I think what he wants to do is really important. He's doing it for fun right? What's the downside, messing up his pro soccer career? That's a longshot anyway. To me, the worst thing that can happen is he specializes, a year or two later decides he hates it, but still loves soccer and wants to keep playing, but his field skills have deteriorated so much that he can't even play on a team several levels down. That's a lot of ifs, and if he's training fairly often as/like a field player a couple of times a week with a high level team, he probably should be able to play field a few levels down. Is guarding against all of those contingencies worth him not having as much fun as he wants to?

Op here -- great info -- thank you all for responding.

Couple points for clarification for questions asked --

Mother is 5ft and Dad is 6ft... so... He's average right now for his age.

This year, as U10, he's done an exclusive GK training 1x a week, Team training 1x a week, and an academy across all of the U10 teams where it's been a mix of both for him. The other GK that plays on his team currently rarely if ever goes to the separate GK training so he's been kinda it.

He LOVES goalie - watches videos of soccer constantly - thinks about lines ups for his team - runs around inside and outside with a ball - thinks of himself as a goalie first... but he's not totally sure he wants to ONLY play goalie on a team. He loved getting to take a free kick last weekend (which he totally nailed -- right over the heads of the "wall" and into the goal). He scored twice in his previous game too - playing midfield.

Evidently, the GK coach is recommending him to go to the highest team level BUT there is a new kid that hasn't played at all with them that he thinks is also very good -- so there is talk of having them "compete" for the spot and maybe some kind of rotation. So, we've talked to him that all of his hard work and extra practice has been noticed...but sometimes, there just comes along another player who is better. That's that.

In terms of being booted from GK and then what.... He swims competitively and knows that sometimes it's your year and sometimes not (he was all-stars at 8 but this summer will swim 9-10 so will be at the "bottom" - we have good 10 year olds and he knows he may not even make A meets this year after being literally the top swimmer in every stroke as an 8 year old).


Thanks for all of the input -- we are still waiting on his invitation for which travel team he will be on in the fall -- I'd love to see him get the top team to show he's been recognized...but I think the next team down has more of a chance of being competitive (and maybe winning) so would be totally fine with a bid there too!

then is the backup keeper and doesn't play at all... sounds fun

Anonymous wrote:right. and what happens when another kid joins the team whose dad was a goalkeeper in college and has been training him since age 5...

He gets bumped down by the new better GK. This happens at every position, not sure why you think it’s unique to GK or a major concern. If your team doesn’t have a spot for you generally you find another team that does.