Post by youthsoccerdad on May 29, 2014 9:42:52 GMT -5
So my son and I went to tryouts at one of the big clubs (assuming it is not a good practice to name it) last night for their academy program. Essentially this is for U9 although they lump it into the U10 age group. While my son did not play in the U8 academy he is one of the more technical players at the club for his age (also a good listener, strong athlete, ton of time playing soccer and other sports). I just say that because I expect him to do well at the tryouts and would be surprised if he didn't. I read spectators earlier post and understand what he was saying, with that said for my first son trying out I wanted to watch it.
Organization - I thought the process was very organized. It seems put together well and move kids through the registration process efficiently.
Parents - Most the parents hung out across from the fields. At this point a lot of parents know each other from U5/U6/U8 soccer. Most people were chill and didn't appear like there was a lot of stress.
Kids - I didn't count but I assume there were about 40 boys there pretty evenly split between U9 and U10. One thing I did notice and thought diminished the aspect of a "tryout" was all the kids that had played academy wore their academy jersey's so they stood out. In addition, the coaches broke the kids out by the ones who had or had not played academy previously.
Coaches - They were pretty on top of the kids at the beginning but toward the end they seemed more interested in the prior academy kids. I don't mean that in a super negative way, just that at the start there was one guy watching my son's ssg and at the end they were just playing by themselves and the coach wasn't focused on them.
Tryout structure - They had kids warm up in a grid format. Doing various moves and some juggles. I like the coach that ran the drill, he yelled some but in a good way to keep the boys attention. There were a few other coaches walking around and marking some paper. I assume there were just noting the kids that had apparent technical skills. After this got finished they moved into SSG's where one coach watches and made notes. They did this for awhile and I liked the format. The fields I felt were a bit too narrow for some of the less technical kids and the ball went out of bounds more than I would have liked but that is a tick tacky sort of comment. At the end they finished up, said a few words to the boys and tryouts were over.
If the goal is to take 40 kids at this age group then it would seem that most the kids there will make the team which is what one parent mentioned to me. I don't have a problem with that, as there were enough solid kids to put together a quality team. I would have liked the coaches to have mixed some of the academy kids up with the 'regular' kids (specifically my son) to see the difference in level of play. We have one or two more nights of tryouts.
If I were grading the entire tryout (organization, tryout structure, coaches) I would give it an A-.
Organization - I thought the process was very organized. It seems put together well and move kids through the registration process efficiently.
Parents - Most the parents hung out across from the fields. At this point a lot of parents know each other from U5/U6/U8 soccer. Most people were chill and didn't appear like there was a lot of stress.
Kids - I didn't count but I assume there were about 40 boys there pretty evenly split between U9 and U10. One thing I did notice and thought diminished the aspect of a "tryout" was all the kids that had played academy wore their academy jersey's so they stood out. In addition, the coaches broke the kids out by the ones who had or had not played academy previously.
Coaches - They were pretty on top of the kids at the beginning but toward the end they seemed more interested in the prior academy kids. I don't mean that in a super negative way, just that at the start there was one guy watching my son's ssg and at the end they were just playing by themselves and the coach wasn't focused on them.
Tryout structure - They had kids warm up in a grid format. Doing various moves and some juggles. I like the coach that ran the drill, he yelled some but in a good way to keep the boys attention. There were a few other coaches walking around and marking some paper. I assume there were just noting the kids that had apparent technical skills. After this got finished they moved into SSG's where one coach watches and made notes. They did this for awhile and I liked the format. The fields I felt were a bit too narrow for some of the less technical kids and the ball went out of bounds more than I would have liked but that is a tick tacky sort of comment. At the end they finished up, said a few words to the boys and tryouts were over.
If the goal is to take 40 kids at this age group then it would seem that most the kids there will make the team which is what one parent mentioned to me. I don't have a problem with that, as there were enough solid kids to put together a quality team. I would have liked the coaches to have mixed some of the academy kids up with the 'regular' kids (specifically my son) to see the difference in level of play. We have one or two more nights of tryouts.
If I were grading the entire tryout (organization, tryout structure, coaches) I would give it an A-.
