Well we’ve made the move to a new club. It wasn’t easy but we did it. Johnny didn’t think he was getting what he needed from his club of three years. Things have changed over there. The board fired some folks and brought in some new blood that completely changed the atmosphere, for the worse as far as we were concerned.

You might be asking yourself “Johnny didn’t think…” he’s only a kid. How does he know whats best? Good question. I’ve never been one to force anything on my kids. I like to question them so that they come to a logical decision on their own. Johnny is all about setting goals. Surprised? I was… It all started about two or three months ago coming home from Academy Team practice. (Academy is soccers equivalent to baseballs minor leagues. It’s intended to develop players to go pro. Most of the MLS teams have Academy squads and the play in the USSF league. Very cool.) There had been some rumors there might be a U-14 team starting up that Johnny could be selected for. And If that team didn’t come around the next option was to try to make the U-16 squad. Driving home we started talking about it. I asked him what his goals were for the coming year. Johnny said he wanted to make ODP as a play up, and make the U14 Academy squad. I asked him what he needed to do to accomplish that. What does he need to do differently that will give him a better chance of success. He thought about it for a while. He finally said train more. I said more or better. He trains four days a week as it is. He wasn’t sure. I asked him if he understood how much higher a level the training was with the Academy as compared to his club. He said, “oh yeah dad, there’s a big difference between Academy and club. It’s not even close to being at the same level.” I then said, “well if you are trying to make a team that’s at a much higher level and half of the things you’re doing isn’t at that level, would you expect to be making progress toward your goal?” He said no. I asked him how he would fix that. He thought for a while and finally said, “I need to change clubs and train with better trainers.”

That was it. That’s how we decided it was time to change clubs. It was ultimately Johnny’s decision. I’ve always felt it’s critical that Johnny “owns” the decisions that are made about whatever goes on in his life. In this instance I helped Johnny come to a logical conclusion as to what he should do to achieve his goal. In the end, he made the decision, he committed to it, he owns it. We’ll see how it works out. ;-)

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Filed under: Psychology • Training

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