| This is our first year trying out for travel, so just curious. By our estimates there were about 140 kids trying out, many of whom seemed like were already on travel last year. They said they’ll have 4 teams. Do the new kids actually have much of a chance? I have to imagine they’re going to keep all of the kids who have been playing already. |
Arlington usually has more than 4 teams at U9. |
| they have 8 now for u9. bunch of those kids you saw were the "play up players" then the other returners were reclasses from age group change |
| There are usually six teams of true u9 and two teams of u8 who play up in the u9 division. In addition to the kids who played travel this year, there are usually girls from “futures” who are already known to the coaches. And as mentioned above, this year there are girls repeating the u9 year because of the age reclass. |
| Thanks for this clarification. Seems better odds than we hoped. A bunch of us new parents were so confused. We also wondered if the groups were set in a certain way for the second day of tryouts and if it was a good sign if our kids were in groups with the kids who had already played Arlington travel. Setting expectations for little kids is so hard! |
| Trying to read between the lines on the groupings drives people crazy, not always obvious how they're organized |
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If you look at the teams for this past year, you can see the teams structure from top. Gotham and Ajax are the teams someone above referenced, where they take a group of younger kids a year early, with the idea that they will largely form the top team the following year.
https://arlingtonsoccer.com/programs/travel/coaching-staff Also, keep in mind they rarely get things perfect this first year. There was a lot of movement between teams after my child's first year of travel. |
| Start donating... IYKYK |
| This is all so helpful! Thank you. |
Be sure to go to all the tryouts and make a note to talk to the head coach(es) after each tryout! |
| Does anyone know when offers for the U9 teams go out? |
| Still waiting personally for a mid-tier team but have heard from 5 families that got invites to the top 2 teams (seemed to all happen Monday), including to a couple new players who were not in the u8 group this year. So guessing they are working their way through the list over the next week or so, as usual. |
| Sorry to derail this thread, didn’t want to start a new one since the topic is similar, has anyone heard re offers for U9 boys? If we don’t make the team we need to try out elsewhere. |
| We received an offer late last night for U9 girls. |
boys offer for top teams are out this morning |