u/poopinion

My U13 son is leaving his current club almost certainly. He has 3 teams he wants to tryout for. Our state has dumb rules so basically every club is holding tryouts the same 2 - 3 days. Luckily the tryouts don't overlap but they are same day.

Day 1 and 2 its 2-4 at club a, 4-6 at club b, and 730 - 9 for club c.

Day 3 clubs a and b are both 4 - 530

Obviously that is an ungodly amount of soccer even for a 12 year old. Luckily his 3rd favorite option is the last one of the day.

So my question is, is it better to try and hit all 3 tryouts the first 2 days, and then pick 1 on day 3? This is not ideal because obviously you wont play your best on your 6th hour of soccer that day, and don't want him to get hurt.

Or smarter to hit 1 each day so hes not physically overextended?

Or something in the middle?

He's fairly familiar with his top 2 choices, attending practices for about a month with 1 and 3 practices with team 2, but he played there previously so they know about him already. These are all very good teams, would be a step up for him, and making them is not 100% guaranteed although we are pretty confident on his top 2.

My 12 yo son is the best player on a middle of the road team. Playing at the top level in the state for his age, but they win less than half their games. They have 3 good players who really care, 3 very good players who are more worried about how many goals they get or what position they play, and then 6 or 7 players who are fine but would rather fuck around during drills than focus and get better.

My son has started practicing with a top team in the state. The difference is massive. There is no dicking around during practice. Before and after, absolutely. They are 12 after all. But during practice they have fun by competing. Not by joking around or bothering their teammates. During every drill, every scrimmage. Hard tackles, dragging people down by their pennies, doing everything they can to win. Focusing on being technical, even during the "boring" drills.

Whereas most of the kids on my sons current team have fun by kicking the ball away from their friends during drills, or playing way offside to score goals, or whispering jokes while the coach is talking. And that's fine. Soccer is not that important to them. It's just a thing they kind of like. But they'd be fine doing anything else also. They are good kids. They are good people. They are not good teammates to have if you want to grow as much as possible.

Obviously my son is locked in more during the top teams practices. He's started to resent going to his teams practices and having to deal with the bull shit. He's absolutely learning that in order to get the most out of yourself, having people around you that expect more out of themselves makes it so so sooo much easier. Hopefully he learns this is true in life as well. Not just soccer.