Anonymous wrote:The top kids work their asses off year round. Fall and Spring 4 practices a week, 1-2 games. Winter 3 practices, plus Futsol and scrimmages. Summer, SuperY. Add in Capstone, HP Elite, at home practice and weight training and they are honing their skills all year long almost every day and playing against tougher competition. The coaches recognize the kids they see putting in the work. Usually work increases skill. If they don’t recognize your child as a top performer, they have not seen them put in the work.

Can we stop pretending like the kids who are not putting in this type of work should get the same looks as the ones that do. There is a large skill gap between the kids that work this hard year round and those that don’t. If you don’t get that, it is because your child hasn’t. Sorry. But hard work pays off and the coaches see who is putting in the work. Stop thinking your DC should get the same looks when they have not put in the work.

If your child has put in the work, they should stand out on whatever field they were assigned. IDs are not a random process, they reward the kids who are standouts and the ones that have been working harder for it.

Anonymous wrote:Uuuuugggghhh... So how does a kid switch clubs if the try-outs are such a disaster?? My U13 kid loved his club until now, but had a new coach this year that was "not a fit" for him (or a lot of players.) We would hate for him to be w/ the same coach again. I have not given up hope that our kid can continue to develop. So he's trying out at a different club, but there's 85 kids out there for a couple slots. It feels hopeless. This never gets talked about, but it's not about him working hard. It's that as a single-mom I genuinely don't have the bandwidth to drive 30-40+ minutes each way to a club practice farther away 3 days a week. Who are these people who try out at 3-4 clubs? They're just messing up tryouts. Do they have jobs? Are they actually going to drive that far? I am apparently the only soccer parent in NOVA who has limits.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is over-the-top fantastic, I would skip the top clubs that will consider your kid part of a revenue team and never give them the opportunity to move up. Go to a club that works to develop all players, moves kids up to play and sometimes practice with the top team if they are on the second team, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg

How do we know which club is developing players?
What does that look like?

Anonymous wrote:Uuuuugggghhh... So how does a kid switch clubs if the try-outs are such a disaster?? My U13 kid loved his club until now, but had a new coach this year that was "not a fit" for him (or a lot of players.) We would hate for him to be w/ the same coach again. I have not given up hope that our kid can continue to develop. So he's trying out at a different club, but there's 85 kids out there for a couple slots. It feels hopeless. This never gets talked about, but it's not about him working hard. It's that as a single-mom I genuinely don't have the bandwidth to drive 30-40+ minutes each way to a club practice farther away 3 days a week. Who are these people who try out at 3-4 clubs? They're just messing up tryouts. Do they have jobs? Are they actually going to drive that far? I am apparently the only soccer parent in NOVA who has limits.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Uuuuugggghhh... So how does a kid switch clubs if the try-outs are such a disaster?? My U13 kid loved his club until now, but had a new coach this year that was "not a fit" for him (or a lot of players.) We would hate for him to be w/ the same coach again. I have not given up hope that our kid can continue to develop. So he's trying out at a different club, but there's 85 kids out there for a couple slots. It feels hopeless. This never gets talked about, but it's not about him working hard. It's that as a single-mom I genuinely don't have the bandwidth to drive 30-40+ minutes each way to a club practice farther away 3 days a week. Who are these people who try out at 3-4 clubs? They're just messing up tryouts. Do they have jobs? Are they actually going to drive that far? I am apparently the only soccer parent in NOVA who has limits.

You have to go to practices before the first tryout so your kid is on the coaches’ radar and they can do some evaluation of his skills outside of the chaotic tryout environment. Which means more time and driving for you. I get that it sucks. It seems like that a part of the problem with US soccer and probably a lot of other youth sports. The kids who “make it” often aren’t the ones with the most talent, but rather the ones whose parents were the most invested aka the craziest.

Anonymous wrote:Uuuuugggghhh... So how does a kid switch clubs if the try-outs are such a disaster?? My U13 kid loved his club until now, but had a new coach this year that was "not a fit" for him (or a lot of players.) We would hate for him to be w/ the same coach again. I have not given up hope that our kid can continue to develop. So he's trying out at a different club, but there's 85 kids out there for a couple slots. It feels hopeless. This never gets talked about, but it's not about him working hard. It's that as a single-mom I genuinely don't have the bandwidth to drive 30-40+ minutes each way to a club practice farther away 3 days a week. Who are these people who try out at 3-4 clubs? They're just messing up tryouts. Do they have jobs? Are they actually going to drive that far? I am apparently the only soccer parent in NOVA who has limits.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is over-the-top fantastic, I would skip the top clubs that will consider your kid part of a revenue team and never give them the opportunity to move up. Go to a club that works to develop all players, moves kids up to play and sometimes practice with the top team if they are on the second team, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg

How do we know which club is developing players?
What does that look like?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is over-the-top fantastic, I would skip the top clubs that will consider your kid part of a revenue team and never give them the opportunity to move up. Go to a club that works to develop all players, moves kids up to play and sometimes practice with the top team if they are on the second team, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg

How do we know which club is developing players?
What does that look like?

Bingo. You don't. The above poster would not know either. No one could know ahead of time, because it is primarily coaching dependent and coaching assignments change a lot and unless you have been on a specific coaches team before, there is no way to know.

Let's say you leave Big Club A in favor of Medium Club B, there is no way to know ahead of time what team level you will land on and or what coach will actually show-up and coach in the fall time. Clubs will announce the Coaching Slate in April, but a lot changes by August. And even if you do know who the coach is at the new club, there is know way to know how much they will develop your player. It is simply impossible to know.

We have had 5 coaches in 5 years, none of them focused on individual-development. They all focused on team-development. My kid, for example, only knows how to play R Wing. They could care less if she can pay central-mid or defense. All they want her to know is her position and how to play on a team. There is a total lack of individual development, but she is a heck of a right winger. Also, all coaches have their favorites, they naturally ignore the lesser skilled/ quiet kids. So, we have a few parents who love our coach, but half the parents notice the natural bias....so it's extra development for some, but not all.

..You Can't know ahead of time.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Unless your kid is over-the-top fantastic, I would skip the top clubs that will consider your kid part of a revenue team and never give them the opportunity to move up. Go to a club that works to develop all players, moves kids up to play and sometimes practice with the top team if they are on the second team, and doesn't cost an arm and a leg

How do we know which club is developing players?
What does that look like?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The top kids work their asses off year round. Fall and Spring 4 practices a week, 1-2 games. Winter 3 practices, plus Futsol and scrimmages. Summer, SuperY. Add in Capstone, HP Elite, at home practice and weight training and they are honing their skills all year long almost every day and playing against tougher competition. The coaches recognize the kids they see putting in the work. Usually work increases skill. If they don’t recognize your child as a top performer, they have not seen them put in the work.

Can we stop pretending like the kids who are not putting in this type of work should get the same looks as the ones that do. There is a large skill gap between the kids that work this hard year round and those that don’t. If you don’t get that, it is because your child hasn’t. Sorry. But hard work pays off and the coaches see who is putting in the work. Stop thinking your DC should get the same looks when they have not put in the work.

If your child has put in the work, they should stand out on whatever field they were assigned. IDs are not a random process, they reward the kids who are standouts and the ones that have been working harder for it.

100% agree except the HP Elite part. They are a scam. There way better places than that.