The U.S. Soccer Federation's new rule has some people shaking their heads.
The rule, which disallows academy soccer players from playing the high school game, has received mixed reactions and will in all likelihood affect the outcome of this season."From the team's standpoint, it balances the playing field a little bit," Fossil Ridge boys coach Jamie Moore said. "That is not just speaking for my program, but from programs in general that are not real heavy in that top end club talent, it levels the playing field a bit."That being said, I feel really bad for the kids, because they don't get to experience high-school soccer. It's a completely different experience in club."The reasoning behind the ruling is that the U.S. National team is trying to cultivate the strongest pool of talent possible from which to draw its future players, and that players taking part in high school soccer in addition to club prevents that from happening.For some high school teams, that is a good thing, and for others, it is not so good."We haven't lost anybody," Moore said. "We have some incoming freshmen that are pre-academy players, who are going to have to make a decision here pretty soon, but it has not affected any of our upperclassmen."That is not the case, however, for the Keller boys team, which finished third in District 7-5A competition last season and advanced three rounds in the playoffs before losing to the eventual state champions, Southlake Carroll.Keller coach Jason Bates has lost 10 players to academy soccer, and three additional players to pre-academy programs this season."It is what it is," Bates said. "These kids play club soccer and they get recruited from club soccer. It's not that we don't have college recruiters at the high school level, but most of the recruiters come for club soccer players, so when their coaches give them an ultimatum, they have to choose."There is no set rule on it, and that rule won't come from the U.S. Soccer Federation until next year or the year after, but when the club coaches say they can't play high school soccer, they are forcing the kids to choose."Bates agrees with Moore on how the rule will likely affect the high school game."It equals out a lot of the teams in the DFW area," Bates said. "It will allow El Paso teams and south and west Texas teams to excel a little bit more, because a lot of those El Paso teams are very good and competitive even without academy players."Bates said the reaction from the players on both sides of the issue has been mostly that of letdown."(High school players) are disappointed, and I think the kids that are playing academy are disappointed as well," Bates said. "I don't think they wanted to have to choose, and they felt like they should be able to play both, so it was disappointing for them as well. But, we'll see how it all plays out."Have more to add? News tip? Tell us
