We have been in the process of try outs for the last few weeks with three out of four kids. Our daughter first a few weeks ago. My husband has coached her from the beginning.  So any evaluations have come from him, probably hurts her chances some what but considering the choice of coaches we feel its been the best course.  As a mom of course I see both her strengths and weaknesses. Often we have been told that she is a really great soccer player. Last night in fact a man told me she was the best one on the field.  She knows positions and shes great at defense but she doesn't score a lot of goals. So of course she did not make it to the rep team.  We all need a team of 12 strikers don't we?

Next came our 11 year old son.  Now he knows more about football than anyone reading this.   In fact he probably knows more than most of the MLS refs.   He is awesome in goal and he is terrific at midfield.  He is almost always where he should be.  If he had had good coaching since day one he'd probably be on the provincial team but of course he has had the bad luck of having some pretty rotten coaches.  Not just volunteer dads who don't know soccer but dads who seem to dislike kids and soccer.  So when he gets on the field with other U11's he just doesn't quite stack up, but if there was ever a kid you'd want on your team its he.  He will play soccer until the day he dies, he loves it.  If you ask him who scored in this match of the world cup, he can tell you which half, what uniform they were wearing, who the goalie was.  He loves soccer that much.  We haven't actually found out if he made the rep team yet, today is the day but I'm guessing the fact that he doesn't score goals has sealed his fate.

Then there is my 7 year old. His first season he scored over 40+ goals.  One game he even scored 7, coincidentally the same day Rooney who is his favourite player, scored 4.  So our Lil' Rooney has been on the A team since.  Last season they stacked that team with strikers who don't know how to pass.  My son ended up being so frustrated the whole time because no one was passing.  But at U8 they decided to keep the fields small and so the kids can all run and not have to pass to score.  My Rooney still scored but maybe one/game.  So his coach is always yelling at him get in the action, which my son preceeds to tell me that he won't do because then they'd all be bunching.  Again probably being one of the only kids on the team who watches soccer, understands where he needs to be to receive the pass. So he has had a very frustrating season. My husband and I have been informed that at try outs he looked unenthusiastic about soccer.  Which we laughed at because he was just angry that he was stuck playing with the same kids.  By the way he does have quite a Rooney-esque temper.  The silver lining here is that my husband is coaching the second tier, the kids are moving up to 6 a side, bigger fields and my husband will be getting all the passers, so my son's team is probably going to be the better team anyway.

I really want to do an experiment.  I want to take two kids; one with inanate soccer playing ability, one who has never touched a ball before.  I want to give them equal coaching from day one.  What do you think would happen?  I think they would have almost identical ability and Canada would have the best national team in the world.