So what does all this have to do with posting club's travel tryouts?

10:53 - I don't know if I agree with this, at least not with our big club. We were on the F team and we were expected to show up to all practices and games. We had two tournaments per season, and they were as far away from Arlington as Ellicott City and Haymarket. That said, we had a couple of girls that tended to bail on the tournaments (holiday travel) and they didn't get penalized for it in any way.

Could be totally different at other clubs.

Anonymous wrote:No need to stress over u9-u12. Keep the game fun and find good coaches. Travel before u12 is a waste in many cases. Players get burned out and parents go crazy driving throughout the DMV for games. Keep it simple. If your kid shows promise, enroll them in clinics. Travel does not seriously start until you hit 11v11 @u13. That is a critical age where coaching and competition becomes more important in development. Don't buy into the lemming mentality.

+1

Another option is to avoid the A team in big Clubs. You can still do travel--but the lower teams require the least amount of commitment in the early years. They usually do not have as many tournaments or travel as far or as frequently. The coaches tend to tolerate more absences. This allows younger kids to not burn out and, more importantly, you will have more time for that individual development/training and pick-up.

Kids feel their parents' competitive desire which often has nothing to do with them---to be at the top at the youngest of ages. At the bigger Clubs, you find more of these type of people.

Deep breath. Relax. Sports are supposed to be fun. A kid at age 8 has so much time to develop along the way. It ultimately always is about how much THEY want to be good and how much THEY love the sport. If they don't have the passion, it doesn't matter where you drive or how much $ you invest.

It's hard. I know. We are the parents now, not the players. Let them live their lives and realize their dreams, not yours.

10:19 - the trick is to look at the roster of kids who get accepted and figure out who else is at or near your school or home. Then you find those parents in the school directory and email them to arrange a carpool. It's helpful to have a car that can hold more than 3 kids. (I had trouble finding a carpool for this reason - my sedan only holds 3 in the backseat.) Then you're only on the hook for one practice a week. Many bosses won't mind you or your spouse leaving early for one practice a week. (some folks have the nannies do the driving.)

We only had a two-family carpool for travel last year so the other family's nanny handled the early Monday practice, our family handled the early Friday practice and we split up the later Tuesday practices based on our schedules. It worked out ok, though there were definitely a few days I was white-knuckling it to Longbridge 10 minutes before practice started because 395N was at a standstill.

No need to stress over u9-u12. Keep the game fun and find good coaches. Travel before u12 is a waste in many cases. Players get burned out and parents go crazy driving throughout the DMV for games. Keep it simple. If your kid shows promise, enroll them in clinics. Travel does not seriously start until you hit 11v11 @u13. That is a critical age where coaching and competition becomes more important in development. Don't buy into the lemming mentality.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:why are Arlington tryouts so early?! end of april! I wanted to have my DS tryout for both Arlington and McLean. But looks like I'll have to make decision about Arlington before having my DS tryout for McLean. Kinda risky but very annoying

Since this is a U9. Go to the Club that is closest to your house. Plenty of time. Development is a marathon, not a sprint.

People try to 'lock in' at a Club so that they will be in a place to be on a top team at U14 and beyond. It doesn't work that way.

Keep it fun at this age. If you see the love starting to extinguish, start looking for ways to keep it fresh. If that means a different environment, move to a different place or step back.

This is good advice. Have a U9 boy. He was really starting to hate soccer at his current club. He complained about practice and all of the training. Tons of training and not a lot of game time. We decided to try the local club by our house rather than driving 20-30 minutes. It has made a world of difference. Just the change in the environment this spring has made him start loving the sport again. It is a small club, doesn't have a great reputation, but the coaches know the kids. They stop and give them instruction. Just so happy we made the move this spring rather than waiting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:9:38 - some of us are kind of in the middle of McLean and ASA. Most of ASA's fields are in South Arlington, so if you're in North Arlington, McLean might actually be closer.

So 9:22 - if your kid makes ASA travel, he will have a skills training on Mondays, probably early (like 4:45), he'll have a practice at Gunston or similar on Tuesday or Wednesday and he'll have another practice at Longbridge or similar on Friday at 5:00 or similar. At least that was our experience in ASA U9. The facilities are nice, but they are across county for a lot of people. (and good luck getting to Longbridge if the Nats are playing. Oy.)

09:22 here, thanks a lot for this informative tidbit. Those fields are FAR especially during rush hour. I can see pain and suffering for everyone!

a pp said not to worry about locking into a club and to commit to development, which makes a lot of sense. However, coming from VYS i honestly feel like it would be a significant upgrade to join a far better run club like mclean or arlington. mclean is manageable commute wise and so would northern arlington. But those fields, gunston and longbridge and at those times would be punishing. Maybe I have my answer now. Thanks.

If you're coming from VYS maybe look at BRYC

Anonymous wrote:9:38 - some of us are kind of in the middle of McLean and ASA. Most of ASA's fields are in South Arlington, so if you're in North Arlington, McLean might actually be closer.

So 9:22 - if your kid makes ASA travel, he will have a skills training on Mondays, probably early (like 4:45), he'll have a practice at Gunston or similar on Tuesday or Wednesday and he'll have another practice at Longbridge or similar on Friday at 5:00 or similar. At least that was our experience in ASA U9. The facilities are nice, but they are across county for a lot of people. (and good luck getting to Longbridge if the Nats are playing. Oy.)

09:22 here, thanks a lot for this informative tidbit. Those fields are FAR especially during rush hour. I can see pain and suffering for everyone!

a pp said not to worry about locking into a club and to commit to development, which makes a lot of sense. However, coming from VYS i honestly feel like it would be a significant upgrade to join a far better run club like mclean or arlington. mclean is manageable commute wise and so would northern arlington. But those fields, gunston and longbridge and at those times would be punishing. Maybe I have my answer now. Thanks.

9:38 - some of us are kind of in the middle of McLean and ASA. Most of ASA's fields are in South Arlington, so if you're in North Arlington, McLean might actually be closer.

So 9:22 - if your kid makes ASA travel, he will have a skills training on Mondays, probably early (like 4:45), he'll have a practice at Gunston or similar on Tuesday or Wednesday and he'll have another practice at Longbridge or similar on Friday at 5:00 or similar. At least that was our experience in ASA U9. The facilities are nice, but they are across county for a lot of people. (and good luck getting to Longbridge if the Nats are playing. Oy.)

Anonymous wrote:The systems are too watered down now. It is a revenue thing now and every club has bought into it.

The more teams the more money they make-Not saying it is a bad thing but the quality of teams has dropped across the board.

...so has the level of care and investment in players. It's very impersonal now. Coaches, for the most part, don't care about their players. Many dial it in as a source of income to supplement the day job.

There are a few coaches that really care about the individual and seem to love coaching, but they are few and far between. We have had a few real gems over the years that still check in with my son several years later. And, also a few duds that looked like they couldn't wait for practice to end so they could hit the bar.

I wish more were looking to develop 'solid' people as well as players. The lessons some of these guys teach by example are horrible.

I really hate the 'factory' feel at most of the Clubs which happens when you get so many teams per age group. There just isn't a system for the 'little guys' to make it with league restrictions and field space problems.

The systems are too watered down now. It is a revenue thing now and every club has bought into it.

The more teams the more money they make-Not saying it is a bad thing but the quality of teams has dropped across the board.

Anonymous wrote:why are Arlington tryouts so early?! end of april! I wanted to have my DS tryout for both Arlington and McLean. But looks like I'll have to make decision about Arlington before having my DS tryout for McLean. Kinda risky but very annoying

Since this is a U9. Go to the Club that is closest to your house. Plenty of time. Development is a marathon, not a sprint.

People try to 'lock in' at a Club so that they will be in a place to be on a top team at U14 and beyond. It doesn't work that way.

Keep it fun at this age. If you see the love starting to extinguish, start looking for ways to keep it fresh. If that means a different environment, move to a different place or step back.

Has anyone gone to the FCV rolling tryouts?

why are Arlington tryouts so early?! end of april! I wanted to have my DS tryout for both Arlington and McLean. But looks like I'll have to make decision about Arlington before having my DS tryout for McLean. Kinda risky but very annoying

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Excluding goalie:

7v7:
12 players, 6 field players (excluding goalie):
for exactly equal playing time in a 1 hour game, everyone plays 30 minutes

9v9:
16 players, 8 field players (excluding goalie):
for exactly equal playing time in a 1 hour game, everyone plays 30 minutes.

I like smaller rosters. Kids get better by playing 45 min vs only 30.

Some of our teams have purposely kept small rosters for this reason. Yea—very occasionally we will have no subs on the bench, but the kids LOVE it.

My kid’s U10 team currently has a full team on the bench and just isn’t enough playing time for everyone. These 8/9 year olds could run all day and never get tired.

We are playing travel U11 this year. On most teams it will be 14-15 players for 9v9. We have 15 including a GK that plays all minutes so 14 field players rotate into the 8 spots. Also at U11 games are 50 minutes, 25 each half. On competitive teams playing time is not equal and kids start have more set positions. We play a 3-3-2 most of the time. So the team might have 4 forwards, 6 midfielders and 4 backs. Most of the time the forward and mids rotate more because they are running and sprinting more, whereas some defenders may play the whole game. It varies by position.