Anonymous wrote:Depends on your kid, their athleticism, potential, other interests, your finances and free time, etc.

This is the best answer.

Anonymous wrote:Just curious what people's opinions are on this.

How good is your kid and what are his goals?

Anonymous wrote:More touches in tight spaces, movement with/without the balls

You sound like a pedo.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would find a year round futsal program as young as possible, probably 7 or 8.

+1. Probably better off doing Futsal and/or some additional training/camps and moving up to the meat grinder that is travel once the kid is playing year round because they WANT to be doing training and camps in winter and summer and practicing 3x per week, as opposed to because you put them on a year-round team.

Yes. Futsal is what matters for young players. combine it with private training and you will be so far beyond any travel player.

Private training, are you all serious FFS, this is soccer! Fi d a good rec coach that trains well, they exist as they are training their kid as well, stick with them and take your DC to several tryouts during tryouts season. When you can see your child is ready and won't be placed on the last team, enroll in travel. Most parents can see how their child plays competitively with others, and if you're not lying to yourself, you can see when DC is ready. Moving too early to travel, combined with a bad coach is the fastest way to burnout your kid and have them hate soccer.

MSI Classic (select league, more competitive than Rec, not the $$ or time or travel of a travel league) starts at U10 - 4th grade, and that is when my kids moved out of Rec.

U12.

If you are good enough the years before that are just extra. Just make sure they are on a team that is teaching fundamentals and ball skills.

Save all the money/time commitment until they are older. Less chance of an overuse injury as a bonus.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would find a year round futsal program as young as possible, probably 7 or 8.

+1. Probably better off doing Futsal and/or some additional training/camps and moving up to the meat grinder that is travel once the kid is playing year round because they WANT to be doing training and camps in winter and summer and practicing 3x per week, as opposed to because you put them on a year-round team.

Yes. Futsal is what matters for young players. combine it with private training and you will be so far beyond any travel player.

Why is futsal so important? Trying to understand what’s changed since I played in the 90s.

More touches in tight spaces, movement with/without the ball, passing. 4v4 tourneys for fun/competitiveness if you can find them. 3v3 works too...

DC started "pre-travel" parent coached at u11 and full club travel at u12. It was parent coached rec before that. We look back and wish we had moved DC to a good developmental club around u8/u9 because neither of us parents played soccer growing up. If we had the baseline developmental knowledge from our past experiences then maybe we could have led development ourselves up to u10/u11 and done rec or local travel until then. Unfortunately it's tougher to get onto the top club teams once your trajectory is set around u12-u14.

Never. There are better things to spend time on.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9 or 10. Too late and the gap in skills gets too large to overcome unless the kids is just a very gifted athlete

Travel teams take anyone. A kid can go to travel at any age and find a travel team willing to take the parents cash.

Why the hell you think Loudoun has like 5-6 tiers? OP must be trolling hard or be a severe n00b

Anonymous wrote:9 or 10. Too late and the gap in skills gets too large to overcome unless the kids is just a very gifted athlete

Travel teams take anyone. A kid can go to travel at any age and find a travel team willing to take the parents cash.

Depends on your kid, their athleticism, potential, other interests, your finances and free time, etc.

Either U11 or U13, when teams are expanding their rosters because more players are on the field.

6th grade, U12. Middle school at the latest. It depends on your kids interest level. What is more important up to that age (if your kid loves the sports and wants to be as good as they can be) is: working on foot skills; watching quality pro soccer (one of the big 4 Euro leagues) to see how they move off the ball, play defense, take a first touch and play quickly; and getting a decent coach.

9 or 10. Too late and the gap in skills gets too large to overcome unless the kids is just a very gifted athlete

DD was 4th grade. The coaches asked that she go up to travel. Later the better i think.