How to stream teams

We note that this is one of the most difficult and potentially contentious areas, particularly managing parent expectations. It will be helpful to communicate with parents what is happening and why.

As far as possible, we want to place each player in the ‘right’ team. As well as their current ability, this might take into account a number of other factors such as preferred position, friendship groups, attitude, etc.

However, once this decision is made, it should not be a permanent decision. It is important to review the whole squad’s development and team allocations at least once a year and to move players around to ensure everyone is still in the right place and there is a good balance for all. This should reflect the development of players over the season and will be much easier to carry out if everyone has been training together (allowing you to directly compare players and promoting a ‘one club’ approach). The sooner you start doing this, the easier it will be as players and parents will get used to it happening. It’s important not to allow cliques to form, which can create invisible obstacles to moving players around.

If, for example, you have enough players for 3 teams, it is not necessarily the case that you should place all the strongest players in the A team and all the weakest players in the C team. There can be some overlap and often this is helpful to ensure all teams are competitive. It can also be used to get a good balance of players who like to play in different positions. The ideal outcome is that our teams are not winning heavily or losing heavily on a regular basis.

It is worth emphasising to players and parents that it is less important which team they are allocated to and more important how they can contribute to that team and develop. For example, a child will develop much more quickly (and are likely to enjoy themselves more) as one of the strongest players in a B team rather than as one of the weaker players in an A team. They will get more opportunities, have more responsibility and probably have more success.

We strongly recommend that more formalised streaming should only begin to take place at U11 and above, and that teams are reviewed annually.

Case Study – Streaming A, B and C teams

In the first year after streaming into A, B and C teams, the A and B teams performed well but the C team struggled and lost heavily most weeks.

For the second season we decided to leave the A team as a ‘straight’ A team (i.e. the best 15 players in the group).

However, we moved 5 strong B team players into the C team (and replaced them with 5 former C team players). The B team was still stronger than the C team but the two were more balanced.

As a result, in the second season the C team were much more competitive and all three teams won and lost games over the course of the season.

The other change we made was to try to avoid referring to A, B and C teams at all and instead, if we had to make this distinction, referred to “the team that plays in the C division” (for example). This helped to reinforce the fact that we’d mixed teams up a bit.

We were very open with everyone about what we were doing and why, and in particular spent time talking to the 5 players (and their parents) who moved ‘down’ beforehand. For them, we emphasised the positives of the change – they would be important players for their new team and make a big difference; for some it meant being able to play in a preferred position too.

This approach might not work for every age group but it worked for this one and led to a much better outcome for the whole group rather than just those teams who were winning before.

Providing a range of opportunities

Building on our guidance for streaming squads/teams, there are some further thoughts below on how to provide a balanced range of opportunities whatever age you are at.

As mentioned before, we think the best environment for player development is to have a range of different opportunities.

At the younger age groups where squads are not streamed, it is encouraged that you look for opportunities to offer some streamed football.  This could be by streaming by ability during training sessions, arranging friendlies on this basis or by entering streamed teams in Summer tournaments.

Friendlies which are specifically arranged for your weaker players, where the opposition are of a similar standard, are what we refer to later as “development matches”.

Remember that when you do this, do not always have the same players in the stronger and weaker streams. This might be inevitable for some who are obviously very much stronger or weaker than their team mates, but most will be somewhere in the middle and its important players and parents don’t get the idea that the streams are set in stone.

The same applies, but in reverse, when you reach the older age groups where teams are streamed for league games. Training together allows you to provide opportunities to mix teams up and Summer tournaments are an ideal time to compete together rather than separately, at least for some of them.

Development football can and should continue right up to the oldest age groups where it is still appropriate.