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At the older teen ages teams are always losing players and looking for replacements. They need to carry very large rosters because there are always players missing with other commitments. Don't be discouraged by the timing, if she really wants to play and has some ability she will be able to add on to a team. The trick will be finding the right team for her. If she fell out of love with the game she wants a team that will rekindle that passion. When GWU did a study on retention in soccer out of 81 factors these are the top six kids said make soccer more fun:
If you can help her find a team where those things are top priorities that's the closest you can get to ensuring she has a great experience and wants to continue to play.
Most coaches will be happy to let her come to an open practice. If she can find a team with some friends already on it that may go a long way to making sure it's a positive experience--girls tended to rank working together with their team even higher than boys in terms of importance. If she doesn't know of any on a team she's willing to check out, start checking all the leagues and find out the teams nearby. If she's not comfortable calling coaches you can help. Once she is able to attend practices, don't just join the first team. That may be the one but go to a few others first to make sure. Watch how the players interact with each other and how they interact with the coach. Do they enjoy being together? Do they support each other and believe in each other? Does it look like an appropriate level for skill/ability? Will she be challenged? Will she be able to earn playing time?
If you can help her find a team where those things are top priorities that's the closest you can get to ensuring she has a great experience and wants to continue to play.
Most coaches will be happy to let her come to an open practice. If she can find a team with some friends already on it that may go a long way to making sure it's a positive experience--girls tended to rank working together with their team even higher than boys in terms of importance. If she doesn't know of any on a team she's willing to check out, start checking all the leagues and find out the teams nearby. If she's not comfortable calling coaches you can help. Once she is able to attend practices, don't just join the first team. That may be the one but go to a few others first to make sure. Watch how the players interact with each other and how they interact with the coach. Do they enjoy being together? Do they support each other and believe in each other? Does it look like an appropriate level for skill/ability? Will she be challenged? Will she be able to earn playing time?
There are different software tools to help you do this and the level of effort is different depending on what you use. You can find videos on youtube showing you how to use whichever too you use. I had my teenage son work on it, most teenagers have made a video for tiktok and have the basic skills required. If your kids aren't into that they know plenty who are and could help and would be happy to for a couple hundred.
A couple tips on the video content: make sure you highlight yourself at the beginning of the play--an arrow pointing is good enough for that; if you're sending this to a US college soccer coach the clips you include should be divided into sections and the emphasis placed on these two sections; Aerial Challenges, and Tough Tackles. After that add whatever is relevant based on the position you play and what your biggest strengths are as a player.
A couple tips on the video content: make sure you highlight yourself at the beginning of the play--an arrow pointing is good enough for that; if you're sending this to a US college soccer coach the clips you include should be divided into sections and the emphasis placed on these two sections; Aerial Challenges, and Tough Tackles. After that add whatever is relevant based on the position you play and what your biggest strengths are as a player.
At age 4 the club should not matter. You're playing recreational in-house usually with a volunteer parent coach. Pick the one closest to you and ideally where your child has friends.
If you can find a soccer program for that age that isn't a league with organized games you will do even better. The goal at that age is to have fun and fall in love with the ball--leagues and scores at that age are for the parent's benefit not the kids.
"I don’t believe skill was, or ever will be, the result of coaches. It is a result of a love affair between the child and the ball." – Manfred Schellscheidt
If you can find a soccer program for that age that isn't a league with organized games you will do even better. The goal at that age is to have fun and fall in love with the ball--leagues and scores at that age are for the parent's benefit not the kids.
"I don’t believe skill was, or ever will be, the result of coaches. It is a result of a love affair between the child and the ball." – Manfred Schellscheidt
I've coached in that tournament and reffed in it too and always found it to be well-run and a great experience for the kids, though I have not been around it in a few years and things could have changed. For a tournament in Fairfax county the county decides what fields they want to allow that tournament to use. FPYC seems to have a good relationship with both Fairfax City for their fields and the county as well so if they are not getting allocated adequate fields this year it could be that there is something else bigger going on in the county competing for fields that weekend.
I wouldn't discount a field just because it is an elementary school field either. There are multiple elementary schools in Fairfax county with very good fields and some with artificial fields that aren't too bad either.
I wouldn't discount a field just because it is an elementary school field either. There are multiple elementary schools in Fairfax county with very good fields and some with artificial fields that aren't too bad either.
DCunited wrote:Travel teams for A and even B teams is political. In the rare instance your kid is Elite everyone can ID that. However coming from a outside team and just practicing with A team will generally not get the desired effects a parent would hope. You have to remember those coaches have to deal with A and B kids parent who has been on club for many cases years. So my advice if kids not elite set expectations and have the kid earn there way up. Target B team and not A team. Tryouts are a farce, they are used to fill in some players on the lower teams. Most slots are locked prior to tryouts.
This idea of moving to a club's B teams with plans to move up comes with risks. Most of the local clubs think of B team players as existing revenue and outside players as new revenue and prefer bringing in new revenue over moving existing revenue. It is also easier for a club to attract players to their A team than to their B team which gives them another reason not to fill up that A team slot with a B team player who will be hard to replace. Unless your child is a real game-changer compared to others their age it can be much harder to move up once already in a club.
Yes, players that are successful at finding the right fit do not rely on tryouts to find their next team. You can start looking any time. Know you current situation and whether you need to keep it a secret or not, but as the parent you can help by starting to identify potential other teams within your driving range that might be an appropriate level. Your child can also help with this by asking around with friends at school what teams they play on and what those teams are like. When you have identified teams worth taking a look at reach out to the coach or manager if that's the contact information available and ask about attending an open practice. Very few teams will be opposed to setting this up. An open practice has two massive advantages over a tryout--usually you are the only trialist there so the coach can really get a good look at what you can do and it's a real practice so you get to see how the coach runs a practice and what the team is like. When an open practice goes well you can try to keep it going and build that relationship, go to more practices and look for opportunities to guest play with that team so you can see how you would fit in during games. Tournaments, summer leagues, and futsal or indoor in the winter are some great opportunities to guest with the team. If you can't guest make sure you and your child go and watch a game so you can see how the coach behaves on the sideline and how the team plays on the field and make sure it will be a good fit for you. If you wait for tryouts to start looking you may as well put on a blindfold and throw a dart at names on the wall to pick a new team.
When I was a ref I had a massive advantage in this process because I could research the teams out there just by choosing those age groups to work on the weekends so I could see all the teams out there and all the coaches. While you may not be out on a soccer field every weekend like that you could still go watch a few games. The more information you have the better you are able to make an informed decision.
When I was a ref I had a massive advantage in this process because I could research the teams out there just by choosing those age groups to work on the weekends so I could see all the teams out there and all the coaches. While you may not be out on a soccer field every weekend like that you could still go watch a few games. The more information you have the better you are able to make an informed decision.
I ran for Arlington board a while back and even though I didn't win I did a lot of research while running and can assure the field space issue in Arlington is very real. Since the current AD took over the travel program and they stopped shooting themselves in the foot year after year they have been attracting more and more players from outside Arlington to their travel programs and Arlington is a very small and pretty urbanized county with very limited field space. Field space is a limiter for every travel age group, the last time my son tried out there were ~120 boys trying out and they could only allocate space for 2 teams. If you have ideas for how to fix this or connections in the county to help sufficiently prioritize soccer I suggest you run for board there.
Each club runs tryouts a little differently. Some will just divide them up into teams and have them play small-sided games. Some will line them up and have them walk through drills one at a time. Most will be somewhere in between or with some combination of both. If she can try to focus more on having fun and learning something than on performing for the coaches she should do fine.
Many coaches at the younger ages are looking more at potential than at where she is right now, so for them her speed will definitely outweigh her technical ability.
At her age priority should be to stay local unless the local coaches are really bad, but depending on where you live you may have more than one club close enough to go to multiple tryouts and experience different approaches. When my daughter was 8 we could get to 4 tryouts within a 20 minute drive so we had options. If you do have options look for the club/coaches who don't lose sight of the importance of children having fun playing a game they love.
Many coaches at the younger ages are looking more at potential than at where she is right now, so for them her speed will definitely outweigh her technical ability.
At her age priority should be to stay local unless the local coaches are really bad, but depending on where you live you may have more than one club close enough to go to multiple tryouts and experience different approaches. When my daughter was 8 we could get to 4 tryouts within a 20 minute drive so we had options. If you do have options look for the club/coaches who don't lose sight of the importance of children having fun playing a game they love.
If the player is really good or really needy they have a chance at getting funding from the club or team. Each club is different, some have a formal process with an application, some just require your free lunch form from school. Even if the family doesn't qualify but are close talk to the coach and TD as they sometimes have some discretion, again, depends on the club. Sometimes club standard guidelines don't take into account things like multiple children in the club and special cases can be made. Most clubs are much more club-centric these days, so not sure if there are still teams which operate independently enough to choose to carry a scholarship player like they used to.
Recruiting through high-schools can happen but it is not common. Many college coaches will tell you they won't bother watching high-school because the competition level is so inconsistent they have a hard time judging what they're watching. Since college coaches are usually only looking for athleticism and don't care about skill or soccer IQ they need to watch games where they know the general level of athleticism. When my daughter played high-school we saw local coaches at some of her games, both George Mason at a state semi and Howard, so can't say it never happens--but not frequently. We never saw a coach from out-of-town at a high-school game, even at states.
State cup level teams are often a little more affordable than the regional league teams, and sometimes are just as good quality. If you get on a team that can win state cup and move on to national league there are a good number of college coaches that attend those events. Though often cheaper than ECNL or the like, those teams are still in the thousands per season, especially if they do well and qualify out of northeast region, so more affordable does not necessarily mean affordable. Don't get me wrong, 2k/season is a lot better than 4k/season, but it's still well beyond the recreation budget of many families.
Recruiting through high-schools can happen but it is not common. Many college coaches will tell you they won't bother watching high-school because the competition level is so inconsistent they have a hard time judging what they're watching. Since college coaches are usually only looking for athleticism and don't care about skill or soccer IQ they need to watch games where they know the general level of athleticism. When my daughter played high-school we saw local coaches at some of her games, both George Mason at a state semi and Howard, so can't say it never happens--but not frequently. We never saw a coach from out-of-town at a high-school game, even at states.
State cup level teams are often a little more affordable than the regional league teams, and sometimes are just as good quality. If you get on a team that can win state cup and move on to national league there are a good number of college coaches that attend those events. Though often cheaper than ECNL or the like, those teams are still in the thousands per season, especially if they do well and qualify out of northeast region, so more affordable does not necessarily mean affordable. Don't get me wrong, 2k/season is a lot better than 4k/season, but it's still well beyond the recreation budget of many families.
When my daughter left ECNL she went to a travel "state cup" team. It was a little less pressure and more fun and still a high enough level that with her that lower level travel team beat both ECNL and DA teams in tournaments. There are many tiers here between the top and the bottom, it may just take doing a little more homework to find the right level for him. If he's in HS he may enjoy representing his school on the school team. I have refereed all levels and probably half the SFL (rec level) teams I have seen have at least one player who could walk on to any of the top level travel teams if they had the funds so don't always assume rec is just for players who can't play. The Arlington rec league at HS ages allows them to have a certain number of travel players on the team. There are also indoor and futsal programs which can be a lot of fun and run year round.
The first step though is to engage your son and his friend in the process. Tell them to start asking around in school or wherever, and find out what teams his other friends play on and at what level. If they know he's good they'll be happy to talk to the coach and get him invited to training and he can go see what he thinks. Nothing like the experience of playing on a team with a bunch of your friends, an experience the commercial enterprise youth soccer has become has stolen from our children.
The first step though is to engage your son and his friend in the process. Tell them to start asking around in school or wherever, and find out what teams his other friends play on and at what level. If they know he's good they'll be happy to talk to the coach and get him invited to training and he can go see what he thinks. Nothing like the experience of playing on a team with a bunch of your friends, an experience the commercial enterprise youth soccer has become has stolen from our children.
travel soccer has the fields on sunday mornings and rec on saturday--that's been the breakdown since I was a kid playing in the 70s. Might find an indoor or futsal on Sunday or an odd game here and there, but most rec is on Saturday.
Lots of good advice on here already, just want to add a tip for when you do get ready to create a recruiting video.
I had someone help me redo my daughter's recruiting video. The first one we made focused on things we thought were important, great vision, nice goals and assists, great skill moves, etc. Based on advice we received we reworked it to the following sections: air power, challenges, scoring, anything else. Air power was her winning headers and battling for air balls, challenges was going in and winning tough or physical challenges. When we got the restructured video out there the interest started rolling in when before that it was tepid to say the least. She just finished her fourth year of college soccer last fall. Most college coaches are terrible at coaching soccer and have no idea how to teach the game--you have to get down to their level and show them what they want to see, a tough physical player who is willing to get in there and grind it out. Might tweak the third and fourth sections depending on her position, but the first two should be the same for any field position if you want college coaches to like it.
I had someone help me redo my daughter's recruiting video. The first one we made focused on things we thought were important, great vision, nice goals and assists, great skill moves, etc. Based on advice we received we reworked it to the following sections: air power, challenges, scoring, anything else. Air power was her winning headers and battling for air balls, challenges was going in and winning tough or physical challenges. When we got the restructured video out there the interest started rolling in when before that it was tepid to say the least. She just finished her fourth year of college soccer last fall. Most college coaches are terrible at coaching soccer and have no idea how to teach the game--you have to get down to their level and show them what they want to see, a tough physical player who is willing to get in there and grind it out. Might tweak the third and fourth sections depending on her position, but the first two should be the same for any field position if you want college coaches to like it.
In this situation, EDP is rostered through the state association while ECNL is rostered through a different organization, US Club Soccer, so there is no conflict with her being on both teams and everything is above board. This could mean the coach sees her as a stronger player and would like her to move up to the ECNL squad in the future.
You may want to double check with the club that the fees are the same if she is dual-rostered, some clubs charge higher for ECNL. Better to find out now than get blindsided later.
You may want to double check with the club that the fees are the same if she is dual-rostered, some clubs charge higher for ECNL. Better to find out now than get blindsided later.
My oldest played rec soccer except one season of travel. For a couple years he wanted to quit nearly every season, we made him finish out the season and quit after that, but then next season he wondered why we hadn't signed him up again and couldn't wait for soccer to start back up. Not much info in your post, could be different depending on age and level, but I would have a talk and try to see if I could find out what's going on. Is there something with the other players or the coach that's making it a bad experience or is she just tired of it? something like 70% of kids quit soccer between 12 and 15, is she just one of the statistics? Is her coach one of those Rory Dames/Richie Burke types? How long has she been playing? Has she been emphasizing other interests recently? Nobody can give you an answer based on so little information but hopefully you can find out more about what's going on if you talk to her.
Payment-wise if you decide not to play the spring they will have a hard time trying to force those payments out of you whatever your agreement was, however you won't be able to get back any installments you have already made. Their leverage is not releasing your pass so she can't go somewhere else but that doesn't matter if she's quitting.
Payment-wise if you decide not to play the spring they will have a hard time trying to force those payments out of you whatever your agreement was, however you won't be able to get back any installments you have already made. Their leverage is not releasing your pass so she can't go somewhere else but that doesn't matter if she's quitting.
Thank God for Molly H-C--we need a whole fleet of reporters like her looking into this stuff, it's all over the place from youth all the way up to the pros and it's not limited to just girls/women. USSF does nothing to regulate any of this--they just don't care.