One of the recurrent themes in this forum is the perceived "mediocrity" of MAPLE and that "the good old days" were better.
I thought I'd relate an experience from a couple of years ago which may challenge this belief.
My older brother had two boys who came up though the MAPLE system. While the boys were involved my brother was involved with the club administration.
After being away for several years he came to a MAPLE game being played between my son's team and the club he had been involved with.
He was struck by the improved skill level and technical ability of the players on both sides (who were U12's at the time) as compared to what he had seen several years before. He has also seen my son play as a U15 and had much the same reaction.
I know it's anecdotal and is not meant to imply that there is not room for improvement, but I do believe that every once in a while it's nice to sit back and talk about what's going right with Youth Soccer instead of what we perceive and wrong about it.
After watching some of the U20 World Cup recently I was struck by the fact that the US team was not, at least in my opinion, outclassed by the European and South American squads. The players on that squad are the product of the system in this country (if I'm not mistaken one of then was a Bolts alumni).
I thought I'd relate an experience from a couple of years ago which may challenge this belief.
My older brother had two boys who came up though the MAPLE system. While the boys were involved my brother was involved with the club administration.
After being away for several years he came to a MAPLE game being played between my son's team and the club he had been involved with.
He was struck by the improved skill level and technical ability of the players on both sides (who were U12's at the time) as compared to what he had seen several years before. He has also seen my son play as a U15 and had much the same reaction.
I know it's anecdotal and is not meant to imply that there is not room for improvement, but I do believe that every once in a while it's nice to sit back and talk about what's going right with Youth Soccer instead of what we perceive and wrong about it.
After watching some of the U20 World Cup recently I was struck by the fact that the US team was not, at least in my opinion, outclassed by the European and South American squads. The players on that squad are the product of the system in this country (if I'm not mistaken one of then was a Bolts alumni).
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