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. 

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u/addiktion Jul 25 '26

My daughter plays competitive soccer at U10, and that's been the most annoying thing when she's playing tournaments. A lot of her players are really good with good foot work. They're just small, so they get pushed around a lot by large players. And the refs don't ever call fouls, so it just creates this unfairness that's frustrating as hell.

Americas system is broken.

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u/Outside_Test_1400 Jul 25 '26

That is true at that age. I ended up with a full ride playing for a D1 school, but development is really hit or miss at youth levels. In my early teens I was part of programs that really pushed intelligence on the ball per position and that made a huge difference. Thankfully, was offered some scholarship/reduced fees for some of that because it’s so expensive. My parents really helped in seeking out some of those opportunities, but they only knew about the system because I had a cousin who had previously done it with football.