Our club is one of the bigger and more competitive clubs here. I think there's over 300 kids total in the club. I'm estimating there will be maybe 60-70 kids try out just for my kid's age group. From that they'll roster 3 teams (7v7 though), maybe 4 though? Not sure; usually they have 3 in each age group.
Can I prove it? No. But I do think coaches see players on other teams during league games and have an idea of who they want. I mean think of it, how do you really watch 3-4 dozen (if not more) players in a 90 minutes tryout?
Regarding upcoming tryouts- there are 3 clubs I'd like to take my kid to tryout for (basically the 3 that are nearest us). One is our current club. But nearly all the tryout days/times overlap. One club said (on their website) to make at least one day. Another club said to go all 4 days. The 3rd club gave no indication if all days, or just one, need attended. How would you handle this? For all intents and purposes it doesn't really make sense for him to attend every tryout day at his current club. Even last year he didn't have to (they sent the offer after the 2nd day). And they know him much better now.
I'd recommend contacting the coaches/clubs to ask if your son can attend some practices with their current team. That may be more informative anyway than the formal tryout.
4 days? That seems like a lot, especially for younger kids when I'd think there's less that you really need to evaluate. I don't think my son's ever done more than two nights for a club. Maybe his high school team has had three sessions (can't recall for sure).
Gotta agree. Mandatory four nights seems like an awful lot. I would let the coach know you're available for whatever nights, but have other plans on the nights 3 & 4 (whatever). If he pushes, you can be honest that you want to look and see what the options are. If they're not going to select your son because of that, that's not a team you want to be on.
Well based on that... he's been practicing with his current team for a year... and he's one of the top kids... so there's not really a point in going other than to show respect and show face. So I think it would be reasonable to only go to his current club tryout only 1 or 2 of the 4 days. The other clubs have 3 days of tryouts. (but one of those clubs said you only need to go one day)
I’d imagine your current club knows everything they need to know about your son as a player. They do like some current players to show up just so they have something to compare to, but as far as you’re concerned it’s more for appearances. In any case I agree with the other posters—let the club know your son will be at the tryouts but you have conflicts some of the days. Even three days at the other clubs seems like a lot. At these ages, it doesn’t seem to take more than a couple minutes of open play for the coaches to form their impressions..
Anything more than 2 days is nuts. That being said, clubs always want as many of their current players there as possible, hard to judge a new kid compared to all other new kids, you need that baseline that you get from knowing your current players level.
Can I ask another ques. I need advice. If we stay with the same club, the new coach... I have a couple concerns. 1) he's not vocal. He doesn't say much during the games to his players. He kind of just let's them play. This is very different than my kid's current coach, who I feel gives just the right amount of instruction and does so in a way that is neither too soft or too harsh, it's just right for young kids. While I know that every coach has their style, I feel being quiet is not a good approach in general. The kids need some instruction, especially in a competitive league. (I have heard that parents under this new coach have complained that their kids aren't developing enough.) 2) he has a lot on his plate, from my understanding, he's coaching 2 school teams and then 3 club teams. That's gotta be like 70-ish kids he's managing. It almost seems that he's just trying to skate by... like maybe he just doesn't have the energy/bandwith to actually have a more proactive approach with developing his kids. I think that's partly from trying to juggle too much. But that's just a hunch The other 2 clubs that are within a reasonable driving distance... they are a tier down from our current club (which is highly competitive). These other clubs - they are "semi-competitive" - they are between rec and comp. They would be on par with our current club's 2nd or 3rd tier teams. I like to think that it doesn't matter for a 7/8 yr old. That he just needs minutes. But I've had him on rec teams in the past and man it's hard for me to stomach it. In those moments I crave to get him into a more high level environment. But I try to focus on the reps he gets. Even rec play is better than no play. In terms of cost, the semi-competitive clubs are about half the cost of the typical comp club, mainly because the coaches are not paid (they volunteer). The other factor is that my kid likes his current teammates. He gets along with all of them and he's become strong friends with one of them. It would be hard to leave and start over with a new group of kids, or maybe I've over thinking that part.
Honestly? That's the kind of coach I prefer. My son had a coach when he was younger (like U9 or U10) that would tell the players, "If I'm yelling a lot during a game it means I didn't coach you well enough in practice". If he had something specific to tell a player, he would sub them out, talk to them, and get them right back in. Nothing drives me crazier than a coach that is yelling instructions from kickoff to final whistle. A friend of mine referred to them as "XBox coaches" - because they always feel the need to direct the players all the time.
Hmm.... I guess that's a valid approach... but, while I don't like coaches who yell per se... I do like some instruction, especially if it's in a competitive league/tournament... if kid's are getting out of position for example... why would the coach simply not prod them to get into a better position? They can do that without screaming their head off. Just a basic instruction to help the kid realize it and to also help the team in that moment. Sure, you can have the approach of let the kid make the mistake and learn on his own... and that's not a horrible approach because sure, eventually they'll get it, it will sink in... but I don't think it's the best approach in a competitive match or tournament where, sure winning isn't everything, but you also don't want to give up easy goals just for a teaching moment.
Each coach does it differently and has seen different results depending on the player. I, too, am of the preference that neither the coaches nor the parents should try to joystick from the sidelines. Sure, the occasional reminder to watch the offside, or "Charlie, is that where you're supposed to be on the field?" is appropriate, but I think the kids need to develop their soccer IQ by making their own decisions. As you know, my DS is a little older than yours. At a game last weekend the father next to me was complaining that a player on the other team was unmarked. I glanced downfield a bit and saw my son just waiting for the pass to go to the "unmarked" player so that he could intercept the pass. I nudged the father and pointed out the situation, quietly. Whether DS was right in his positioning isn't for us parents to say, and in the moment isn't really for the coach to say necessarily. Better for the coach to take note of the situation, how it played out, and then use it as something to teach the whole team at practice later, and talk about the benefits and dangers of that positioning. If it had gone poorly, my DS would have been frustrated, and learned. If it had gone well, he would have been happy, and learned. But then if the coach just waits and uses it as a teaching moment on Monday, the team gets the benefit of seeing how it played out and why it was a good or bad idea (hopefully without the coach calling out who it was who made the good or bad move).
Sorry but I certainly disagree. I believe that is what a coach should be doing. It's an opportunity for the kid to learn right then and there. So many moments like that throughout a game. Even for older kids. No one's perfect. If they are doing something wrong then they ideally would get a "note" to fix it immediately. Doesn't have to be a harsh yell. Just a prod. Well hey different strokes for different folks I guess. But this has worked really well this past season.
Soccer IQ is a great skill to learn. And I do believe you actually learn more from your mistakes (at any age). I don't know how many coaches we've been through, but we've NEVER had a coach that is totally silent during the games. I would not worry about a "quiet" coach. Also, don't take his being quiet as an excuse for you to "teach" your son during the game. As we've told you previously, this is a marathon, not a sprint. I couldn't tell you how many games my son or daughter won/lost when they were U13, much less U10. I remember the end results of the season... losing state semi final at U11, winning state at U12, and winning state at U14 & U15. Let your child learn. He's going to go through a lot of coaches in the next 10 years and you're not going to agree with or like all of them. I feel it's better to assume the coach knows what they're doing and has a reason for their decisions. If you want a certain type of coach, go find them. I just think you're better off learning with different coaches.
Many reasons not to do so in the moment as pointed out in the thread. Some I can think of: the kids should be mainly receiving communication from each other, not from their coach they are already saturated with trying to continually assess what is going on around them the coach is adding to that saturation, so it needs to be something actually important, not the smaller "many moments" that inevitably happen during a game kids they may not remember anyway (or even hear) if taught something once in the heat of a game kids especially at younger ages often freeze with confusion when they receive instructions (sometimes conflicting instructions from the coach AND the parents) when they actually need to act in general the kids need to learn how to assess and make their own decisions (even if they turn out wrong) instead of being trained to respond only to specific instructions.
I'll add one to this list: In watching a lot of youth soccer over the past 11 or 12 years, the kids who are consistently joy-sticked from the sideline over the years (they have one of their parents coaching them for multiple years in an intensely hands-on style or they listen closely to -- usually -- dad as he instructs them from the parent sideline) don't ever seem to develop the same kind of higher-level on-field decision-making skills that other kids do. As they get older, they still wait for those instructions from the sideline while the game goes by them -- and, at least for the handful of local kids I'm thinking about, the best players pass them by and move on to higher levels of soccer that they're just not capable of no matter how good they were at age 8, 9 or 10 with someone pulling their strings from the sideline.
How good is this from @WayneGretzky We’ve lost personalities when playing sports because youth coaches and schools don’t know how to “let them grow and learn”. Too many robots when teaching which leads to blah. The Great One’s father is on point. pic.twitter.com/3NnFAx6FYg— Taylor Twellman (@TaylorTwellman) May 10, 2022 Saw this on Taylor Twellman's twitter feed, the Great One on over coaching at a young age ( really it is the Great One's father on over coaching at a young age) View the video
One of the local kids I'm thinking about in my last post -- and I'll try to do this minus some details for anonymity's sake -- is a girl who played on teams I coached and helped coach in U-littles. Her dad was her coach for a number of years on various teams. She's a great kid, he's a great guy. But he called her every move from the sideline for years. I've literally seen her look to the sideline for dad's instructions during games before doing something as the game swirls around her. Now, as a high school player who (I think) doesn't play club any more, she scores a ton of goals playing for a private-school team whose opposition is mainly small-town schools whose players haven't played much soccer. But if her team runs into even modest opposition, she'll disappear in the game. And this is all fine for her. I'm sure she's having fun scoring three or four goals a game in blowout after blowout (some kids like this; my son has always found blowouts boring). But higher-level soccer, if she was interested in it, was never really on the table for her because she never learned to make decisions on the field (much less move the ball around quickly, pass rather than endlessly dribble, pass up a low-percentage shot for a teammate with a better look, ...).
I always loved playing those teams with "joystick coaches." My teams always knew that if they heard the other coach yelling out instructions, to immediately switch to high press. Those kids who need to rely on in game instruction are MUCH slower to react during the game, no matter how good the player, that style of coaching leads to slower processing and hurts the player. Coach them in practice, not games. Let them make mistakes in games, that is how they learn. If you need to, pull them off and discuss, preferably with a very quick reentry so it is clearly not punishment.
Both points are spot on. I was just at a match this past Saturday and the processing speed of the players was miles slower than on my son's team, and the number of turnovers from the high press was embarrassing. My son, when he was about nine, told me that he didn't even want me cheering during games. He wanted me silent. And I've never been one for calling instructions! The other day he told me that what he wants in a coach is what you, bluechicago, say in the second paragraph: he wants a coach that tells him what he's doing right or wrong during the game and on the sideline. His current coach is good in that he doesn't say a ton from the sideline. But with a full line-change, it's hard for the coach to be able to pay attention to what's going on in the field and be able to give individual attention to a player and let him know how he needs to adjust in the game other than at half time.
Too many adults just don't listen to this! Let the damn kids play the game. It is supposed to be about them, not you. If we ever get to that point, look out world!
At about the same age my youngest told me the same, what got me was that he told me this in middle a game. He stopped playing to yell back at me. For the next 12 years I relegated myself to the corner of the pitch furthest from where my boys would be.
One of the few good things I have to say about Eclipse, they had a parent who yelled, this was very young (maybe U10 or U11), the coach pulled the kid from the game, sent her around to the parents sideline and had her tell her parents that she was not going back in the game until they stopped yelling. A little harsh, but those parents never said a word again.
My oldest son's U11/U12 coach walked around the pitch in the middle of the game, as the game played on, and had a word with the parents. He was the most seasoned coach from both a playing and coaching perspective of all the coaches my sons had, probably the quietest of them all also but he is the one who instilled the love of the game in my son.