Competitive Program Philosophy and Placement Methodology
Philosophy for SCYSC Competitive Program
There is a concerted effort underway to move from a team-centric approach to individual player development. This means that team rosters may be more dynamic with players moving from team to team as their skills develop with the goal of grouping players together with similar skills. The ultimate goal is to develop large groups of skilled players at each age group to create more competitive teams. The larger numbers become ever more important as the rosters grow from 12-14 players for U12 to 18 players for U14 and above. To facilitate this development, efforts will be made for same age group teams to train/practice together as one group. This will allow for more consistent training by coaches who can now observe all players and re-evaluate as needed.
Competitive Program Placement Methodology
SCYSC recently partnered with the New England Revolution and brought in evaluators from the New England Revolution's Youth Academy for an objective, independent evaluation of the players trying out for SCYSC. Additional independent evaluators from our SCYSC staff rounded out the pool of external evaluators. These evaluators scored players on four(4) key soccer traits that best indicate playing level in a game situation: 1) Ball Control/Dribbling, 2) Passing, 3) Receiving, 4) Game Awareness. These evaluations were combined with more detailed evaluations that existing coaches provided that score players on fifteen(15) discrete soccer traits. These values were then leveraged to best place players according to current skill sets.
Stratified and Balanced Teams
SCYSC ' s current Competitive Program policy is to have at least one, but no more than two Stratified (A,B) teams per gender/age grouping, determined via a tryout process. The remaining teams, if any, will be balanced to equally distribute soccer talent across these teams. These teams are referred to as Balanced teams. Every player shall be given the opportunity to tryout for any Stratified team in his/her gender/age grouping
There is a concerted effort underway to move from a team-centric approach to individual player development. This means that team rosters may be more dynamic with players moving from team to team as their skills develop with the goal of grouping players together with similar skills. The ultimate goal is to develop large groups of skilled players at each age group to create more competitive teams. The larger numbers become ever more important as the rosters grow from 12-14 players for U12 to 18 players for U14 and above. To facilitate this development, efforts will be made for same age group teams to train/practice together as one group. This will allow for more consistent training by coaches who can now observe all players and re-evaluate as needed.
Competitive Program Placement Methodology
SCYSC recently partnered with the New England Revolution and brought in evaluators from the New England Revolution's Youth Academy for an objective, independent evaluation of the players trying out for SCYSC. Additional independent evaluators from our SCYSC staff rounded out the pool of external evaluators. These evaluators scored players on four(4) key soccer traits that best indicate playing level in a game situation: 1) Ball Control/Dribbling, 2) Passing, 3) Receiving, 4) Game Awareness. These evaluations were combined with more detailed evaluations that existing coaches provided that score players on fifteen(15) discrete soccer traits. These values were then leveraged to best place players according to current skill sets.
Stratified and Balanced Teams
SCYSC ' s current Competitive Program policy is to have at least one, but no more than two Stratified (A,B) teams per gender/age grouping, determined via a tryout process. The remaining teams, if any, will be balanced to equally distribute soccer talent across these teams. These teams are referred to as Balanced teams. Every player shall be given the opportunity to tryout for any Stratified team in his/her gender/age grouping
- Every player interested in playing on the Stratified teams must tryout (including current Stratified team players)
- No player is guaranteed a position on the Stratified teams;
- Any player can be moved down (Stratified to Balanced team or among Stratified teams if there are more than one)
- Any player can be moved up (Balanced to Stratified teams or among Stratified teams if there are more than one)
- Any player interested in playing but not attending Try Outs will be placed on a Balanced roster (or the lowest Stratified Roster if there are no Balanced teams) in that gender/age grouping as rosters allow
- If players are injured, removed or drop for other reasons, the coaches and coordinator may work to replace that player
