Anonymous wrote:OK, bubble-dwelling bullies living vicariously through your early-blooming kids. Let's drop a few facts here:

1. Plenty of Fairfax County middle schoolers have to catch buses before 7 a.m. Kilmer starts at 7:30. Typical bus rider is on the bus between 6:30 and 7.

2. Sure, the truly elite players who could be playing up an age group anyway aren't affected by the age-group change, and they'll stand out in 100-player cattle-call tryouts. Let the rest of us have a conversation without passive-aggressively bragging about your brilliant kid.

3. Tryouts are good for telling you the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent. It's easy for the rest to get lost in the shuffle, especially when you have coaches paying intermittent attention. The best of both worlds is to have a "blind" tryout with independent evaluators AND opinions from current coaches, which can be weighed in whatever ratio makes sense.

4. The age-group change screwed tons of kids. Yes, again, your little Christian Pulisic or Mallory Pugh wouldn't be affected. The average player who had to jump from U9 to U11 is suddenly going against players who have two years of travel soccer to her one. That's a massive difference. It's not just that they were "the big kids" in the old age groups and now they're smaller. They did, in fact, lose an entire year of development. If the new age groups had been in place when they started, then they would've been among the younger U9s, but they would have had a year of U9, then a year of U10 and so forth. They did not. Get that through that thick mass of insecurity over your kids' accomplishments that you call a brain.

Anonymous wrote:OK, bubble-dwelling bullies living vicariously through your early-blooming kids. Let's drop a few facts here:

1. Plenty of Fairfax County middle schoolers have to catch buses before 7 a.m. Kilmer starts at 7:30. Typical bus rider is on the bus between 6:30 and 7.

That still doesn't mean that your kid will be practicing from 8-9:30



2. Sure, the truly elite players who could be playing up an age group anyway aren't affected by the age-group change, and they'll stand out in 100-player cattle-call tryouts. Let the rest of us have a conversation without passive-aggressively bragging about your brilliant kid.

The Bell Curve holds true for both ends. The truth is kids 20-80 are closer and harder to figure out. Go to a smaller club if you don't like the "cattle call."

3. Tryouts are good for telling you the top 10 percent and the bottom 10 percent. It's easy for the rest to get lost in the shuffle, especially when you have coaches paying intermittent attention. The best of both worlds is to have a "blind" tryout with independent evaluators AND opinions from current coaches, which can be weighed in whatever ratio makes sense.

It wouldn't matter because kids 20-80 are on a sliding gradient scale. No matter how many double blind tryouts you run there will be mistakes made.



4. The age-group change screwed tons of kids. Yes, again, your little Christian Pulisic or Mallory Pugh wouldn't be affected. The average player who had to jump from U9 to U11 is suddenly going against players who have two years of travel soccer to her one. That's a massive difference. It's not just that they were "the big kids" in the old age groups and now they're smaller. They did, in fact, lose an entire year of development. If the new age groups had been in place when they started, then they would've been among the younger U9s, but they would have had a year of U9, then a year of U10 and so forth. They did not. Get that through that thick mass of insecurity over your kids' accomplishments that you call a brain.

The age group change happened, we are a year into already, move on. There has always been kids who were lucky to get the "good birthday". I'm sorry that you didn't but that is out of your control. What is in your control is working with your kid or getting extra training for your kid.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or a former National team player. The rest of you are idiots.

Btw, nothing in the prior post mentioned lack of possession.

Then perhaps you should coach.

I'm an ex high school football and lacrosse player that gave up on soccer at age 11. I know nothing about soccer except from just watching my son play and enjoying the moment. I don't get why everyone gets so worked up over "bad" plays or "bad" refereeing. Just grab a nice cup of coffee sit back and watch your son/daughter play, we have the luxury in this country where our weekends are spent with our kids and not struggling with some of the issues that exist in other parts of the world. Some in this country would find it hard to afford or have time to spend with their kids. As someone that has been deployed overseas to defend this country, I enjoy nothing more than being with my kids and neighbors. Regardless of sport!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do most Clubs not take in the body of a player's work over the course of an entire year????

It seems time and time again evaluations are based on a few hours of tryouts---even when current coach and former age group coach give strong recommendations for movement up.

If a kid is a playmaker all year, plays the entire game and responsible for 95% assists on goal and no other Coach, but game coach has ever seen him/her play in a GAME SITUATION---why is this given no weight?

It happens frequently at Clubs with many teams per age group.

Meh...most coaches get it right. It's the last 4 or 5 on the roster than are hard to differentiate. The starting 11 are usually pretty obvious.

I haven't seen that.

I have never seen an age group coach or a TD at a single game over an entire year.

They tend to keep most in the same exact place without reevaluating or listening to current coach.

At least at the two clubs we've been with. They also give starting seniority to returning players of the same team even when new additions are better.

It's just the way travel soccer is.

Not our club. Our experience is the opposite of yours. The age group coach will watch all the kids play at some point during the year. The new TD at our club has also promised to visit practices. Lots of returning players got demoted or cut for new players after the tryout. My son will have to work extra hard this year to improve because I imagine he could be next on the chopping block.

Anonymous wrote:Or a former National team player. The rest of you are idiots.

Btw, nothing in the prior post mentioned lack of possession.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Or a former National team player. The rest of you are idiots.

Btw, nothing in the prior post mentioned lack of possession.

Then perhaps you should coach.

Anonymous wrote:Or a former National team player. The rest of you are idiots.

Btw, nothing in the prior post mentioned lack of possession.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do most Clubs not take in the body of a player's work over the course of an entire year????

It seems time and time again evaluations are based on a few hours of tryouts---even when current coach and former age group coach give strong recommendations for movement up.

If a kid is a playmaker all year, plays the entire game and responsible for 95% assists on goal and no other Coach, but game coach has ever seen him/her play in a GAME SITUATION---why is this given no weight?

It happens frequently at Clubs with many teams per age group.

Meh...most coaches get it right. It's the last 4 or 5 on the roster than are hard to differentiate. The starting 11 are usually pretty obvious.

I haven't seen that.

I have never seen an age group coach or a TD at a single game over an entire year.

They tend to keep most in the same exact place without reevaluating or listening to current coach.

At least at the two clubs we've been with. They also give starting seniority to returning players of the same team even when new additions are better.

It's just the way travel soccer is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do most Clubs not take in the body of a player's work over the course of an entire year????

It seems time and time again evaluations are based on a few hours of tryouts---even when current coach and former age group coach give strong recommendations for movement up.

If a kid is a playmaker all year, plays the entire game and responsible for 95% assists on goal and no other Coach, but game coach has ever seen him/her play in a GAME SITUATION---why is this given no weight?

It happens frequently at Clubs with many teams per age group.

Meh...most coaches get it right. It's the last 4 or 5 on the roster than are hard to differentiate. The starting 11 are usually pretty obvious.

I haven't seen that.

I have never seen an age group coach or a TD at a single game over an entire year.

They tend to keep most in the same exact place without reevaluating or listening to current coach.

At least at the two clubs we've been with. They also give starting seniority to returning players of the same team even when new additions are better.

It's just the way travel soccer is.

So they don't know their own kids yet trust their kids over outside kids that they don't yet know? Got it.

PP above is probably one of those parents still struggling to understand offsides.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do most Clubs not take in the body of a player's work over the course of an entire year????

It seems time and time again evaluations are based on a few hours of tryouts---even when current coach and former age group coach give strong recommendations for movement up.

If a kid is a playmaker all year, plays the entire game and responsible for 95% assists on goal and no other Coach, but game coach has ever seen him/her play in a GAME SITUATION---why is this given no weight?

It happens frequently at Clubs with many teams per age group.

Meh...most coaches get it right. It's the last 4 or 5 on the roster than are hard to differentiate. The starting 11 are usually pretty obvious.

I haven't seen that.

I have never seen an age group coach or a TD at a single game over an entire year.

They tend to keep most in the same exact place without reevaluating or listening to current coach.

At least at the two clubs we've been with. They also give starting seniority to returning players of the same team even when new additions are better.

It's just the way travel soccer is.

So they don't know their own kids yet trust their kids over outside kids that they don't yet know? Got it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do most Clubs not take in the body of a player's work over the course of an entire year????

It seems time and time again evaluations are based on a few hours of tryouts---even when current coach and former age group coach give strong recommendations for movement up.

If a kid is a playmaker all year, plays the entire game and responsible for 95% assists on goal and no other Coach, but game coach has ever seen him/her play in a GAME SITUATION---why is this given no weight?

It happens frequently at Clubs with many teams per age group.

Meh...most coaches get it right. It's the last 4 or 5 on the roster than are hard to differentiate. The starting 11 are usually pretty obvious.

I haven't seen that.

I have never seen an age group coach or a TD at a single game over an entire year.

They tend to keep most in the same exact place without reevaluating or listening to current coach.

At least at the two clubs we've been with. They also give starting seniority to returning players of the same team even when new additions are better.

It's just the way travel soccer is.

Anonymous wrote:^^not pp. However, evaluating players in actual games is so much more beneficial.

There are "practice players" that never manage to bring it to a game.

I also know some really great and competitive kids that for whatever reason tend not to show well in tryouts.

Consistency is a key factor as well that only a coach that has had the player an entire season can gauge.

We have a few players that are "on" all the time and with some you never know how they are going to do on any given day.

I hate tryouts with massive numbers of kids. I like the idea of limiting the number evaluatedat one time which isn't feasible in travel environment.