We don't need to think about travel soccer right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Best on my experience with several kids who play or played at the most competitive levels, you do not need to rush into travel at this age. If your coach is strong, technical training is a focus and you are playing against good competition given your DS's abilities, you are safe. Let him develop skills and a love for the game. Once that happens then I would recommend revisiting travel at U12/U13.

Don't get caught up in this push to travel. To be frank, unless your kid in a super star and is head and shoulders above everyone else and the coaching is horrible, you will waste time and money. At the top clubs, if your are playing on anything other than the A team, you are traveling around the DMV to play against team on par or worse than the teams you play at PPA. The coaching is also uneven because the best coaches as coaching the older kids.

At this age, keep your DS at PPA if the coach is good. Get their input. Ask if they plan to play in the local travel tournaments like Mid-Atlantic. Use the money you would have spent on travel to enroll your DS at a strong summer clinic or summer camp.

Many of the DC parents are like lemmings and just follow everyone off of the cliff into the money pit called travel soccer. We did the same until we realized that travel soccer was a waste at the younger ages for most kids. If your DS develops, he will run circles around current travel players at the u12/u13 tryouts.

I think you take too dim a view of most travel teams/clubs, but otherwise think this is good advice. The one thing I'll add is that from what I have seen of PPA "premier" teams, most of the kids do not have good footwork and technical skills compared to most of their travel counterparts. I think it's worth doing some extra work over the next few years to make sure the kid has skills that are sufficient to allow him to move to a good travel team at some point if he chooses. PPA has several good coaches who could probably do extra work with any kid who wants to put more of a focus on skills, or there are always Coerver camps, you tube videos, or other resources out there if the parents don't know how to help.

[Anonymous]

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I think you take too dim a view of most travel teams/clubs, but otherwise think this is good advice. The one thing I'll add is that from what I have seen of PPA "premier" teams, most of the kids do not have good footwork and technical skills compared to most of their travel counterparts. I think it's worth doing some extra work over the next few years to make sure the kid has skills that are sufficient to allow him to move to a good travel team at some point if he chooses. PPA has several good coaches who could probably do extra work with any kid who wants to put more of a focus on skills, or there are always Coerver camps, you tube videos, or other resources out there if the parents don't know how to help.

Agree. Footwork matters a great deal as to whether you make the travel team and on which team you are placed (we have A-C). My son started travel later, after 5th grade, and due to his lack of footwork he is on C. he is very fast, aggressive, and reads the field naturally -- so in games he looks great -- but coach sees that his technical skills are lacking and so has not moved him up to B. Just for your consideration.

Plus my son tried out for and made his middle school team, and on the 1st of 3 tryouts the coach asked all of the kids who plays travel and for what team. All the travel players made that cut (although some were cut 2nd round) and all of the boys who made the team are currently on a travel team. So my takeaway is that my son would not have made the team without playing travel, and he really wanted to play for his school team, so I'm glad we made this decision to go travel. Your 3rd grader will not be thinking like this yet but my point is that it may matter in the future in ways you are not currently contemplating. good luck!

[Anonymous]

and forgot to add that waiting until U12-U13 tryouts is way too late, at least in our area of MoCo where competition is brutal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:[

I think you take too dim a view of most travel teams/clubs, but otherwise think this is good advice. The one thing I'll add is that from what I have seen of PPA "premier" teams, most of the kids do not have good footwork and technical skills compared to most of their travel counterparts. I think it's worth doing some extra work over the next few years to make sure the kid has skills that are sufficient to allow him to move to a good travel team at some point if he chooses. PPA has several good coaches who could probably do extra work with any kid who wants to put more of a focus on skills, or there are always Coerver camps, you tube videos, or other resources out there if the parents don't know how to help.

Agree. Footwork matters a great deal as to whether you make the travel team and on which team you are placed (we have A-C). My son started travel later, after 5th grade, and due to his lack of footwork he is on C. he is very fast, aggressive, and reads the field naturally -- so in games he looks great -- but coach sees that his technical skills are lacking and so has not moved him up to B. Just for your consideration.

Plus my son tried out for and made his middle school team, and on the 1st of 3 tryouts the coach asked all of the kids who plays travel and for what team. All the travel players made that cut (although some were cut 2nd round) and all of the boys who made the team are currently on a travel team. So my takeaway is that my son would not have made the team without playing travel, and he really wanted to play for his school team, so I'm glad we made this decision to go travel. Your 3rd grader will not be thinking like this yet but my point is that it may matter in the future in ways you are not currently contemplating. good luck!

I love how people agree that footwork is Soccer is important.

[Anonymous]

In regards to what team your DS may make when he switches, it's definitely a YMMV situation. My son moved from rec to travel after 5th grade, started on the B team. Guest played on the top team several times through that year, and made the top team the next year.

Besides you never know if he'll even want to keep with soccer down the line. Plenty of DS's friends moved on to focus on different sports around middle school, basketball, lacrosse, football...

[Anonymous]

My kid switched from house to travel when he was 10, but we wish he would have done it a year sooner. He has also played soccer since he was 4 and it's always been the thing he loves to do more than anything. The reasons I wish he would have done it sooner were: 1. He was not developing AT ALL on house. The coaches were all well-intentioned parents (my husband among them a few times) that could only really get him to a certain point developmentally. 2. All the kids on his level left to play travel and the kids left on house were not at his level, causing him to stagnate further. 3. By the time we realized he should be on travel (we knew nothing about soccer and travel teams, etc.), there was only ONE travel team at his club to try out for (the A team) and their roster was full. It was REALLY hard to get on that team. He got a slot, but he was really the least developed kid on the team. This was in the spring. The following fall, they created a B team and put him on it, but they staffed it with a coach that was overbooked coaching several other teams and ours was last on his to do list. I think oftentimes the A teams get the better coaches and more of the clubs focus/resources. The moral of my story is - I think if he had started travel sooner, he might have been a more competitive player. Not that we ever thought he was a superstar, but I would have liked him to play on his HS team (he didn't try because he's at an FCPS HS where the teams are made up of older kids from A teams). But all of that having been said, he's now 16 and still plays travel on a B team and still loves it - and, as many have pointed out - that's the important part.