General tryouts

[Anonymous]

Venting. Tryouts stink. No one has an eye on half the kids. It is demoralizing and unfair. If decisions are made ahead of time, why bother with the show? And it’s not sour grapes, DC made their top choice team, it’s just sad to watch so many kids playing their hearts out for a fraud.

[Anonymous]

Different clubs do it differently - your experience is not our experience

[Anonymous]

The top kids work their asses off year round. Fall and Spring 4 practices a week, 1-2 games. Winter 3 practices, plus Futsol and scrimmages. Summer, SuperY. Add in Capstone, HP Elite, at home practice and weight training and they are honing their skills all year long almost every day and playing against tougher competition. The coaches recognize the kids they see putting in the work. Usually work increases skill. If they don’t recognize your child as a top performer, they have not seen them put in the work.

Can we stop pretending like the kids who are not putting in this type of work should get the same looks as the ones that do. There is a large skill gap between the kids that work this hard year round and those that don’t. If you don’t get that, it is because your child hasn’t. Sorry. But hard work pays off and the coaches see who is putting in the work. Stop thinking your DC should get the same looks when they have not put in the work.

If your child has put in the work, they should stand out on whatever field they were assigned. IDs are not a random process, they reward the kids who are standouts and the ones that have been working harder for it.

[Anonymous]

Tryouts are tough. For the uninitiated, they are usually not set up as a fair-for-everyone process. Coaches are usually only looking for the last 20% of the roster as, it is usually already 80% set.

If you didn’t know, you can go do a few things to better your chances:
-go to a practice ahead of tryouts
-shake the coaches hand, tell them your name, thank them… ie introduce yourself
- showcase your individual skill, show-off your moves
-be very vocal, demand the ball
-figure out a way to stand out

It’s hard, but it’s also a real life skill. There is simply no practical way clubs can host a ‘double-blind’ style tryout and fairly evaluate the total player.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The top kids work their asses off year round. Fall and Spring 4 practices a week, 1-2 games. Winter 3 practices, plus Futsol and scrimmages. Summer, SuperY. Add in Capstone, HP Elite, at home practice and weight training and they are honing their skills all year long almost every day and playing against tougher competition. The coaches recognize the kids they see putting in the work. Usually work increases skill. If they don’t recognize your child as a top performer, they have not seen them put in the work.

Can we stop pretending like the kids who are not putting in this type of work should get the same looks as the ones that do. There is a large skill gap between the kids that work this hard year round and those that don’t. If you don’t get that, it is because your child hasn’t. Sorry. But hard work pays off and the coaches see who is putting in the work. Stop thinking your DC should get the same looks when they have not put in the work.

If your child has put in the work, they should stand out on whatever field they were assigned. IDs are not a random process, they reward the kids who are standouts and the ones that have been working harder for it.

100% agree except the HP Elite part. They are a scam. There way better places than that.

[Anonymous]

What places are better?

[Anonymous]

What’s better

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top kids work their asses off year round. Fall and Spring 4 practices a week, 1-2 games. Winter 3 practices, plus Futsol and scrimmages. Summer, SuperY. Add in Capstone, HP Elite, at home practice and weight training and they are honing their skills all year long almost every day and playing against tougher competition. The coaches recognize the kids they see putting in the work. Usually work increases skill. If they don’t recognize your child as a top performer, they have not seen them put in the work.

Can we stop pretending like the kids who are not putting in this type of work should get the same looks as the ones that do. There is a large skill gap between the kids that work this hard year round and those that don’t. If you don’t get that, it is because your child hasn’t. Sorry. But hard work pays off and the coaches see who is putting in the work. Stop thinking your DC should get the same looks when they have not put in the work.

If your child has put in the work, they should stand out on whatever field they were assigned. IDs are not a random process, they reward the kids who are standouts and the ones that have been working harder for it.

100% agree except the HP Elite part. They are a scam. There way better places than that.

[Anonymous]

It is hard when there are a few slots. 20 percent is generous.

Try going to a smaller or newer club to get more touches and experience as they would be filling more spots.




quote=Anonymous]Venting. Tryouts stink. No one has an eye on half the kids. It is demoralizing and unfair. If decisions are made ahead of time, why bother with the show? And it’s not sour grapes, DC made their top choice team, it’s just sad to watch so many kids playing their hearts out for a fraud.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What places are better?

Ignore that guy. Always one.

In no order:

HP Elite
Futstars
Golden Boot
False8
Next Star
Ballerz Academy
Coerver

All have programs. Try for yourself, evaluate and see what works. For what it is worth, the best technical players my DC has played against (we are still Pre MLS Next/GA/ECNL age groups) play ALOT of futsal and play with In10sity and False8.

[Anonymous]

My 12yo just went to a practice last month and she’s now on a travel team. It’s nowhere near as serious as the first poster though and that’s ok.
Practices will be 2-3x per week fall and spring and 2x per week in the winter.
He wants 16 on the roster and right now has 14 I think. So at the official tryouts he is only looking for 2 kids.
So I agree that going to a spring practice is better. But not every kid is competing against the kids like PPs.

[Anonymous]

Every year our team adds at least one kid that does all this. They will look amazing in the drills and the small sided games that most tryouts have and they will look good in practice. Then they play in a real game and lay an egg. Not saying all the extra training doesn’t help just there are other intangibles that usually don’t show up in a practice or tryout. Some kids have it others don’t. At the older ages a lot have coaches have already watched the players they want on film or played against

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every year our team adds at least one kid that does all this. They will look amazing in the drills and the small sided games that most tryouts have and they will look good in practice. Then they play in a real game and lay an egg. Not saying all the extra training doesn’t help just there are other intangibles that usually don’t show up in a practice or tryout. Some kids have it others don’t. At the older ages a lot have coaches have already watched the players they want on film or played against

This is so true. My kid has a good friend who is amazing in tryout settings but not in games. I suspect it’s mostly performance anxiety.

My kids best assets are speed, passing accuracy and field knowledge. None of those things show up in the small side games and drills. Not a huge deal bc not looking to play on a top tier team.

[Anonymous]

The issue with tryouts is each club does it differently. All clubs have their set teams already, they're just looking for 1-5 more kids and that's it. When you don't see coaches looking at a game/group that's because they are evaluating the kids they want to look at. They've either already evaluated the kids in the side game or they don't care.

I prefer tryouts to include technical skill section, then 1v1, then 2-4v2-4, then small scrimmages. This way each player gets seem a good amount. During scrimmages not everyone gets a chance on the ball much so they can't be evaluated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every year our team adds at least one kid that does all this. They will look amazing in the drills and the small sided games that most tryouts have and they will look good in practice. Then they play in a real game and lay an egg. Not saying all the extra training doesn’t help just there are other intangibles that usually don’t show up in a practice or tryout. Some kids have it others don’t. At the older ages a lot have coaches have already watched the players they want on film or played against

This is so true. My kid has a good friend who is amazing in tryout settings but not in games. I suspect it’s mostly performance anxiety.

My kids best assets are speed, passing accuracy and field knowledge. None of those things show up in the small side games and drills. Not a huge deal bc not looking to play on a top tier team.

My kid is good at those same things. They look better in tryouts/ID sessions as the field opens up more. Thankfully a couple places they looked at did do full field scrimmaging for part of the time. Although those are tough too when you’re an outsider and the current players don’t really pass to you. My kid also has really good endurance, which doesn’t really become apparent until a real game. I feel like they need to get better at their technical skills just to get a foot in the door at some of the clubs where they are on the cusp. Those kids seem to be favored at tryouts.

[Anonymous]

Everyone has to start somewhere. SYC is a great place that develop players. Just look at their recent story. Players who were on their 4th team moved up to their top MLS Next team.