Fees and tournaments, payment plans, FA apps, are on the website. Is there a club that doesn't have it posted?

A you please give me an honest idea how much these clubs cost. Let's assume a club that does two training days a week for fall and spring and one day in the winter and that there are league games fall and spring plus two total tournaments. That seems about average to me? How much should this cost/can this cost? It seems that not all clubs are transparent and I want to know the range of the most affordable up to what a premium product will cost. It would also be great to hear what is skimped on for the cheapest and what the top dollar is buying. My DS is U-10 for point of reference and I'm wondering how the numbers I'm seeing match up?

Heck yeah I would recommend you shop around. Its just like any other investment. You don’t want to drop that kinda money for your kid to hate practice because its either not competitive or not fun to them. My goal was to find a club that we could stick with long term. Our local club is brand new and we went to the tryouts last year which had about 8 kids show up for our age group. Which come to find out they had to have several players play up to fill the team. Not a bad thing but not a good thing when your teammates are newer or weaker players. We are shopping around again this year because there are so many clubs in our driving radius..yes that many. I just want 2 things. Good training for player development and competitive games. And when I say competitive games I mean games where the players are about equal in skill level. What we have now on the B team is a handful of good players and the rest beginners or just don’t want to be there. I for one think that more teams at an age group would accommodate a player (like mine) that is middle of the pack , smaller and not as fast. Going to give it a shot anyway. I do agree with the previous poster to reach out to coaches and attend or observe a training session. It will give a better idea of what the club offers rather than just tryouts.

Then contact a coach where you're considering, find out where and when they practice, go to a practice and see what it's like, talk to the current parents who are there, talk with the coach for a minute afterwards, bring your kid the next time and let them practice with the team etc. At least give your kid a chance to be successful instead of just signing up online and toting them around to all these cattle calls.

Has anyone been to Joga tryouts? What's was the turn out? What info did they provide? Where will they be playing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:unhappiness is one thing. window shopping is another.

how do you know what's out there unless you go see? Don't be an idiot. Programs and practices are very different from club-to-club. Sometimes you don't know how good you have until you shop around.

But tryouts are nothing like the practices that take place.

Anonymous wrote:unhappiness is one thing. window shopping is another.

how do you know what's out there unless you go see? Don't be an idiot. Programs and practices are very different from club-to-club. Sometimes you don't know how good you have until you shop around.

unhappiness is one thing. window shopping is another.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If parents would commit to a club without shopping their kid around every year, the process would be a lot less intense

We all know open tryouts aren't really open tryouts, yet a lot of parents seem to treat them as such and get caught up in the whole thing. It's a game on both sides.

Parents are paying $3 k a year per kid. With multiple kids, it really adds up. If they don't like the training, etc. of course they will shop around. We shop around for things that cost a whole lot less than 3 kids playing travel soccer. Also, coaches change/move and sometimes you don't like what you end up with. Maybe there isn't chemistry with a team, etc. Sometimes the team moves into a league with too much travel, etc. The worst is you pay all this $$ before you actually know who will be coaching your kid.

Not just $$...let's be clear it's time too. People are spending hours/days per week/weekends---they better be happy.

Gunston Soccer Tryout Dates:

http://www.gunstonsoccer.com/programs/travel-soccer/tryout-information

Anonymous wrote:If parents would commit to a club without shopping their kid around every year, the process would be a lot less intense

We all know open tryouts aren't really open tryouts, yet a lot of parents seem to treat them as such and get caught up in the whole thing. It's a game on both sides.

Parents are paying $3 k a year per kid. With multiple kids, it really adds up. If they don't like the training, etc. of course they will shop around. We shop around for things that cost a whole lot less than 3 kids playing travel soccer. Also, coaches change/move and sometimes you don't like what you end up with. Maybe there isn't chemistry with a team, etc. Sometimes the team moves into a league with too much travel, etc. The worst is you pay all this $$ before you actually know who will be coaching your kid.

If parents would commit to a club without shopping their kid around every year, the process would be a lot less intense

We all know open tryouts aren't really open tryouts, yet a lot of parents seem to treat them as such and get caught up in the whole thing. It's a game on both sides.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am giggly at the thought of some loser black-balling a kid. All hail--the almighty youth soccer coach. Adults with advanced degrees really worry about this shit? Oh no--coach denied us now will never make a FIFA first team or play for that shitty soccer college. In the big picture, does it really matter?

When you put it that way, it sounds stupid.

But let's put it another way ...

Suppose you have enough commitments to field two teams. Then five of your players bail.

Would you be pissed off? Would other parents be pissed off if the club could no longer field two teams?

If we're talking Arlington or Loudoun or McLean or Vienna or some other club that would just call No. 45 on the list to take No. 23's spot, sure, it's not a big deal. At other clubs, a couple of parents shopping around can create a lot of chaos.

I wish I had a solution short of forcing every travel club to make its offers on the same day.

It is all a stupid game. Some try to grab everyone up by holding them at the earliest possible dates and forcing a commitment.

The whole idea of spending more than 1/2 of every spring season on tryouts is dumb.

Yes, that happens too - you can get an offer to a B team from a club. You accept, thinking that's where you will be playing. Then you get an offer to their A team and you move up.

Anonymous wrote:If your DC can play and is at the top of their age group throughout the area, then it doesn't matter, they will always take you unless the parents are insane troublemakers. Coaches do blackball, but only the players that don't matter anyway, and those players can easily go elsewhere.

It doesn't matter at all. Period.