Anonymous wrote:

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Contact the coaches and have your son practice with the team/club age-group outside of the tryout process. It's getting late in the spring season so there may not be many of those opportunities left.

I wouldn't sweat it too much. Many clubs will find a team for your player especially after the first check clears.

I really wish we'd stop saying that. At U9 and U10, the bigger clubs typically have twice as many kids trying out as they have spots available. No checks can change the basic math.

Yes, you could race around to a smaller club. Not sure if it's still the case with the merger, but Great Falls used to be pretty wide-open. Maybe Cugini, FCBescola, PAC, some other smaller club. That may or may not work.

But let's quit telling parents, "oh, anyone can play travel." It's not always true.

Not a soccer parent here.

Don't almost all if not all kids who play soccer past 3rd grade play on some sort of travel team, be it a Travel team.or a "travel" team?

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Contact the coaches and have your son practice with the team/club age-group outside of the tryout process. It's getting late in the spring season so there may not be many of those opportunities left.

I wouldn't sweat it too much. Many clubs will find a team for your player especially after the first check clears.

I really wish we'd stop saying that. At U9 and U10, the bigger clubs typically have twice as many kids trying out as they have spots available. No checks can change the basic math.

Yes, you could race around to a smaller club. Not sure if it's still the case with the merger, but Great Falls used to be pretty wide-open. Maybe Cugini, FCBescola, PAC, some other smaller club. That may or may not work.

But let's quit telling parents, "oh, anyone can play travel." It's not always true.

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thank you all. He knows that he needs to perform differently at the next tryouts. Even if he does, I'm not sure it will be sufficient. He would be happy with an offer from any level of our league's travel teams. If it doesn't happen this year, I'll encourage him to do the summer futsal offered through our county, play rec next year, keep practicing, and try again next year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here, thank you again. I think he'll ultimately be able to make peach with the situation either way, and it isn't important to me personally except that I want him to be happy. It is just really odd, because he had rec practice last night, and the level of aggression and involvement he showed was so far superior to what he showed at travel tryouts - and he's on a pretty strong rec team with a few kids who formerly did a year of travel but didn't want to continue, so the issue isn't just the quality of the other players. If he tries out again next year, I will probably ask if he can practice a few times with the team first before tryouts so he can get more comfortable.

Be careful about practicing with the first team. I took my DS to one practice with an A team prior to tryouts to get a feel for the level of play and skill the players had. It was an utter disaster. My DS is a strong player and is technically sound but he felt a bit out of place and lost all confidence and looked like he didn't belong in travel altogether. Furthermore, an impression was formed about him and I am certain it negatively impacted him during tryouts as he was placed on the C team. It was demoralizing for DS to see players that weren't as good as him get placed higher. He even stopped playing soccer in the backyard and asked to play pitch and catch with a baseball, something he haden't done in two years!

I strongly advise additional training throughout the year. Being on a strong rec teams almost means nothing when compared to A teams in travel. There is a significant gap.

OP here, thank you again. I think he'll ultimately be able to make peach with the situation either way, and it isn't important to me personally except that I want him to be happy. It is just really odd, because he had rec practice last night, and the level of aggression and involvement he showed was so far superior to what he showed at travel tryouts - and he's on a pretty strong rec team with a few kids who formerly did a year of travel but didn't want to continue, so the issue isn't just the quality of the other players. If he tries out again next year, I will probably ask if he can practice a few times with the team first before tryouts so he can get more comfortable.


Be careful about practicing with the first team. I took my DS to one practice with an A team prior to tryouts to get a feel for the level of play and skill the players had. It was an utter disaster. My DS is a strong player and is technically sound but he felt a bit out of place and lost all confidence and looked like he didn't belong in travel altogether. Furthermore, an impression was formed about him and I am certain it negatively impacted him during tryouts as he was placed on the C team. It was demoralizing for DS to see players that weren't as good as him get placed higher. He even stopped playing soccer in the backyard and asked to play pitch and catch with a baseball, something he haden't done in two years!

I strongly advise additional training throughout the year. Being on a strong rec teams almost means nothing when compared to A teams in travel. There is a significant gap.

That makes sense. I was not planning on asking to have him practice with the highest level team - it truly does not matter to us which level team he gets on. If he is not offered a spot in travel this year we will certainly do additional training next year while he does rec.