Anyone in the U8 age group interested in travel soccer needs to sign up for the WSA U8 Spring Academy Pre Travel Program. Over the course of the Spring season all participants will go through 2 sessions a week under the guidance of professional trainers who help us run the academy.

• We do not run tryouts for this age group, simply because try outs alone do not provide us with enough opportunities to really assess the capabilities of all the players in attendance. We, for that reason, have in years prior, successfully run the U8 academy in the years prior.
• The academy is led by a program director, who runs an effective curriculum to prepare the players for travel at U9. Players will be evaluated on an ongoing basis by trainers assigned by the association.
• Once signed up it is important that players make an effort to attend the practice sessions led by our professional training staff. This to ensure we are able to assess and track a player’s development during the course of this program. Attendance, attitude, effort and the technical development of a player are all considered when evaluating the players.
• These practice sessions will take place on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning.
• At the end of the WSA Pre Travel Program all participants are given the opportunity in a 7v7 festival. Players will be assigned to teams to play 4 - 7v7 games spread out over 2 days. All players in the program are automatically signed up to take part in the tournament as it is part of the registration fee for the WSA Pre Travel Program.

Cost: $250

The Spring 2020 schedule for the WSA U8 Academy Pre Travel Program:

- Fridays: Boys 3:45p to 5p and Girls 5:10p to 6:25p (Houlihan)
- Saturdays: Girls 8:30a to 9:45a and Boys 9:55a to 11:10a (Wardlaw)

Volunteer coaches

All travel teams are assigned a volunteer head coach, 1 or 2 assistant coaches and a professional trainer. The professional trainer is responsible for the 2 practice sessions scheduled during the week. This trainer will also attend 3-5 games every season to help both the volunteer coaches out and assess the overall development of the players of the teams they are involved with.  The head and assistant coaches are responsible for running the practice sessions scheduled for the Saturday. The coaching on Sunday is done by the head coach, with the support of the assistant coach. As stated before, the professional trainer will attend about half the games during the season and will be a valuable resource for all volunteer coaches.

The WSA is looking for volunteers who want to be considered to become a head/assistant coach, assuming your son or daughter would make a travel team, for a travel team for the 2020-2021 year. Anyone who wants to be considered to be a coach for the 2020-2021 season should step forward during the Spring season. They will be asked to help out during the Pre Travel Program. While helping out they will be provided with valuable information through our program director which can help them gain a better understanding of what it means to be a coach for an U9 travel team.

Click here to register now!