A Nine Year Old goes pro in soccer
 

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/...oy-Prodigy.php

That's an amazing risk.

Ridiculous.

This will only encourage parents everywhere who think their child is skilled enough to be a professional athlete to yank the kid out of childhood and live his/her parents' dream.

Doesn't sound like it's anything new. The article said they typically recruit a number of players that kid's age-- it's not the same thing as "going pro." The only thing truly remarkable about this recruit is that the decision was made based on a four minute Youtube video.

Well my son is in that age bracket and I've seen a kid just as good if not better. With the millions upon millions of nine year olds, how do you single out nine?

There's one on my son's team, the goalkeep that is bigger, stronger and probably faster than this kid, with good moves as well.

Shows you the difference in American soccer and the rest of the world. You take the 50 best promising athletes in U.S. at age 9 and I guarantee you not a single one is a soccer player (as a primary sport). They're all playing football and basketball.

actually i will challenge this statement. not that many kids play organized football or basketball at this age. compared to soccer.

but then there are all the ghetto kids that don't play organized anything. so that balances it out.

Maybe push the age up to about age 12. A lot of kids play soccer at age 9.

In Utah, at age 5/6 everyone plays soccer. By the time they are 12, of the top 20 athletes in a high school boundary, only 1 or 2 is still playing soccer.

Choosing the best 40 athletes across America would leave you with one if you're lucky out of Utah. Chances of the best athlete in Utah being a soccer player instead of football or basketball player is 1 in a million.

I define "athlete" as maximum combination of speed, strength, size, athletic intelligence, and coordination.

size is less important in soccer. there are a lot of athletes that are great, that never have a chance in football and basketball because of their size.

they may even be better athletes in many ways.

I believe David Beckham came up through Manchester United's youth program. I believe he was 14 when he signed with Man. U.

Average size of world class soccer player is 5'10 to 6'0 with some shorter and some taller. If you want to eliminate from my assumptions from my last post anyone who will grow to size 6'2 or taller and put less emphasize on size and more on agility and coordination, I still maintain 99% of your top tier (and I mean really top tier as in top thousandth percentile) athletes have not put soccer as their primary sport as a 12 yo.

Who is "they"? I'm not saying world class soccer players aren't athletes. I believe they are. I'm saying U.S. soccer players are not our best athletes.

Take Landon Donovan and whoever else in U.S. soccer player and put him up against a group of NFL cornerbacks and NBA point guards in a test of agility, strength, speed, coordination. That's the level of athleticism I'm talking about.