... unless you are playing on a "real" team and not a hodgepodge of mixed age group kids in a 2-month compressed season

Anonymous wrote:MoCo MS soccer is pretty much all travel players and is difficult to make the team. I heard of B and C level players getting cut.

Most high school coaches coach at the MS level to get them in the system. Better to have them for 6 years than 4. This is why people who show up in August for a high school without playing MS tryout are already behind

Anonymous wrote:Do middle schools in the Fairfax/Vienna area have soccer teams such as Frost, Lanier, Thoreau, Luther Jackson, and Kilmer?

In Fairfax County, unlike in Arlington and Loudoun, middle schools don't field teams to compete against each other in any sport. Now and then, there's a "Crosstown Soccer" event with kids from the three Vienna area middle schools playing against each other in the soccer version of the Kilmer v. Thoreau Crosstown Hoops basketball game (VYS may coordinate this). The middle schools also have intramural programs for kids who want to play some soccer after school. Fairfax needs to look at setting up a true interscholastic middle school sports program for the county's students.

Whether kids play travel and middle school soccer depends on a few things, and whether it is allowed by the state governing body for school sports. Many states do not allow kids to play any sport at the same time as the school sport. So, in those states, kids playing full year travel do not also play during the middle school soccer season. In high school years, other than the DA league, kids play their high school season and club soccer is “off”.

With middle school teams things can differ. For example, in some states the state sport rules do not apply to middle school. Or, perhaps more frequently, the club team will not allow kids to play both.