How about 3V3?

I played basketball, football, baseball and soccer growing up. I lived in Northern VA from 4th thru 8th grade and that area was one of several pockets around the country where you could play high level (we called it “select” back then) soccer in the 1970s.

I raised my 2 boys in North Florida. I coached all 4 of the sports I grew up playing. Both my boys were very good soccer players, but it became clear to me very early that “organized” soccer, as it is practiced/played in the US today, was not going to meet our needs.

Luckily, there were a couple of fledgling organizations called Challenge Sports and Kick It that ran competitive 3V3 soccer tournaments. We could pick a spot in Florida almost any weekend throw 4-6 kids in a couple of cars and go compete. We did this around football, basketball and baseball. I know that “organized” soccer has done its best to kill off these outside organizations, so the competition may not be as good today, but I still see ads for the tournaments. As an aside, 2 of my 3V3 players ended up starting in the midfield for the 3rd team in Florida high school history to go undefeated and untied (though neither chose to pursue playing soccer in college).