New to Soccer - Please help.

Thank you!! And you are right, we have experience that with baseball and then going for All stars and seeing more on field talent than we thought. I will reach out to SSA and GAstorm to see if I can visit some practices and go from there I think. Thanks again!

Sorry for the long winded reply.

Welcome! I think soccer is a fantastic sport too. My youngest was a lot like yours. She lives and breathes soccer and was miles above the rest of her rec team. It got to the point where her coach told us it was time to move onto academy. She now plays ECNL. So here's some of the advice I've gathered over the years:


We started academy at a small club when she was U10, which we loved. I think smaller clubs are great and very underrated. The most important thing that you can do right now is continue to harbor the love he has for the game. ECNL and MLSNEXT are extremely taxing leagues, and if he ends up there, there will be some days that the only thing that gets him to the next practice is his pure, unconditional, love for the game. So, I would recommend going to GA Storm (unless of course someone else here has had a terrible experience). We had a bad experience with SSA, but that was on the girls side and definitely was the individual coach and not the club. His club really doesn't matter right now. Let him continue to be the best for a while. It seems like rec may be too easy for him, but he would probably be one of the best on an academy team as well, it just depends on if you're ready to start bleeding money.

The sense of communities at clubs that don't have the "big leagues" is unmatched. There were many many days when my daughters were asked to play up an age group because some team needed a player, or just because coaches liked them. This did wonders for their confidence and helped them find some role models in their actual life. It's good for them to look up to the big kids.

Die by good coaches, not clubs. Be cautious of coaches that promise too much, too quickly. You'll know the type when you see them. Find a coach that loves the game and wants your child to succeed no matter where they play. They're a rarity, but they exist (usually at smaller clubs). We followed my daughter's smaller club coach to one of the big 5 and she was then evaluated by other coaches and offered a spot on an ECNL team. We turned it down and I'm glad we did because she has the best coach now. Things usually work themselves out like that.

Since he loves the game so much, have him watch it as much as possible. Don't force it, but introduce the idea to him. Find a player you enjoy and watch a highlight reel and together you can go down the rabbit hole. This could be really cool activity for you to both do since you are new to soccer too. Watching other players is the best and most underrated way to develop IQ. It's also really fun to watch them take the skills they've seen and apply them in their games. At that age there's no fear of embarrassment, so they just try things. It becomes natural.

I hope this helps a little. There will be times when you make mistakes, or wind up at a club you're not happy with. That's okay, cut yourself some slack.

U.S. youth soccer lacks so much passion for the game. Real passion, not the version that has been conjured up by the soccer federation to appease the masses and convince them their kid is the best. I'm talking about the eats, breathes, lives the game type passion. My kid gets compliments all the time on her game, and for a while I couldn't put my finger on why, but I think it's because she has a burning desire to play. If you see that spark in him, protect it. Whether he ends up playing pro or never makes it past a "small club" he'll be thankful he got to love soccer.

My last piece of advice, it's okay to brag on your kid. It's okay to think he's God's gift to soccer. Youth soccer is no joke, and if he plays at an elite level there will be times when he feels down and out. He needs someone in his corner to remind him how good he is. As long as you don't want it more for him than he does, you're fine.

Good luck!

What a FANTASTIC comment, thank you soooo much!! I’m going to check with each club to see if he can come check out practice. I have 4 kids and all have played sports until they didn’t want to, my oldest daughter played volleyball until she didn’t want to and that was fine, my oldest son played baseball until he quit, my middle son is on all stars for baseball and my youngest soccer, all of them combined don’t even touch his passion, love, obsession over soccer. It’s all he thinks about, even when we play outside he has to be in full kit in our backyard, his guy of course is Ronaldo, so we have multiple kits. He loves the ATL United games and the only video game he plays is FIFA. Lol. This dude eat, breathes and dreams about this game, it’s nuts. I have seen passionate kids in sports but they still don’t touch his enthusiasm. Thank you for your kinds words and advice! I promise it doesn’t fall on deaf ears.

If your son is 7y old still I would not worry to much in going to a club right now but rather find him pickup games where he can play street soccer with older kids and perhaps even adults. Let him enjoy and play and feel the game freely, become soccer smart and get an understanding for the player movement and flow of the game (find him pickup games with US but also international kids who have the same passion). Also, playing futsal can help at this age.

If your choices close to you or what you are willing to drive is SSA vs Georgia Storm, I would go SSA.  You won't be happy with Georgia Storm even though they have lower fees.  They are glorified recreation in my opinion.  Very few licensed coaches there, and a lot of parents coaching instead.

Which location of SSA are you looking at Cobb, Coweta, or Paulding?  I assume those are the three nearest locations for SSA that are closest to GA Storm.

At 7 years old he would be U8 or U9 next season depending on his birth year.  2014=U9  2015=U8 starting this Fall.   If he is going to b U8 this fall then he would want to join the Pre-Academy (or PDA) program with the club.  SSA has this.  If he is going to be U9 then that is actual the start of Academy program.  Pre-Academy will be cheaper but will help tremendously skills compared to recreation.  U9-U12 is Academy.  Once they get to U13 that is Select where they start playing 11v11 games.  U9-U10 play 7v7, U11-U12, play 9v9.  U8 and below generally play 5v5(including keeper) or 4v4 without a keeper.  SSA plays 5v5 at U8 and below.

I will say putting my son in from Pre-Academy on versus keeping him recreation made him the player he is today.  He was not the quickest, biggest, or strongest in the academy ages, but he learned the soccer skills that when he finally grew into his body during the early teenager years, he easily became one of the fastest and stronger player's on his select team.   

The first question to answer is what are your or your players goals for future soccer. This is difficult to answer but by u13, the top players navigate to the Big 4 or 5 clubs in metro Concorde, AFU, GSA and UFA with maybe 1 or 2 more. They all play ECNL. MLSNext is found at clubs who were not invited into ECNL. You can read how AU is downsizing and from what is posted will be down to u15 and u17 soon. Kid played in the ECNL National title game seversl years back. The entire season, tournament and championship game were a great experience. All the players on that team were offered at the college level with 9 of them D1 including our player. Enjoy the adventure and good luck.

Thank you for your comment, it seems like a split field on MLSnext and ECNL. I think our future in soccer is whatever my son makes of it, he will play as long as it’s his passion and when that goes away and he’s done then we are done, I had my oldest son play baseball but when he was done we were done, I honestly don’t care if my kids play anything, I just want them to have fun in whatever they do.

SSA Paulding (I think they call this SSA Black location if I remember right) should have a Pre-Academy program, and if he is 2015 then he would be U8 even if December is the month of his birth.  That makes him a young U8 at that.

Ultimately though if he excels even past SSA Paulding then ultimately you will as others have said have to get him on higher level teams which mostly are the HQ locations of the big clubs like SSA, Concorde, UFA, Atlanta Fire, GSA, or even Atlanta United, etc....  There are some good smaller clubs but they likely will not have the higher level teams that he might need.  The branch location of the big clubs typically don't host the higher up teams either like the ECNL, MLS Next, etc... teams.  If he is that good though to the point where there are potential future scholarships on the table then traveling to the Atlanta Metro teams of these big clubs might be worth it.  It really depends on your kid and how well he excels through the process.