Pre-Competitive Program
LAYSL sponsors separate boys and girls competitive preparation teams. The boy’s and girl’s teams typically play in the Santa Fe Northern Developmental League with games in Santa Fe and Los Alamos. LAYSL also encourages these teams to attend a few age-appropriate weekend tournaments throughout the year. The pre-competitive teams may also schedule scrimmages with Santa Fe Northern, Taos, and Albuquerque teams at the coach’s discretion.
The goal of the LAYSL Pre-Competitive Team Program is to provide a bridge between the recreational league and our competitive teams. Los Alamos Football Club (LAFC) competitive teams typically start participating in the Duke City Soccer League at the age of U11 or U12 and play games at the Soccer Complex in Bernalillo against some of the best teams in the state. In the past, our youngest teams experienced quite a learning curve with this transition from our recreational league to the Duke City competitive play due to the quality of teams and increased speed of play.
The Pre-Competitive Team Program will give players who are considering playing on a competitive team in the future a chance to be exposed to a more structured training environment and gradually introduce players to the increased speed of play and technical skill level so they can steadily adjust and improve over time. Pre-Competitive team coaching will focus on individual player development and introduce team concepts. Players who meet the age qualification and express the desire to improve their play and can commit to the expectations for training and games may play on the pre-competitive team. When possible, the Pre-Competitive teams will be trained in the Academy style with multiple coaches and teams training together.
The registration fee for this program is $230 for the Fall and Spring seasons, or $132.50 for a single season. These fees go towards the New Mexico Youth Soccer Association and US Youth Soccer registration fees and insurance, a Northern Soccer League team registration fee, operating costs for registering each player, field maintenance, referee payments, goal purchasing and maintenance, equipment for each team, coaching clinic reimbursements, accounting software and website maintenance. Uniforms are purchased separately by each family and may be used for multiple seasons. If teams play in tournaments, the tournament registration fee is typically split among all the players attending the tournament.
The sessions to count who is interested in the Fall League Pre-Competitive teams typically take place in mid-May before summer break starts. These sessions are to determine how many U10, U11, U12, and U13/14 Boys and Girls Pre-Competitive teams we can form. Players are taken on a first come, first placed process. Players can petition to join the team for Spring League play in the Winter and will be accepted if space permits. In the five years the Pre-Competitive team program has existed in LAYSL, no player of the right age has been turned away. The main criteria is the willingness to commit to being focused and hardworking at practice, and to attend the majority of games on the schedule. For children that are not motivated or cause disruptions, the coach may suggest that the player should play in the Recreational League. More information on dates, times, and field locations will be coming soon.