Soccer is starting to get the athletes that previous generations would have been reserved for football, basketball, or baseball but in many leagues its parents coaching and they don't know the first thing about soccer coaching and very few camps or clinics for the parents/coaches and that puts many kids in the US behind when they start getting closer to middle school and high school.
Please note these are my own opinions of youth soccer.
Here locally we anchor development/understanding of players by playing these small sided fields where anyone with any sort of coordination can kick it from end to end, lose out of playing midfield, lose out on the concept of moving the defense up, and stick way too many kids on a team. I have lost track of the number of times I show up and at least 1 if not both teams have enough players to make 2 teams and just sub everyone at once. If you are going to do that lets extend the field and let more kids play at all times (adding 15 yds in length & 5 yds in width, and play 8 on 8 rather than 6 on 6 with 6 subs).