>>[kdlsc] Question. At what point should we be more concerned with development rather than winning.<<

So you're asking on a sliding scale, from 0-100, when we should get to a 51 or more on development.

As we'll discuss below, the real issue here is whether you're talking about the development of the best child on the team, the worst child on the team, the average child on the team, the team itself, etc.

I think that the parent and player have to take some responsibility for understanding their own needs and desires. What need does the player have the most: playing with better players, being trained by better trainers, being coached by better coaches, etc? For every child, at every age, there's a unique answer.

>>Last year we were on a team that won all the time but the coach did not do very much to develop the players as either individuals or a team. He allowed the more assertive players (who, as it turns out, had been playing together since u5. They are now u11) to dominate every conceivable situation in games. They took every penalty, every corner, every free kick. We are talking about 4 players on a developmental team of 18.<<

Several things spring to mind. First, I wonder if the "more assertive players" and their parents feel that the coach didn't do much to develop them? Did they all leave the team?

If I'm the parent of one of the "more assertive players", I want the best players around my child at training and games to help my child become a better player.

If I'm the parent of one of the "less assertive players", I want the coach to "dumb down" the best players to help my child. Heck -- we all know as parents -- we don't really care that much about the team -- we just want what's best for our child.

Are you beginning to see what might be considered a conundrum for the coach?

>>They also played in the center of the field so they even controlled the flow of the game. Unfortunately, they are not the type of player to get everyone involved. As center mids they were often out of position and did not distribute the ball. They used their physical strength and speed to just power past people. It got to the point were a few of the "others" did not enjoy going to practice or playing. A few of these players have a ball with them were ever they go, they would even stay for 30 minutes after practice to shoot and play world cup, yet they didn't want to practice with this coach or team.<<

When my kid was 13, she got a chance to play in a scrimmage with one of the best U18 teams in Region III. I thought she looked good; technically, she was the equal of some of the lesser players and she was as quick as anyone.

Unfortunately, at 4'10" and 92 pounds, she tended to get pushed around a lot.

Now, she really wanted to play on that U18G team so we let her try out for it later. She wasn't selected. I remember being angry because it was clear her technical skills were so much better than the younger team on which she was selected. Eventually, I had to help her reconcile to the fact that she was going to have to get much more aggressive, much stronger, and have technical skills not just better but far better than the other girls to overcome the size differential.

>>This season, 3 players from that team were, for lack of better description, demoted to the pool 2 team. Two of those players have much better skill than many of the pool 1 players but they were also the smallest players on the team. This year, we find the coach to be much better even though he is just out of college. He has the team playing well and working together. He also has not pigeon-holed them into position like the coach did last year. We didn't win many games at the beginning of the year. We were actually 1 win 1 tie and 10 loses during the first month of the season. However, we worked the ball much better than last years team ever did, even by the end of the season. Why did we lose so many? 1. we went to a tournament after 2 practices. A tournament that we didn't go to last year because the coach said we were not ready. 2. We are much smaller than the other teams we played. I insist that you could take 4 or 5 of our players and switch them with the pool one team and both teams would get the same results. This season, everyone loves to come to practice. They laugh and have a good time and along well together. Ususally 8 out of the ten players stay after to play and it is all we can do to get them to leave.

So once again, at what point is development REALLY more important than winning?<<

Development is always more important than winning. The real question you're asking is "at what point is the weakest player on a team's development more important than the development of the rest of the team?" I don't have an answer to that -- because by its very nature it's a case-by-case kind of thing.

By the way -- it sounds like whoever put these kids into the other pool did them a big favor -- regardless of the ego bruising that occurred during the way.