmond, SU, Westside, West Van etc). If talented kids go to teams where they get a couple of hundred bucks a week to put up their nose or buy earrings how is that ever going to help men's soccer in this country? There is something drastically wrong with the leadership and I am doubtful that it can be fixed.

How can we talk about loyalty when some teams/clubs charge their players (I am talking here about VMSL) $200-$400 (registration fee, to pay for refs, booking fields, etc.) while some teams do not charge a single cent (fees are covered by sponsors)?

When you have a young guy (who happens to be also a very good player and a chance to choose), student, unemployed, whatever the reason (every single dollar counts) and he is asked to pay $400 for team fees and then there is another team that does not charge a cent (or maybe even gives him a few dollars) do we blame him for going to play for a team that is not charging him!?

We are talking constantly about a need for some kind of semi-pro Canadian soccer league although we know that it cannot exist without private money (and sponsors) yet, when a local player moves to another team (either to avoid paying team's fees or to make a few dollars), we question his loyalty.

I have been saying for a long time that the key (to start with) is the number of players any team (Premier and Division 1, first of all) can register. By not allowing some teams to register 35,40 or even more players the quality will be spread throughout the league. Managers and coaches will pay more attention to players who they really want to be on a team. The team will easier manage the budget (and approach sponsors).
 

Dude

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It is amateur soccer...

Bingo. And always will be.

Every club is different, and every club treats their players differently. At SFC Premier (2003) we did not pay to play. We were also a terrible squad, and eventually relegated. The next year I was w/ Langley, who'd survived their first year up after promotion in 2003, and were loading up. I know I paid to play, and I think a whole lot, if not all, did as well. We also won the Pak that year, and Premier the next. That squad largely enjoyed success and had a very loyal core of players for quite some time. The "pay-to-play" model breeds loyalty.

The clubs and teams I've played for were largely "pay to play" structured, with the odd favor in there or two to accommodate students, stretch out their fees, etc. The "system" just doesn't allow for any other way, unless that club gets a "sponsor". The "__" are necessary, because either that sponsorship money is coming from a questionable source, or, in the odd case, there is actually a club sponsor, and that sponsor insists on the Prem guys being taken care of. Is it that way at clubs like Metro Ford? I dunno. Rarely is that sponsorship actually a worthwhile endeavor for the sponsor. They get next to nothing out of their association w/ the club- though I wonder if MF has, over the years, found that they earn themselves enough customer loyalty due to that sponsorship that it has made things worthwhile.

I'd really love to learn the business angles, there. Suffice to say, Metro Ford is an outlier in this scenario....

But as SirM pointed out, it is amateur soccer. Always will be. A Canadian Pro league would be, obviously, professional.
 

Regs

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FWIW, I never paid to play until I hit Masters. It never occurred to me back then that I was being paid and I thought all players at that "level" were the same. The ONLY time I had to put some money in was the trip to PEI in 2004.

Amateur the way it is being used in this context is a bit weak to me. There is a big difference to having your player fees "paid" and getting $x per game/month/season in our local leagues.
 

Dude

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I agree. I think what SirM was getting at were the cash transactions, not the free registrations.

Players that have something special, like a move, for example, are considered more desirable than expendable plumbers that have hard heads, big hearts, but permanently petrified feet.
 

Regs

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Well in the context of the thread topic, I'm not too sure our local men's leagues have anything really to do with the convoluted Canadian system other than many of those now within it at the youth level played there in our generation.
 

Dude

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Agreed. Our men's league is essentially "what happens after", at best. It's not meant to be a contributor to the system.
 

djones

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If Canada wants to change for the better, they need to find a way of expanding their pool of higher level players by creating a system to find late-developers and a place for them to play. BIOBANDING is the latest thing other sports are looking at.

I've been biasly(sp) preaching this forever since my kids are both late-developers and late-born, as well as my experience with Super Y League (August to August birthdate) where we found jems that are lost in the system and also saw the limitations of players who matched up against players who were slightly older and the same physically and how limited their development really is without being bigger and stronger than the others.

http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/dec/19/biobanding-scientists-skinny-kids-sporting-superstars
 

Regs

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Good read @djones !

I've always believed that our issue is identifying & evaluating. Too much time & resources these days IMO is being focused on 'pathways'.
 

djones

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Agreed. Also a perfect way for the CSA to make a radical decision and show immense leadership to develop special talent that would be philosophically ahead of other countries around us and help us catch up. Be on the front burner instead of being slow to re-act or change ... as per usual.
 

Yoda

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We are way more focused on girls soccer than men's soccer nationally if you take a look at it. Maybe that is the way we we want to go but that is the status quo right now. Men's soccer is doomed at the present in this country. I do not think there is a national appetite for it. Better off to put money in the girl's game and pump a bunch of money into hockey, including the NHL draft day and the Spengler Cup etc..and the Brier and the TSN Pins game, and of course the Leafs.

Do you think that has to do with the fact that we had Sinclair, arguably one of the best in the world, to draw attention to the women, and the men have no similar draw? Would their be more interest if Canada could produce or find a Messi or similar?
Like any pro team, you need a superstar to draw crowds. Similar worth the price of admission.
 

djones

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Nothing against Sinclair who was a fabulous player, just fabulous, but she became the proto type that "wins" games. An early developer (with very good skills which is rare for a "bigger" player) that dominated physically. In most cases, they are not as skilled as Sinclair is/was but are the proto type that gets selected through our developmental system. It's the same on the boys side. But because one makes it thru, it becomes the rule rather than the exception.

I also think it's cultural that allows hockey to thrive and soccer to suffer. In Central/South America, little boys/girls sit with their fathers/grandfathers in front of the television or at the game rant and rave about players and demonize the ones with little "talent" reinforcing what is quality and what isn't. The child's education and thought process runs into his development quest to become "that" player that was being raved about. Having a grandfather/father being able to differentiate the difference and value of a player like a Morales as to a Mattocks certainly helps re-enforces developmental queues that should be coveted rather than passed over. Those queues also filter into coaching philosophies and selection philosophies. We have more footy on TV than anywhere in the world and we can't even get grandfathers/fathers or mothers to sit down and watch the game with our kids let alone know what the subtle differences that make a player a "player" and an athlete!

Hockey has a much developed culture of people who watch it (regularly) and can easily pick out players of quality even though they may have never been very good at the sport or played at all.


Just a few of the many things i think is wrong with football in this country and the US. At least the US has a couple of tiered leagues for their players to play in. Another problem for another day.
 

LION

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Jones. Love the article. Would be great to impliment that here. Your spot on on the cultural aspect as well.

I know in my club here in Delta, it seems it's a rec attitude and pushing development and competitiveness is almost frowned upon. The competitive parents put their kids in hockey and the left overs seem to join soccer.
HPL in the summer months will help losing kids to hockey. As well this generation having the local white caps team to follow and watch games should help this.

My main issue is the "we are canada we suck at soccer" mentality. How are we ever going to change and get better with that attitude. Who is pushing for better, and setting higher expectations for all?
But then you do and get your hand slapped as its "just soccer in canada"
 

Rangerforever

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Must say for the first time in 3 1/2 months I quite enjoyed watching the matches this morning with my kid who's back in town until after New Years.
We've being watching Saturday mornings together since he's been a little guy.
It was good to have the debates on again with a few laughs over a cup of tea.

Too right Jonesy.

Like you I'm sure, he was gutted with the result. ;)
 

PV

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If Canada wants to change for the better, they need to find a way of expanding their pool of higher level players by creating a system to find late-developers and a place for them to play. BIOBANDING is the latest thing other sports are looking at.
I've been biasly(sp) preaching this forever since my kids are both late-developers and late-born, as well as my experience with Super Y League (August to August birthdate) where we found jems that are lost in the system and also saw the limitations of players who matched up against players who were slightly older and the same physically and how limited their development really is without being bigger and stronger than the others.
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/dec/19/biobanding-scientists-skinny-kids-sporting-superstars
As stated on this blog in the past, kids who are born in the last couple months of the calendar year are at a physical disadvantage and usually don't develop as much as the kids who are born in the first couple months.
A couple years ago, I offered to help a local youth club change its U6 and U7 groups to help the late year born kids. The proposal was to have U6s born from Jan to June playing against other Jan to June U6s and have U6s born from July to December playing only against other July to December U6s. The proposal was to do the same with the U7s. The Youth club (not to be identified) turned down my offer of help. Instead U6s born in December had to play U6s born in January, even though the January kids were 15 to 20% bigger, faster and stronger.
 

djones

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This theory was proposed for children entering kindergarten that were born late to start half a year later (January) but parents, with short mindedness, were afraid that being a half a year "behind" would put their children at a disadvantage once they graduated university and wouldn't be able to get good jobs because those jobs would be taken by the ones who stated in September. :rolleyes:
 

Dude

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I enjoy this type of discussion. I'm about to go read your article, but it sounds an awful lot like theories from the book "Outliers".

Good read if you haven't.....
 

ThiKu

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Well...

1. There is no Canadian system.
2. You say the CSA "struts" etc - our own BCSA has to get flipped on its head, and the dead weight shipped out. Findley gets promoted to the national team without developing a single player.
 

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