Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Club soccer is worthless for developing a young player.

We have pulled our kids out of Club (and they were at a 'selective' club) for academy style training and they have developed light years over their peers that used to be at a somewhat similar technical level.

What's even more idiotic is the a**hole that keeps coming on here to list 'selective' Clubs. This is all for parental bragging rights. Yet--many players made those clubs and turned them down. Training is what matters. Period.

Some of the clubs listed as 'non-selective' have crushed our 'selective' club in games. Size of player pool tells you nothing. In fact, the larger it is, often the least amount of personal attention is devoted to any single player in the Club. If your kid is further down the totem pole at a selective club, you are better placing them somewhere else.

very true. one main coach in arlington heads red and white, and if your player is not one of those ~20 youngsters, you might as well play for a less selctive club at u9. you will get more attention and development.

- so it should be

So it is really 180 boys for 22 spots.

Not all of the 22 selected accept their spot. I know kids that moved into that upper group when some players in the top 22 chose to develop elsewhere. There can be a lot of shuffling in the week following first offers. It helps if your kid did the academy training the year before--unless they had severe behavior issues which became evident and then it could actually have the opposite effect.

They are 8 though. Relax everyone. This means very little for what they'll turn out to be by 16. It's been pointed out repeatedly that a good majority of A team kids aren't there a few years down the road.

Were those players that signed up for U8 Academy the same ones that Arlington made special U8 winter camp sessions for and that were invite-only?

The U8 academy does a Fall and Spring session and does pick around 22 or so kids for a separate indoor winter session. Not all of the kids that do the winter session end up in the top 22. As far as I know, the tryouts run interdependent of the Academy. There are many kids that make it that never did the Academy training is not a requirement. It does improve the kids' ball skills and it can help a kid get noticed since some of the evaluators are the same. However, sometimes it has the opposite effect. They see the kid for a full year and some of the traits they see work against them and they might have been better showing up as a 'wild card' at tryouts. Again, if you only care about personal development of your own kids (which is the only thing you should be concerned about)---do the training if it fits in your schedule and don't look into the future or over-think this or that. Everyone knows everyone in these groups so it is easy to get caught up focusing on the wrong things and playing the game of comparison when you really should only be worried about your OWN child.

I would be irked if my kids' club had an academy-style system and pulled some kids out to get the benefit of extra training, especially if the fees for all the kids are the same. Seems like it would make more sense to have the kids who are more advanced attend some trainings with older groups.

Exactly what older kids should they be practicing with when they are 7 to 8 years old? A travel team?

I think he's talking about the 22 kids that were selected for the winter indoor training from the Fall U8 Academy. Latter was open to all, former obvioulsy was not, but did have to pay extra. The latter could easily have attended an older age rec winter camp, but what difference would it make. They were still ID'd and selected.

When my kid did it, they did scrimmage against a U9 travel team...and actually beat them. They were not one of the top group travel teams though. However, this group did not represent the eventual top 2 groups. Only a few of them ended up there. It also was screwy last year because of the birth year change and some were headed straight to U10, skipping U9 and some U9s were only U7/first grade and were not part of this Academy training.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Club soccer is worthless for developing a young player.

We have pulled our kids out of Club (and they were at a 'selective' club) for academy style training and they have developed light years over their peers that used to be at a somewhat similar technical level.

What's even more idiotic is the a**hole that keeps coming on here to list 'selective' Clubs. This is all for parental bragging rights. Yet--many players made those clubs and turned them down. Training is what matters. Period.

Some of the clubs listed as 'non-selective' have crushed our 'selective' club in games. Size of player pool tells you nothing. In fact, the larger it is, often the least amount of personal attention is devoted to any single player in the Club. If your kid is further down the totem pole at a selective club, you are better placing them somewhere else.

very true. one main coach in arlington heads red and white, and if your player is not one of those ~20 youngsters, you might as well play for a less selctive club at u9. you will get more attention and development.

- so it should be

So it is really 180 boys for 22 spots.

Not all of the 22 selected accept their spot. I know kids that moved into that upper group when some players in the top 22 chose to develop elsewhere. There can be a lot of shuffling in the week following first offers. It helps if your kid did the academy training the year before--unless they had severe behavior issues which became evident and then it could actually have the opposite effect.

They are 8 though. Relax everyone. This means very little for what they'll turn out to be by 16. It's been pointed out repeatedly that a good majority of A team kids aren't there a few years down the road.

Were those players that signed up for U8 Academy the same ones that Arlington made special U8 winter camp sessions for and that were invite-only?

The U8 academy does a Fall and Spring session and does pick around 22 or so kids for a separate indoor winter session. Not all of the kids that do the winter session end up in the top 22. As far as I know, the tryouts run interdependent of the Academy. There are many kids that make it that never did the Academy training is not a requirement. It does improve the kids' ball skills and it can help a kid get noticed since some of the evaluators are the same. However, sometimes it has the opposite effect. They see the kid for a full year and some of the traits they see work against them and they might have been better showing up as a 'wild card' at tryouts. Again, if you only care about personal development of your own kids (which is the only thing you should be concerned about)---do the training if it fits in your schedule and don't look into the future or over-think this or that. Everyone knows everyone in these groups so it is easy to get caught up focusing on the wrong things and playing the game of comparison when you really should only be worried about your OWN child.

I would be irked if my kids' club had an academy-style system and pulled some kids out to get the benefit of extra training, especially if the fees for all the kids are the same. Seems like it would make more sense to have the kids who are more advanced attend some trainings with older groups.

Exactly what older kids should they be practicing with when they are 7 to 8 years old? A travel team?

Aren't we talking about a travel soccer program? That was my assumption, and in that case, the advanced 7 or 8 year olds (U8s) could spend some of their time practicing with a U9 team. A poster above clarified that there was an additional fee for the extra training, which makes it somewhat less odd in my view.

No you don't just sprinkle some 7-8 year old pre-travel academy kids in with a travel team for practice, nor do you sprinkle them in with a older rec team that doesn't exist over the winter months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Club soccer is worthless for developing a young player.

We have pulled our kids out of Club (and they were at a 'selective' club) for academy style training and they have developed light years over their peers that used to be at a somewhat similar technical level.

What's even more idiotic is the a**hole that keeps coming on here to list 'selective' Clubs. This is all for parental bragging rights. Yet--many players made those clubs and turned them down. Training is what matters. Period.

Some of the clubs listed as 'non-selective' have crushed our 'selective' club in games. Size of player pool tells you nothing. In fact, the larger it is, often the least amount of personal attention is devoted to any single player in the Club. If your kid is further down the totem pole at a selective club, you are better placing them somewhere else.

very true. one main coach in arlington heads red and white, and if your player is not one of those ~20 youngsters, you might as well play for a less selctive club at u9. you will get more attention and development.

- so it should be

So it is really 180 boys for 22 spots.

Not all of the 22 selected accept their spot. I know kids that moved into that upper group when some players in the top 22 chose to develop elsewhere. There can be a lot of shuffling in the week following first offers. It helps if your kid did the academy training the year before--unless they had severe behavior issues which became evident and then it could actually have the opposite effect.

They are 8 though. Relax everyone. This means very little for what they'll turn out to be by 16. It's been pointed out repeatedly that a good majority of A team kids aren't there a few years down the road.

Were those players that signed up for U8 Academy the same ones that Arlington made special U8 winter camp sessions for and that were invite-only?

The U8 academy does a Fall and Spring session and does pick around 22 or so kids for a separate indoor winter session. Not all of the kids that do the winter session end up in the top 22. As far as I know, the tryouts run interdependent of the Academy. There are many kids that make it that never did the Academy training is not a requirement. It does improve the kids' ball skills and it can help a kid get noticed since some of the evaluators are the same. However, sometimes it has the opposite effect. They see the kid for a full year and some of the traits they see work against them and they might have been better showing up as a 'wild card' at tryouts. Again, if you only care about personal development of your own kids (which is the only thing you should be concerned about)---do the training if it fits in your schedule and don't look into the future or over-think this or that. Everyone knows everyone in these groups so it is easy to get caught up focusing on the wrong things and playing the game of comparison when you really should only be worried about your OWN child.

I would be irked if my kids' club had an academy-style system and pulled some kids out to get the benefit of extra training, especially if the fees for all the kids are the same. Seems like it would make more sense to have the kids who are more advanced attend some trainings with older groups.

Exactly what older kids should they be practicing with when they are 7 to 8 years old? A travel team?

Aren't we talking about a travel soccer program? That was my assumption, and in that case, the advanced 7 or 8 year olds (U8s) could spend some of their time practicing with a U9 team. A poster above clarified that there was an additional fee for the extra training, which makes it somewhat less odd in my view.

No you don't just sprinkle some 7-8 year old pre-travel academy kids in with a travel team for practice, nor do you sprinkle them in with a older rec team that doesn't exist over the winter months.

I guess this goes to show how different the practices are at different clubs. Our club has no "pre-travel" or rec program. It would be no problem to have some of the U8 kids (who play in a low key local travel league) sprinkled among some of the U9 teams travel teams for some practices, or to card them to play in some games. All the teams from U8 and up practice in the winter as well as spring and fall.

[Anonymous]

BOYDS, MD (April 24, 2017) – The Washington Spirit Development Academy program in Virginia has added four coaches to its staff for the inaugural 2017-2018 U.S. Soccer Girls Development Academy season.

Former U.S. Women’s National Team and Washington Spirit midfielder Lori Lindsey will join the Spirit’s Virginia Academy Director Tom Torres for the club’s opening season, along with accomplished area youth coaches George Hales, Gary Malebranche and Kayley Sullivan.

“We are extremely excited to have assembled a working group that is committed to player development,” Torres said. “These coaches are dedicated to the Washington Spirit mission to develop, support, challenge and inspire world class players in a professional environment.”

Both Lindsey and Hales have extensive track records with the Spirit organization. Lindsey made 43 National Women’s Soccer League appearances with the club from 2013-2014, and made 47 appearances with the Washington Freedom from 2006-2009. The former University of Virginia standout also earned 31 caps with the U.S. Women’s National Team from 2005-2012.

Hales has served as Assistant Technical Director of the Spirit academy since 2014, even making history in 2016 by leading the Spirit U-16 side to a Super Y North American Finals championship. In addition to joining the club’s DA coaching staff, Hales will serve as the Spirit’s Super Y Director in Virginia.

Malebranche, a former professional player with Italian club A.C. Firenze (now called A.C. Fiorentina), joins the Spirit with over a decade of travel, ODP and high school coaching experience, including more than 11 years with Southwestern Youth Association in Centreville, Virginia.

Sullivan is a former George Washington University women’s soccer player and one-time team captain of the Colonials, who has been a member of the McLean Youth Soccer coaching staff since 2007, specializing in early player development.


The Spirit’s two U.S. Soccer Girls’ Development Academy programs in Virginia and Maryland will kick off this fall, each fielding teams in the U-14, U-15, U-16/17 and U-18/19 age groups. Full coaching staff and roster announcements will be made in the coming weeks.

The announcement nearly rounds out the full coaching staff for the Virginia side of the Spirit’s two complete DA programs. The club plans to announce a goalkeeper coach and additional assistant soon.

Washington Spirit Development Academy’s Virginia Staff
U-18/19 Head Coach – George Hales
U-16/17 Head Coach – Tom Torres
U-15 Head Coach – Gary Malebranche
U-14 Head Coach – Tom Torres
Strength and Conditioning Director / Assistant Coach – Lori Lindsey
Assistant Coach – Kayley Sullivan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Club soccer is worthless for developing a young player.

We have pulled our kids out of Club (and they were at a 'selective' club) for academy style training and they have developed light years over their peers that used to be at a somewhat similar technical level.

What's even more idiotic is the a**hole that keeps coming on here to list 'selective' Clubs. This is all for parental bragging rights. Yet--many players made those clubs and turned them down. Training is what matters. Period.

Some of the clubs listed as 'non-selective' have crushed our 'selective' club in games. Size of player pool tells you nothing. In fact, the larger it is, often the least amount of personal attention is devoted to any single player in the Club. If your kid is further down the totem pole at a selective club, you are better placing them somewhere else.

very true. one main coach in arlington heads red and white, and if your player is not one of those ~20 youngsters, you might as well play for a less selctive club at u9. you will get more attention and development.

- so it should be

So it is really 180 boys for 22 spots.

Not all of the 22 selected accept their spot. I know kids that moved into that upper group when some players in the top 22 chose to develop elsewhere. There can be a lot of shuffling in the week following first offers. It helps if your kid did the academy training the year before--unless they had severe behavior issues which became evident and then it could actually have the opposite effect.

They are 8 though. Relax everyone. This means very little for what they'll turn out to be by 16. It's been pointed out repeatedly that a good majority of A team kids aren't there a few years down the road.

Were those players that signed up for U8 Academy the same ones that Arlington made special U8 winter camp sessions for and that were invite-only?

The U8 academy does a Fall and Spring session and does pick around 22 or so kids for a separate indoor winter session. Not all of the kids that do the winter session end up in the top 22. As far as I know, the tryouts run interdependent of the Academy. There are many kids that make it that never did the Academy training is not a requirement. It does improve the kids' ball skills and it can help a kid get noticed since some of the evaluators are the same. However, sometimes it has the opposite effect. They see the kid for a full year and some of the traits they see work against them and they might have been better showing up as a 'wild card' at tryouts. Again, if you only care about personal development of your own kids (which is the only thing you should be concerned about)---do the training if it fits in your schedule and don't look into the future or over-think this or that. Everyone knows everyone in these groups so it is easy to get caught up focusing on the wrong things and playing the game of comparison when you really should only be worried about your OWN child.

I would be irked if my kids' club had an academy-style system and pulled some kids out to get the benefit of extra training, especially if the fees for all the kids are the same. Seems like it would make more sense to have the kids who are more advanced attend some trainings with older groups.

Exactly what older kids should they be practicing with when they are 7 to 8 years old? A travel team?

Aren't we talking about a travel soccer program? That was my assumption, and in that case, the advanced 7 or 8 year olds (U8s) could spend some of their time practicing with a U9 team. A poster above clarified that there was an additional fee for the extra training, which makes it somewhat less odd in my view.

No you don't just sprinkle some 7-8 year old pre-travel academy kids in with a travel team for practice, nor do you sprinkle them in with a older rec team that doesn't exist over the winter months.

I guess this goes to show how different the practices are at different clubs. Our club has no "pre-travel" or rec program. It would be no problem to have some of the U8 kids (who play in a low key local travel league) sprinkled among some of the U9 teams travel teams for some practices, or to card them to play in some games. All the teams from U8 and up practice in the winter as well as spring and fall.

Arlington's U8 Academy is not "pre-travel." U8 in Arlington is rec teams only. If you want, you can sign up for an extra skills session once a week with prof. staff coaches. There are no tryouts, you just pay. Yes, they call it "Academy," but other clubs have the exact same thing. For example, in Mclean, you can pay extra on your U8 rec team for a weekly skills session with coaching staff. This extra weekly thing is very different from the MYS U8 pre-travel academy that you have to try out for and that is run entirely by staff instead of being on a rec team.

[Anonymous]

These discussions on the tryout selection process have me marvelling (again) at how coaches pick teams. From my years of navigating the process, most tryout formats I've seen are pretty flawed, and that's assuming there is no incumbency factor or politics going in.

It might sound impersonal but why don't clubs go to a metrics based approach to add some objectivity to the process? I still recall the year when my ds tried out for Virginia Stars (baseball, not soccer) and they put him through what amounted to a baseball combine one afternoon. He didn't make the team, but that was the first time we got a good explanation from the coach about why, and which specific areas he needed to work on. DS is now playing HS ball, and although it was tough to hear then, I think it was very valuable motivation for him. Parents can never provide this.

Soccer is less individual than baseball so you couldn't make your entire criteria based on simple drills, but properly implemented, it would help expose some key attributes. One could concoct a suite of representative drills, and actually measure according to some criteria... time dribbling through cones, circuits around a 4 cone drill in a minute, juggling touches in a minute, sprint times, passing through a gate from a run etc. Combine that with a subjective phase of one-on-ones against a known good defender, etc, and then top it off with the short sided scrimmage. Take notes, record the scores. Send it to Johnny's parents with the results. Lot of work? Sure. Most of us spend more than $2k per year, this should not be too much to ask.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These discussions on the tryout selection process have me marvelling (again) at how coaches pick teams. From my years of navigating the process, most tryout formats I've seen are pretty flawed, and that's assuming there is no incumbency factor or politics going in.

It might sound impersonal but why don't clubs go to a metrics based approach to add some objectivity to the process? I still recall the year when my ds tried out for Virginia Stars (baseball, not soccer) and they put him through what amounted to a baseball combine one afternoon. He didn't make the team, but that was the first time we got a good explanation from the coach about why, and which specific areas he needed to work on. DS is now playing HS ball, and although it was tough to hear then, I think it was very valuable motivation for him. Parents can never provide this.

Soccer is less individual than baseball so you couldn't make your entire criteria based on simple drills, but properly implemented, it would help expose some key attributes. One could concoct a suite of representative drills, and actually measure according to some criteria... time dribbling through cones, circuits around a 4 cone drill in a minute, juggling touches in a minute, sprint times, passing through a gate from a run etc. Combine that with a subjective phase of one-on-ones against a known good defender, etc, and then top it off with the short sided scrimmage. Take notes, record the scores. Send it to Johnny's parents with the results. Lot of work? Sure. Most of us spend more than $2k per year, this should not be too much to ask.

I like that soccer tryouts don't include stopwatches at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:BOYDS, MD (April 24, 2017) – The Washington Spirit Development Academy program in Virginia has added four coaches to its staff for the inaugural 2017-2018 U.S. Soccer Girls Development Academy season.

Former U.S. Women’s National Team and Washington Spirit midfielder Lori Lindsey will join the Spirit’s Virginia Academy Director Tom Torres for the club’s opening season, along with accomplished area youth coaches George Hales, Gary Malebranche and Kayley Sullivan.

“We are extremely excited to have assembled a working group that is committed to player development,” Torres said. “These coaches are dedicated to the Washington Spirit mission to develop, support, challenge and inspire world class players in a professional environment.”

Both Lindsey and Hales have extensive track records with the Spirit organization. Lindsey made 43 National Women’s Soccer League appearances with the club from 2013-2014, and made 47 appearances with the Washington Freedom from 2006-2009. The former University of Virginia standout also earned 31 caps with the U.S. Women’s National Team from 2005-2012.

Hales has served as Assistant Technical Director of the Spirit academy since 2014, even making history in 2016 by leading the Spirit U-16 side to a Super Y North American Finals championship. In addition to joining the club’s DA coaching staff, Hales will serve as the Spirit’s Super Y Director in Virginia.

Malebranche, a former professional player with Italian club A.C. Firenze (now called A.C. Fiorentina), joins the Spirit with over a decade of travel, ODP and high school coaching experience, including more than 11 years with Southwestern Youth Association in Centreville, Virginia.

Sullivan is a former George Washington University women’s soccer player and one-time team captain of the Colonials, who has been a member of the McLean Youth Soccer coaching staff since 2007, specializing in early player development.


The Spirit’s two U.S. Soccer Girls’ Development Academy programs in Virginia and Maryland will kick off this fall, each fielding teams in the U-14, U-15, U-16/17 and U-18/19 age groups. Full coaching staff and roster announcements will be made in the coming weeks.

The announcement nearly rounds out the full coaching staff for the Virginia side of the Spirit’s two complete DA programs. The club plans to announce a goalkeeper coach and additional assistant soon.

Washington Spirit Development Academy’s Virginia Staff
U-18/19 Head Coach – George Hales
U-16/17 Head Coach – Tom Torres
U-15 Head Coach – Gary Malebranche
U-14 Head Coach – Tom Torres
Strength and Conditioning Director / Assistant Coach – Lori Lindsey
Assistant Coach – Kayley Sullivan

Anyone have any info about or experience with these coaches to share?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:These discussions on the tryout selection process have me marvelling (again) at how coaches pick teams. From my years of navigating the process, most tryout formats I've seen are pretty flawed, and that's assuming there is no incumbency factor or politics going in.

It might sound impersonal but why don't clubs go to a metrics based approach to add some objectivity to the process? I still recall the year when my ds tried out for Virginia Stars (baseball, not soccer) and they put him through what amounted to a baseball combine one afternoon. He didn't make the team, but that was the first time we got a good explanation from the coach about why, and which specific areas he needed to work on. DS is now playing HS ball, and although it was tough to hear then, I think it was very valuable motivation for him. Parents can never provide this.

Soccer is less individual than baseball so you couldn't make your entire criteria based on simple drills, but properly implemented, it would help expose some key attributes. One could concoct a suite of representative drills, and actually measure according to some criteria... time dribbling through cones, circuits around a 4 cone drill in a minute, juggling touches in a minute, sprint times, passing through a gate from a run etc. Combine that with a subjective phase of one-on-ones against a known good defender, etc, and then top it off with the short sided scrimmage. Take notes, record the scores. Send it to Johnny's parents with the results. Lot of work? Sure. Most of us spend more than $2k per year, this should not be too much to ask.

DC Stoddert does something a little like this for half of its tryouts. Not sure how well that approach works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BOYDS, MD (April 24, 2017) – The Washington Spirit Development Academy program in Virginia has added four coaches to its staff for the inaugural 2017-2018 U.S. Soccer Girls Development Academy season.

Former U.S. Women’s National Team and Washington Spirit midfielder Lori Lindsey will join the Spirit’s Virginia Academy Director Tom Torres for the club’s opening season, along with accomplished area youth coaches George Hales, Gary Malebranche and Kayley Sullivan.

“We are extremely excited to have assembled a working group that is committed to player development,” Torres said. “These coaches are dedicated to the Washington Spirit mission to develop, support, challenge and inspire world class players in a professional environment.”

Both Lindsey and Hales have extensive track records with the Spirit organization. Lindsey made 43 National Women’s Soccer League appearances with the club from 2013-2014, and made 47 appearances with the Washington Freedom from 2006-2009. The former University of Virginia standout also earned 31 caps with the U.S. Women’s National Team from 2005-2012.

Hales has served as Assistant Technical Director of the Spirit academy since 2014, even making history in 2016 by leading the Spirit U-16 side to a Super Y North American Finals championship. In addition to joining the club’s DA coaching staff, Hales will serve as the Spirit’s Super Y Director in Virginia.

Malebranche, a former professional player with Italian club A.C. Firenze (now called A.C. Fiorentina), joins the Spirit with over a decade of travel, ODP and high school coaching experience, including more than 11 years with Southwestern Youth Association in Centreville, Virginia.

Sullivan is a former George Washington University women’s soccer player and one-time team captain of the Colonials, who has been a member of the McLean Youth Soccer coaching staff since 2007, specializing in early player development.


The Spirit’s two U.S. Soccer Girls’ Development Academy programs in Virginia and Maryland will kick off this fall, each fielding teams in the U-14, U-15, U-16/17 and U-18/19 age groups. Full coaching staff and roster announcements will be made in the coming weeks.

The announcement nearly rounds out the full coaching staff for the Virginia side of the Spirit’s two complete DA programs. The club plans to announce a goalkeeper coach and additional assistant soon.

Washington Spirit Development Academy’s Virginia Staff
U-18/19 Head Coach – George Hales
U-16/17 Head Coach – Tom Torres
U-15 Head Coach – Gary Malebranche
U-14 Head Coach – Tom Torres
Strength and Conditioning Director / Assistant Coach – Lori Lindsey
Assistant Coach – Kayley Sullivan

Anyone have any info about or experience with these coaches to share?

Torres was highly regarded at DC United several years.
I knew Melenranche when he was at SYA. Many parents thought he was a nice guy but too quiet. He didn't really teach them anything, just offered some general encouragement that's it. This was many years ago though and I think he had just started coaching then so he could be a lot different now. It was also with younger age groups so maybe he just had lower expectations.

As for Lori Lindsey, I know nothing about what kind of coach she will be but adding a well known former national team player to the coaching mix is going to be a huge draw for them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These discussions on the tryout selection process have me marvelling (again) at how coaches pick teams. From my years of navigating the process, most tryout formats I've seen are pretty flawed, and that's assuming there is no incumbency factor or politics going in.

It might sound impersonal but why don't clubs go to a metrics based approach to add some objectivity to the process? I still recall the year when my ds tried out for Virginia Stars (baseball, not soccer) and they put him through what amounted to a baseball combine one afternoon. He didn't make the team, but that was the first time we got a good explanation from the coach about why, and which specific areas he needed to work on. DS is now playing HS ball, and although it was tough to hear then, I think it was very valuable motivation for him. Parents can never provide this.

Soccer is less individual than baseball so you couldn't make your entire criteria based on simple drills, but properly implemented, it would help expose some key attributes. One could concoct a suite of representative drills, and actually measure according to some criteria... time dribbling through cones, circuits around a 4 cone drill in a minute, juggling touches in a minute, sprint times, passing through a gate from a run etc. Combine that with a subjective phase of one-on-ones against a known good defender, etc, and then top it off with the short sided scrimmage. Take notes, record the scores. Send it to Johnny's parents with the results. Lot of work? Sure. Most of us spend more than $2k per year, this should not be too much to ask.

DC Stoddert does something a little like this for half of its tryouts. Not sure how well that approach works.

Yea--a stopwatch at a soccer tryouts would not be a good sign.

The big club tryouts we've attended tend to only do small-sided chaotic as hell scrimmages---way too many kids jammed on the field. Ball hogs and blind ball chasers (not thinkers who know not to draw a defender to their teammate)--even unsuccessful ball hogs-- tend to be highly favored. Kids that pass will never see the ball again once they do and zero points are assessed for the pass. Only the kid that boots it in the goal from the assist is valued. We also heard evaluators admonish kids if they did a maradona or cruyff, etc. Coming from Europe the idea of selecting kids after seeing them only 2-3 hours in these conditions is ludicrous. But when you are picking what amounts to 600 teams for just one gender in a 3-4 week period it's how it goes.

We have been to smaller clubs and academy-club tryouts where the talent was much higher and they started with juggling warm ups and 1v1 and 2v2 drills. They did 3 sided, 5 sided scrimmages and then 7v7. There were more sessions and you could get a pretty clear picture of a player's starting point.

I don't give a lot of weight to what falls out at some of these huge little kid tryouts, especially given the format. It seems you have to siblings they know or been seen by the Club beforehand.

[Anonymous]

DC Stoddert does something a little like this for half of its tryouts. Not sure how well that approach works.

Yea--a stopwatch at a soccer tryouts would not be a good sign.

The big club tryouts we've attended tend to only do small-sided chaotic as hell scrimmages---way too many kids jammed on the field. Ball hogs and blind ball chasers (not thinkers who know not to draw a defender to their teammate)--even unsuccessful ball hogs-- tend to be highly favored. Kids that pass will never see the ball again once they do and zero points are assessed for the pass. Only the kid that boots it in the goal from the assist is valued. We also heard evaluators admonish kids if they did a maradona or cruyff, etc. Coming from Europe the idea of selecting kids after seeing them only 2-3 hours in these conditions is ludicrous. But when you are picking what amounts to 600 teams for just one gender in a 3-4 week period it's how it goes.

We have been to smaller clubs and academy-club tryouts where the talent was much higher and they started with juggling warm ups and 1v1 and 2v2 drills. They did 3 sided, 5 sided scrimmages and then 7v7. There were more sessions and you could get a pretty clear picture of a player's starting point.

I don't give a lot of weight to what falls out at some of these huge little kid tryouts, especially given the format. It seems you have to siblings they know or been seen by the Club beforehand.

That's why I always think it's a good idea to approach a club you're interested in before the cattle call tryouts and ask if your kid can come out for a practice or two. Some clubs have already replaced the big tryouts with this format (especially at the older ages where you might just have a handful of kids trying out), and I think it makes so much more sense. Not sure how that would work for rising U9s where you may have a lot more kids coming out and there isn't an existing U8 travel team, but I would think they could come out to the existing U9 training and participate in that for a session or two. Also think it's good to meet the coach and ask some questions when they're not mobbed with 20 other parents trying to do the same thing.

[Anonymous]

U9 trainings are so packed at the big clubs with hardly any space, you would be laughed off. No U8 rec player is going to be allowed to train with the travel teams. That's only for older players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:U9 trainings are so packed at the big clubs with hardly any space, you would be laughed off. No U8 rec player is going to be allowed to train with the travel teams. That's only for older players.

As I said above, our club's travel program starts at U8. Many U8s train and/or play some games with one of the U9 teams. It is good that they allow this flexibility, in my view. I agree it might not make sense if the U8 program is rec only.

[Anonymous]

Arlington's U8 Academy is not "pre-travel." U8 in Arlington is rec teams only. If you want, you can sign up for an extra skills session once a week with prof. staff coaches. There are no tryouts, you just pay. Yes, they call it "Academy," but other clubs have the exact same thing. For example, in Mclean, you can pay extra on your U8 rec team for a weekly skills session with coaching staff. This extra weekly thing is very different from the MYS U8 pre-travel academy that you have to try out for and that is run entirely by staff instead of being on a rec team.

Arlington appears to be rethinking its Academy program. They selected a few Academy players to participate in their new Winter, and now Spring Advanced Academy program (seems to be a type of pre-travel program). I've seen some of those Advanced Academy kids play winter indoor soccer, and many of them were highly competitive, fast, and surprisingly small. Hopefully, in the future, Arlington's Advanced Academy will progress towards an Alexandria like program where the kids actually play in a U8 league.