North Shore Views

North Shore Soccer Club Tryouts – Tips for Choosing a Team

Tryouts for travel soccer are fast approaching. This year most clubs are holding their tryouts the first week of June. If your child has played park district soccer, loves it and wants to improve his or her level of play, then you might want to consider trying out for a travel soccer team. Be warned, though. It’s a fairly substantial commitment that both you and your child will have to make (financially and time-wise).

These days most clubs start at U8. That doesn’t mean your child has to start that early. Many join at U9 or even U10. After that it gets tougher to make a travel team because the skill gap between club soccer and park district soccer widens as the kids get older.

When choosing a team to tryout for, here are some things to consider:

1. What is the team’s overall philosophy- is it more about winning at any cost or is it more about developing a love of the game? This will be hard to glean from reading the club’s website because all of the teams say pretty much the same thing. You’ll get more by talking to team parents and/or “interviewing” the club president or head coach.

2. How intense is the program? Some clubs assume that this is the ONLY sport the child will play and demand 100% commitment. They don’t have a lot of tolerance for missed practices or games because of conflicts with other activities. Others recognize that there’s more to life than soccer: school, church, Cub Scouts, family etc. They still demand a high level of commitment to the club, but they are more understanding about life’s other demands.

3. How do the coaches interact with the kids? The best way to find this out is by attending a game for your child’s age group. All coaches are different but usually their style is informed by the club’s philosophy. Watch the coach in action. Does he talk to the players and direct them as they play; does he praise them when they do something well? Or does he yell constantly and get angry if they make a mistake? This kind of coaching can be detrimental for some kids, particularly at the younger age groups. I have seen kids get turned off of soccer by coaches who are too harsh.

4. Cost: It’s never inexpensive but there are cost differences across clubs. Usually there is a flat fee for the year, which runs from late August through early June. This covers practices, games, and usually 1-2 tournaments. Sometimes a pre-season camp is included in the cost. Sometimes this is an extra fee. Uniforms are extra.

5. Indoor season: Where do they hold practices and how often? Where are their games? Some teams have their own indoor facility. Other don’t. Because there are very few indoor fields to accommodate all of the clubs, you may have to travel quite a distance for practices.

Here are the clubs on the North Shore and links to their web sites. There you will find more information about registering for tryouts:

Wilmette Wings www.wilmettewings.com Tryouts: June 1-6, 2010

Trevian Soccer Club www.treviansoccerclub.com Tryouts: June 1-5

Euro Soccer Club www.eurosoccerclub.net Tryouts: June 1-6

Team Evanston www.teamevanston.org Tryouts: June 1-9

Chicago Wind Soccer Club www.chicagowind.net Tryouts: June 1-4

Glenview Soccer Club www.glenviewsoccerclub.com Tryouts: June 1-6

Spartan Football Club www.spartanfc.org Tryouts: June 1-5

Tags: soccer, youth sports

This entry was posted on Saturday, May 22nd, 2010 at 9:59 am and is filed under Community Events, Living here. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. Bilko said at June 5th, 2010 at 7:54 am

   Thanks for your post. It’s good to read something related to football that actually makes sense. I’m going to bookmark your site and come back to it.

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