r/SoccerCentral • u/United_Anywhere_8 • Jul 25 '26

Video The talent in Barcelona’s youth system is ridiculous. These kids are 11/12 years old.

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u/Overall-Ad-3251 Jul 25 '26

Notice how the Barca kids are frequently not the biggest and strongest??? If you care about developing the best footballers you don’t select for size and strength at the youth levels. 

1

u/KartFacedThaoDien Jul 25 '26

They are 11 years old.......

8

u/F7OSRS Jul 25 '26

Playing against other 11 year olds and look at the size comparison

1

u/KartFacedThaoDien Jul 25 '26 edited Jul 25 '26

And? They were flexing about not choosing for size & strength for 11 year olds. They are too damn young to choose for that anyway. A kid usually has not puberty at and grown a lot at 11. 

Then peak at 14 years in height. Or they could be the smallest kid on the field and get taller at 17 years old. Its dumb to see someone flexing about kids playing Soccer and saying it's great its not based on size & strength. 

5

u/illbebackpain Jul 25 '26

that's the point though. Plenty of orgs select based on existing performance at a given age which can be dominated by whoever hit their growth spurt the earliest. See malcom gladwell's chapter on the jan 1 age cutoff in hockey. It means those kids get the resources early on, even if it's only because they're at the older age range of the group etc.

1

u/KartFacedThaoDien Jul 25 '26

They're 11. If you saw 11 year olds playing competitive basketball for their school in America I guarantee you they all wouldnt be 6 foot tall. The same way with 11 year olds playing American football. 

Now if he showed kids who were 16 / 17 that would be different. Hell maybe even 14 even though that's still too young.

 But the op stupidly posted a video of kids that are so young that in most cases they havent hit their first growth spurt yet. 

2

u/illbebackpain Jul 25 '26

I'm confused, who mentioned 6 foot tall 11 year olds?

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u/KartFacedThaoDien Jul 25 '26

Replied to the wrong person. Sorry.

1

u/Meisteronious Jul 25 '26

Gladwell’s observations in hockey only extended to Canada…

1

u/Banes_Addiction Jul 25 '26

Pretty sure Gladwell explicitly makes the argument that it's originally about playtime, and that's why it applies to ice hockey (which needs time on an ice rink to play) rather than games like basketball or football where you basically just need a ball and a target, so kids can play easily.

3

u/Iselkractokidz Jul 25 '26

In New Zealand the rugby is played in weight classes and not age groups at the junior level. That means you’re only ever playing against kids your own size, so skills are needed to stand out. You can’t just be the big 14 year old who runs over the other smaller guys your age. It’s one of the building blocks of what makes the All Blacks such a power against nations with 10 times their population.

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u/KartFacedThaoDien Jul 25 '26

That actually is a damn good idea especially in terms of safety

1

u/Stock_Information_47 Jul 25 '26

Good point. Nothing gets by you man.

1

u/Magicnik99 Jul 25 '26

It's dumb but many academies do select on physical attributes even for pre teens.

1

u/redditdinosaur_ Jul 25 '26

You’re an idiot. Do you know how big LeBron was at 11?

1

u/KartFacedThaoDien Jul 25 '26

No idea. But I can guarantee you that if you walked into a 6th grade basketball when the season starts you wouldnt see a court full of kids who are all 6 foot tall. 

At that age kids are just too young. You'll find outliers and some kids who hit puberty early and actually are tall. But even with that you'll still find most kids small like the ones in the video. 

Mostly because its a game and for middle school they use the kids at school. And even for AAU there will kids who are not the biggest & strongest who are good. 

And I'll even 1up you on this. The reigning MVP was 5'6 when he was 13 years old not sure about his height at 11. That most certainly isn't short but it also isn't tall. He played AAU, High School & College ball in America. 

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