Soccer progression in Arlington

[Anonymous]

Can someone lay out in basic terms the soccer opportunities in Arlington as kids get older. I have a young son (6 year old) who says he wants to play soccer 3x a week and 2 games a weekend. He is on a rec team that plays 1x a week and practices 1x a week but he is asking for more soccer. What do most people do? Futures? ADP? Something else?

[Anonymous]

Play Red -> ADP to see if your kids still like it before tryout to Travel

[Anonymous]

OP -Just take your kid to the travel team tryouts next spring. I think they take them as young as 7 or 8 for U9 travel. ADP is a partial-waste of time of time if they like it. You are jumping the line for the travel top teams and will start out on the top team (They will have about 5-6 teams to start.) vs doing ADP or stying in Rec.

-Your kid might be on the bottom or mid level team the early year, but next year (when they try out for travel at their age group) they will usually be so far ahead, skill-wise, they should be placed on the top team.

-If you think that doesn't matter now, then I assure you it will matter and become a very difficult/ impossible task down the line by U11.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP -Just take your kid to the travel team tryouts next spring. I think they take them as young as 7 or 8 for U9 travel. ADP is a partial-waste of time of time if they like it. You are jumping the line for the travel top teams and will start out on the top team (They will have about 5-6 teams to start.) vs doing ADP or stying in Rec.

-Your kid might be on the bottom or mid level team the early year, but next year (when they try out for travel at their age group) they will usually be so far ahead, skill-wise, they should be placed on the top team.

-If you think that doesn't matter now, then I assure you it will matter and become a very difficult/ impossible task down the line by U11.

That is, if your 6 year old isn’t burnt out by 3 day a week soccer by age 11.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP -Just take your kid to the travel team tryouts next spring. I think they take them as young as 7 or 8 for U9 travel. ADP is a partial-waste of time of time if they like it. You are jumping the line for the travel top teams and will start out on the top team (They will have about 5-6 teams to start.) vs doing ADP or stying in Rec.

-Your kid might be on the bottom or mid level team the early year, but next year (when they try out for travel at their age group) they will usually be so far ahead, skill-wise, they should be placed on the top team.

-If you think that doesn't matter now, then I assure you it will matter and become a very difficult/ impossible task down the line by U11.

That is, if your 6 year old isn’t burnt out by 3 day a week soccer by age 11.

They have to be ready. My kid started at 6. They played up a couple of years with rec and could see the potential and limitations with the rec environment. My kid absolutely loved it. They were second team the first year and made first team the second year of u9.

[Anonymous]

Your options are basically
1. Stay Rec
2. Rec and then ADP when qualified by birth year (2nd or 3rd grade) and then back to Rec or try out for Travel when ADP ends
3. Travel when your kid is qualified by birth year (2nd or 3rd grade)
4. What 19:39 is advocating for

Your kid is only 6, he might say he wants to play 5 days per week, but that doesn't mean he would actually enjoy it. A LOT of kids burn out and never play again because it gets too intense too early.

[Anonymous]

Adding Futures is a good step before travel too. It is another practice with Arlington coaches. It helps with travel tryouts as they know the Futures kids already.

[Anonymous]

You could also try the juniors program nearby at MYS. Way better than rec but not as bad as travel and geared toward the U7/8 age group.

You have to try out and get picked. Believe there are 30-40 kids in the program and they scrimmage each other in teams and then do training 2 x a week.