u/NoReplacement3326

My son is heading into U13 and is pretty new to GK and to playing soccer/football overall. He started around a year ago on a rec league. In November, they were without a keeper and my son volunteered. Loved it, and has stayed there for his rec team. He started with a club in January and now plays both, but the club already had a keeper so he was backup and played 3 games as keeper for their season.

It’s tryouts now and my son has again expressed interest in keeper. There’s been 2 days of tryouts and he has only been in goal the entire time. Today is the final day. There is only one other kid who is a keeper in their age group who currently plays on the higher level team. My son skill wise is roughly equal to the other kid but isn’t it also important to see their field skills in tryouts? Outside of drills, these 2 boys are only in goal. It seems like the roster at least for keepers is set: my son will be keeper for the B team and the A team will keep their existing keeper.

Is it too early for him to not also be playing on the field? His birthday is today and he’s 12. My son is also a solid winger and I worry that he may lose some of that skill if he’s not doing other types of play.

What is the general consensus?

My son will be heading into 13U this year. He’s relatively new to soccer. He played i9 (super low level rec) for 2 months, did one of their clinics for 3 weeks, and played at school before December 2025. In November, he attended a local club’s thanksgiving camp and was invited to practice. He went to practice with them for one day and was offered a spot. He was sold immediately but it took me a week to convince him to go to the practice. He started with them mid December. As soon as he’s “in it” he’s good - he’s made friends, he’s a solid middle/upper of the pack player (on the lower team of the 2 for his age group). He makes goals, he is respected by teammates and he feels generally good about how he’s doing. He loves his coach and really enjoys the club. Usually wants to show up 30 minutes early to practice and always stays late to shoot with friends.

All that said though he’s never formally done a tryout.

This past week leading into tryouts (which start today - May 11/12/13) he’s started saying things like “I didn’t have to do a tryout before, why do I need to do it now” and “I don’t even know if I want to still play” or “maybe I’ll only play school soccer”. He also has been angry that one of the tryout days is his birthday and that’s been another “why I don’t want to do it”. This morning the moment he woke up he says “I need to know what we’re going to be doing in tryouts”. I think he’s feeling a ton of anxiety that is coming across as resistance. Anyone else had similar kids? What helps?

He won’t admit he’s nervous or anxious so it’s almost impossible to actually address it through that. He has improved tremendously and has a great potential to continue improving- I just don’t want to see his confidence worsen if anxiety makes this tryout hard for him.

What do YOU do? Walk it off and call it a day? Talk to the other club? When does it “cross a line”?

Went to a tournament game for my son last night. We lost 3-2, and we were happy with that. We went into this game knowing we would lose more than likely because this team plays an entire league above our boys. U12. The tournament bracket had 5 teams in local leagues and one in regional. It’s no surprise the regional team had won every game and had zero goals conceded… until last night and our boys scored on them. Twice.

The other team’s parents were just gross. They instructed their kids to push and use elbows during the game. They complained about every moment it got physical and blamed us, the parents, not the refs, when calls weren’t made. We had one parent who was reacting to the other team’s comments - but not initiating and not using profanity. He since apologized to all of us for letting it get the best of him.

The final goal we conceded was kicked out of our keepers hands. It got ugly and dirty and as we are all leaving, one parent on their side is spewing profanity on the field. I stepped in and said “this is a kids soccer game. It’s not that serious and we can all just go home.” He starts complaining about how our kids pushed his kid or whatever (the game was not overly physical but there were a few questionable moments on both sides that did not get called). I reminded him that is all stuff to be taken up with the ref and none of us at this point have control over it. Then their coach starts in talking about our coach started it because he didn’t want to play a game at 8pm on a school night 45 minutes out of town. This game was on a weekday because the other team registered for two tournaments and couldn’t make both work.

Their coach came across the field during half time and demeaned our boys - telling his parents “there’s no reason to complain right now because they are fighting for third place anyway” and disparaging 11/12 year old boys… when he intentionally registered his team in a tournament they knew they would win.

Their boys called ours names and made nasty comments while they did the handshake at the end of the game.

This seems to be the standard every single time we play this club. The parents make nasty comments, use profanity, encourage kids to play in ways that have no integrity or respect. But they are one of the largest clubs and we are one of the smallest. They have 10+ teams at every age level where we have two. So we will forever be playing against this club.