“We love tryouts!” -nobody.

We’re often told that there’s a different “vibe” at Cincy SC tryouts. We don’t treat it as just an evaluation — it’s a chance for us to meet you and for players and parents to get a feel for Cincy SC coaches and players. We want your player to tell you afterwards that they had fun, learned something, and met some cool new people.

As much as we strive to make them fun at Cincy SC, we know that tryouts can be a challenging and stressful time for players, parents, and coaches. We wanted to share some of our thoughts on the process.

2022-23 Registrations

We’ve had a phenomenal response to our tryouts this year. Player registrations are 40% higher than last year, which was 53% higher than any prior year, despite $0 spent on online advertising, billboards, or yard signs. We don’t want to become a “big” club. We’re committed to 3 teams at 7v7 and 9v9 and (usually) 2 teams at each 11v11 age group, which means tryouts will be more competitive than ever and our teams will be stronger than ever before.

Every year we try to find the best development environment for each player, build on a strong core, and find room for new talent. For current Cincy SC players, their performance, development, and attitude over the past year are the most important factors in the decision for the next year. There’s no promise that they will be offered a spot on the same team as last year, or a spot at all if their development has not kept up with other players.

About offers

We have three nights of tryouts, and then we start making offers. (We aren’t allowed to offer players from outside the club until May 31 though.) The faster we get responses, the easier it is for us to get answers to players that are waiting anxiously on the bubble. New players are rarely offered spots on our Premier (1st) teams based solely on a short tryout. However, all players have the opportunity to prove they belong on those teams through their performance at and after tryouts.

We also send out emails to players that are on our alternates list. We don’t want to keep anyone in limbo. We also try to help parents to be able to explain things to their kids: the process is not perfect, evaluations are subjective, two coaches will often disagree about a player, and ultimately beauty is in the eye of the beholder. We will make mistakes.

Accepting offers

Perhaps our most important core value during the tryout process is Integrity. We consider our offer to be a commitment to the player and acceptances from players/parents to be a commitment from them. We expect those commitments to be honored, even if another compelling offer arrives minutes later. For that reason, deposits are not refundable, and we also believe that offers and acceptances are your word, and should be considered “non-refundable” too.

Fun times ahead!

Nobody gets involved with youth soccer as a player, parent, or coach because they love tryouts. But they’re a necessary part of the process and there’s a bright light at the end of the tunnel in the form of summer pickup games, training camp exhaustion, games won with last-minute awesome goals, out-of-town tournaments, face paint, group outings, and end-of-season parties, and more.

We had a great 2021-22 soccer year. We’re looking forward to an EPIC 2022-23. We hope to be able to share it with you.

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