In the world of youth club travel soccer, late May and early June is always an interesting time of year. We have Memorial Day tournaments, Fathers Day tournaments, State Cup finals, and the late-season battles for first and second place in league play (it goes for last and next-to-last, as well). A look at the league standings in the Back of the Net section illustrates how many teams are in the hunt for league titles, and how many are fighting to avoid relegation.

The late-season maneuvering isnt just confined to the playing field, however. Off the pitch, parents and players alike are analyzing the standings, readying themselves to jump ship to another team should they be on the path to a higher division.

In youth club soccer as in just about any competitive sport age groups are broken down by divisions. The reason: to separate teams (loosely) based on how competitive each team is. It makes no sense, for instance, to throw a newly formed team made up of recreational league all-stars against a team which has been together four years and made it to the State Cup finals two years straight. Such a game wouldnt benefit anyone.

But in determining a division structure, the only ingredient considered is a teams record. How a team plays is not relevant, since there is no way a league structure committee can judge a teams performance based on appearances. It needs hard evidence, and the wins, losses and ties are that evidence. Thus, a team which cant string together two passes if the players lives depended on it, could theoretically beat a team playing attractive soccer with the hopes of actually learning something about the game. Indeed, this happens every weekend.

Its too bad so many people are unaware of this fact. Rather than judging a team on how it plays, and whether a child can learn and develop in that environment, many people make the decision as to where their son or daughter will play solely on how many times a team wins. Quite literally, a teams future often hangs in balance of one game; a win keeps the team in a division, a loss sends them down a division and perhaps to destruction.

In more than 10 years of coaching in this area, Ive seen quite a few teams hanging out in Division II or III, humming along while they focused on playing the game. They understood that its not what division youre in, but how you and your team plays. Such an approach generally ends the same way by the time that team is U16, it has arrived in division I, whether the move upward was desired or not. In learning and playing the game, and in focusing on improvement over winning, such teams win much more often than they lose. And those who played the Division survival game wonder why all of those dusty trophies from the past just dont mean that much anymore as that Division II team gives them a clinic they wont forget.