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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Hello,

Our oldest DD is only in 1st grade and plays rec soccer.   While she seems to like it she doesn't love it, so we didn't even think about travel soccer.  She seemed receptive to trying ADP.  Since she has a fall birthday, she will be with the 2011 girls (many of whom are in 2nd grade already).  It looks like most of her closest friends will be a year behind her since they mostly have 2012 birthdays.

Can someone tell me what tryouts are like?  What are they looking for?  Is it really competitive?  She seems some where in the middle of the pack during the games I've seen. Is it worth it to do ADP or should she stick with rec?  While, I'm not crazy about the idea of doing soccer 3 times a week, it sounds like it could really help her develop her individual skills.

I thought I read on one of the prior postings in this forum that some girls do both ADP and rec.  is this true?   TIA.[/quote]

There was a recent thread about Arlington Travel vs ADP (just last week) that spoke to some of the same re: ADP vs rec etc if you want to look at that thread for some helpful tidbits. We are wrapping up 2010 ADP for DD and have a 2nd grader on the team. She (the 2nd grader) is now going to play travel next year. She was very nervous starting the ADP season because she was aware she was a 2nd grader with a late 2010 bday but then after a few practices realized she could hold her own with the rest of the team; she recognized that she wouldn't have made it if they didn't think she could handle it (skill wise). My DD didn't and doesn't live and breathe soccer but really enjoys it when she plays it and enjoys the team dynamic and fun.  We were worried about adding in the extra practice but it is very doable, just takes getting used to. The kids (and parents) adapt. We purposely didn't return to fall rec because we were worried about the schedule but after the first month, realized we could have done rec as well and it wouldn't have been too bad to have maintained. For our DD, not having rec in the fall probably helped her focus on making friends with her current ADP team and avoid burn out because of too much change and desire to cling to 'known'/comfort zone. By the spring, she didn't want to go back and play with her rec team and just wanted to stick with her ADP team. For others, they have continued rec and ADP and love both - so everyone is different.

You have nothing to lose with going to ADP tryouts. It is free and you can always opt to do rec instead (or do both - a lot of the girls on our ADP team do both ADP and rec). We were a bit more sneaky and didn't really explain what ADP was and just said teams change in 3rd grade and she needed to go to tryouts to figure out what team she would be placed on (our daughter is more leery of social change and build up of the unknown and then is totally fine once it starts).

For ADP for a younger 2011, the trick will be to remember that the rules will be U9 for 2011 ADP playing 7v7 with a goalie for the first time, but your DD rec will be 2nd grade rules still with no goalie and smaller field. It may get confusing the first few weeks because the rules change from 1st to 2nd grade adding throw ins  as well so that will be new for your DD but maybe not the other 3rd graders. They all figure it out within the first week or 2 though.

Tryouts seem very hectic for a first time parent (at least for me and some others that I hung out with). if 2011 is like 2010, there could be up to 100 girls there. They will be split into ~8-10 mini fields of 4v4. Emphasize with your DD before going in to show energy, focus and some control/awareness of the game. I explained it to our DD as the coaches need to be able to see all their skills and don't have a lot of time to do it. Hanging back on defense by the goal with 4v4 on those little fields is not ideal. It doesn't mean to swarm or be a ball hog - it just means she can't sit back and hang because she can't demonstrate her skills very well in that fast pace and small field.  Sometimes it helps if she knows or makes friends with some of the girls, or to be vocal to call out 'pass'.  Often the mindset at the young ages is to not pass at all or only to friends, which makes it all the more necessary to get into the game vs waiting and hoping a stranger will trust an unknown that may just look like they are standing there. The more savvy will pass and look for openings to score for the team in 4v4 but at ADP 2011, you will find a mixed bag and a lot of swarm. I hate to say it helps to score in 4v4 because with such small fields and depending on skill level, it may be harder to tell the difference between pass and random kick that got lucky as a pass. Conversely, I remember last year on one field, a parent coach/judge couldn't take the swarm anymore and lack of passing and actually paused play to show the girls the effectiveness of passing via a demo and drill before having them resume.

The first portion of tryouts they will randomly assign them to teams, duck-duck-goose style. Judges/coaches watch and make notes. Then they water break and confer. Then they may start calling some girls out by number and start separating and then the rest it is back to random assignments and note taking. The 2 tryouts I've seen with Arlington, they start to tier them out - one end are the stronger skilled girls. Then graduate by skill down to the other end of the field by the end of tryouts (if that makes sense). Eg the fields next to parking lot A might be the strong, definitely made it. The fields on the other side by parking lot B or street would be likely to not make it. The middle are the spectrum in between. A lot of the movement for a good chunk of it is random because the middle tier of girls could be huge. So for the middle, it will be very hard to make any sense of it with some movements. There are also so many kids every where, it is hard to tell what you are looking at.

ADP will then take the strongest players once they have given out offers and will divvy them up amongst the 6 or so teams so that the games can be more evenly matched through the year/season.  The rest are then filled in behind to make up the 6 teams - parents that sign up as coaches also factor in to how teams are sorted and assigned (practice schedules and such).

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