Quote: It all goes back to the money. Make soccer more affordable for every child and you'll get better soccer. Soccer in this state and maybe others doesn't make it affordable for low income to middle income families to participate on travel teams for 4+ years with a price tag of $4000+ per year. I've heard some players are offered scholarships with clubs but that doesn't cover travel costs. When we started in this travel soccer 6+ years ago we were traveling to just southeastern states by car, this last year in a 3 month period our team traveled by jet to Seattle, Texas, NJ. In other sports such as baseball, football, basketball those sports look at the ability of the youth athlete first, not the parents bank account. Soccer is a sport for the upper middle class to upper class, it's kind of like golf, although the game of golf has started to break those barriers with free youth programs for low income families. I guess we just have to take soccer for what it is, a "very expensive participation sport". with not a bright future unless they start letting everyone play.
There is an athletic density problem with soccer that doesn't exist with baseball or basketball or football.
A highly talented hooper from Columbia for example.....doesn't have to go any further than the Y to get into a pretty high quality pickup game. And chances are excellent that there are a handful of high quality AAU teams in the Cola area. And within 2 hours of Columbia....there are tons of really really good players and teams.
My kid can walk over to a buddies house and get involved with a pickup basketball game or football game. He has to get into a car and drive to get a soccer pickup game.
Very good soccer players/teams from places like south carolina HAVE to travel becasue there simply isn't the depth or breadth of adequate competition locally or within the state. Highly dense places like Southern CA are probably different.
But to me the model isn't broken. Its a numbers issue....until soccer hits a critical mass in terms of numbers of players this problem will exist. So long as you have to drive to get a pickup game......you probably need to bus to get a quality match, if you are at a very high level.
