Tryouts, and what to do after them

Two things about tryouts catch families out, and neither is about ability.

The first is timing. In much of Canada the binding date isn't the tryout — it's the registration deadline weeks or months earlier. Vancouver's season starts in September, but team placement happens by 1 June. If you're reading this in July having just decided your child wants to play competitively, you are already ringing round rather than filling in a form.

The second is that the higher the tier, the earlier it closes. Suburban FC in Halifax publishes the clearest version of this: AA closes 21 September, A on 4 October, B on 18 October, C on 31 October. Work backwards from the tier your child is aiming at, not from the season.

These are the dates published by clubs and associations for the current cycle. Confirm with your own club — they shift by a week or two each year, and by tier.

Coaches are assessing a large group in a short window, usually across two or three sessions. What they can actually see changes a lot with age.

Under 10

Mostly: does this child enjoy the ball, and can they be coached? At this age evaluators are looking for comfort in possession, willingness to try things, and whether a player listens and adjusts. Almost nothing about a nine-year-old's body predicts anything. Good clubs know this; be wary of ones that appear not to.

U11 – U13

The picture widens. Evaluators are watching first touch under mild pressure, whether a player scans before receiving, decision speed rather than foot speed, and — increasingly — what happens when they lose the ball.

This is also the age where relative age effect bites: children born early in the selection year are on average bigger and are systematically over-selected across youth sport. If your child is a late birthday, that is worth knowing and worth mentioning to an evaluator. It isn't an excuse; it's context that good coaches actively correct for.

U14 and up

Position-specific competence, tactical understanding, physical capacity, and consistency across sessions. At this level coaches are picking a squad — they may already have four centre-backs and need a left-footed one. Selection is not a pure ranking, and it's worth telling your child that plainly.

At every age

What a player does without the ball. In a typical session a player is on the ball for well under a minute in total. Everything else — movement, positioning, communication, effort when the drill is over — is the rest of the evaluation, and it's the part most players don't realise is being watched.

Nothing you do in two weeks will change a player's technical level. What it can change is whether they show what they already have.

• Sleep is the highest-leverage variable. It affects reaction time, mood and decision-making more than any extra session will.
• Play, don't train. Unstructured play — a wall, a park, friends — does more for touch and confidence than a booked private session at this point.
• Do the boring thing: both feet, close control, receiving on the half-turn. Ten focused minutes daily beats a two-hour blitz on the weekend.
• Check the kit and the logistics. Boots that fit, correct studs for the surface, water, arriving early enough to not be flustered. This sounds trivial and it is not.
• Don't introduce anything new — new boots, a new diet, a new training regime — in the fortnight before.
• Say almost nothing on the drive. "Have fun, work hard, I'll be here after" is a complete pre-tryout speech. Anything longer usually serves the parent.

Arrive early enough to be bored. Rushing costs more than a warm-up gains.

Sit where you can be seen but not heard. Coaching from the sideline during an evaluation actively hurts — it makes a player hesitate and look up, which reads as indecision to an evaluator.

Expect it to look chaotic. Large groups, short drills, small-sided games, coaches with clipboards saying little. That's normal. Silence from an evaluator is not a signal.

If your child is injured or ill, say so before they play, not after. Most clubs will offer an alternative session. Playing hurt to avoid missing a tryout is the worst available trade.

Ask about the notification timeline before you leave — when results come, and how. Not knowing is what makes the following week hard.

This is the part of the article most people came for, so let's be direct about it.

Take your lead from them. Some children are devastated, some genuinely aren't fussed, and the mismatch between how a parent feels and how a child feels is where most of the damage happens. A child who was mildly disappointed can be taught to be devastated by a parent who is.

Let it be disappointing. Rushing to fix it — "you'll make it next year", "that coach doesn't know what he's doing" — skips a feeling that's worth having. Sitting with them for a bit does more than a solution.

Don't blame the evaluator in front of your child. It's tempting, occasionally accurate, and it costs your child the ability to learn anything from the outcome.

Ask for feedback, once, by email, a few days later. Something like: "We'd value one or two things Maya could work on for next year." Most coaches will answer that. Almost none will answer a challenge to the decision. Do this yourself, not in front of your child, and share only what's useful.

Then get them playing again quickly. The single biggest risk after a failed tryout isn't a lost year of development — it's quietly leaving the sport. A house-league place, a drop-in session, futsal, a different club's B team: anything that puts them back on grass or turf within a couple of weeks.

Parents resist this, and the evidence mostly doesn't support the resistance.

A player who plays 70 minutes a week at B level develops faster than one who plays 15 at A. Contact with the ball, decisions made, mistakes survived — those are what improve a footballer, and they all scale with minutes. A squad player at a higher tier gets fewer of all three.

It is also more enjoyable, and enjoyment is the variable that determines whether they're still playing at 16. Most attrition in youth soccer happens between 12 and 15, and it is far more often about not playing, not enjoying it, or not feeling wanted than about ability.

There's a confidence argument too. Being one of the better players in a team is a genuinely useful developmental experience — leadership, responsibility, the freedom to try things. A child who has never had that can find the step up harder, not easier.

None of this means aim low. It means the honest tier — where they play most of the game, most weeks — is usually the fastest route to the higher one. Several clubs we researched run explicit routes back up: Lakehill in Victoria states a track record of promoting players from recreational soccer to the BC Soccer Premier League.

Related reading

Club-by-club detail for the cities we've researched, with real published fees.

Sources

Club fees were verified against each club's own published pages in September 2026 and are dated in the tables above. Fees change every season — always confirm with the club before you register.