Mateo R. · U12 boys · Montclair, NJ
The
Roadmap
U12 boys · Montclair, New Jersey · 2026-27 season ahead
Where Mateo plays today, where the ladder goes from here, and the exact clubs, dates and decisions in front of your family this year.
20 chapters, in 6 parts
Read the first page, then jump. The parts run the way the season does: where he stands, what is near you, what it costs, the plan, the long roads, and the reference at the back.
Every page carries the six level colors down its right edge. The rungs a page is about are printed solid and the rest are ghosted, so you can find the part of the ladder you care about by fanning the pages.
Where things stand
Where the kid plays today, and where that sits on the six-level ladder.
- 01The one-page version
- 02Mateo today
- 03The ladder, and where he is on it
The one-page version
Level 5, town travel at Montclair United, and by your read one of the stronger players on the team. The realistic next step to test this cycle is level 4, one rung up. Level 3 is a reach to build toward, not a this-cycle jump.
Tryout season runs roughly April through June. Take two tryouts: one at a level-4 club close to home, one at a level-3 club. A tryout is free information, not a commitment.
The MLS NEXT academy six miles from you is real, and it is not a 12-year-old’s next move. Kids arrive there by being scouted at levels 2 and 3, not by mailing in a form. Park it on the radar.
Two clubs within 3.5 miles hold open U13 tryouts each spring. Worst case, you learn where he stands for free.
DO ITStaying is a fine plan, and his current club is the fallback that makes trying out risk-free. Tell his coach the truth; coaches handle this every spring.
DO ITRevisit at U14-U15 if he is excelling at level 2 or 3. The academies watch those leagues, which is the realistic route in.
NOT YETAt 12, a harder team environment beats more solo reps. Spend the money on the better club season, keep winter basketball.
SKIPEmail NJ Stallions Academy and ask whether Mateo can join a U13 training session before their next tryout. Clubs say yes to this more often than you would think, and one training night tells you more than any website.
Mateo today
Montclair United is a town travel club playing in New Jersey Youth Soccer leagues, which sit at level 5 of the six-level ladder. That is where the majority of American club players are, and it is a good place to be at 12. The limit of town travel is structural, not about coaching effort: the league cannot offer the game speed or the visibility that levels 3 and above carry.
Winter basketball is worth protecting. Two sports at 12 is associated with fewer overuse injuries and longer careers in the main sport. Nothing in this plan asks him to drop it.
For the 2026-27 season, age groups move to a school-year window, August 1 to July 31, in place of calendar birth year. Born March 2014, Mateo is in the group of kids born Aug 1, 2013 to Jul 31, 2014, most often labeled U13, though some clubs call the same window U14. The birth-date window is the fixed part; the label is what varies from club to club, so match a team on the dates it covers, not the U-number on the flyer.
An early-2014 birthday made Mateo one of the oldest under birth-year groups. The Aug 1 window adds kids up to 5 months older, so the built-in edge shrinks. If he looks suddenly average, the curve changed, not the kid.
The ladder, and where Mateo is on it
All of American youth soccer fits on six rungs. Most families have never seen them laid out, which is why club marketing works on them.
This placement is structural. It comes from his league level, his standing on a level-5 team, and what clubs near you accept players from that profile each tryout season. It is not a judgment of his touch or his speed, which only a tryout can give you. The realistic move this cycle is one rung, to level 4; treat level 3 as a reach to build toward, not a promise.
Your options
The clubs near you, sorted into the real choices, and their tryout dates.
- 01Within 7 miles, the whole ladder
- 02The realistic moves, compared
- 03Montclair United, mapped
- 04U13 tryouts near you
Within 7 miles, the whole ladder
This is unusual, and worth knowing: families in most of the country drive an hour for what is in your backyard. Every level of the game exists within a 15-minute drive of Montclair. Real clubs, real distances, from the catalog.
The clubs, continued
Levels come from league memberships, the way the sport itself defines them. Distance is from ZIP 07042.
The realistic moves, compared
Sixteen clubs is a list, not a decision. Here is the same landscape sorted the way a family has to choose: stay, step up close to home, make the real jump, or reach. Each club below is on this page for a reason that is spelled out.
- 3 min drive (0.9 mi), inside your stated drive limit
- a level-5 team he already plays on, with a coach who knows him
- fields teams at level 5 only, so climbing later means changing clubs
Walking distance, a coach who knows him, and friends on the team. If spring tryouts say he is not ready for level 3 yet, another strong year here with more touches is a good plan, not a setback.
- 6 min drive (2.1 mi), inside your stated drive limit
- a level-4 team to try out for (EDP) this cycle
- ladder tops out at level 4, so a later level-3 move means changing clubs
A small step up. EDP games are faster than his league now, and the drive does not change. A good fit if you want progress without new logistics.
- 8 min drive (3.3 mi), inside your stated drive limit
- a level-4 team to try out for (EDP) this cycle
- ladder tops out at level 4, so a later level-3 move means changing clubs
Same step as Wizards, slightly farther, and worth a look if the Wizards tryout date conflicts. Having two level-4 options this close means you can choose on coaching, not geography.
The jump, and the reach
The bigger two moves. Both are still inside your stated drive time, and one of them is already booked.
- 8 min drive (3.3 mi), inside your stated drive limit
- a level-3 team to try out for (USYS NL) this cycle
- its level-3 league carries real college recruiting traffic
- teams at levels 3 through 5, so a near-miss lands on a lower team, not the street
- clubs with teams well above a kid’s level tend to carry deep rosters, so minutes are the thing to ask hard about
The headline option in this report. USYS National League play is the level where college programs start paying attention, and it is a 10-minute drive. Their multi-team structure means a tryout can land him on the right team inside the club rather than out the door.
- 13 min drive (5.9 mi), inside your stated drive limit
- a level-3 team to try out for (USYS NL) this cycle
- its level-3 league carries real college recruiting traffic
The same league level as Stallions from the other side of the mountain. Smaller club, which can mean more individual attention and faster promotion between teams.
- 7 min drive (2.6 mi), inside your stated drive limit
- a level-5 team to try out for this cycle, with a ladder to level 2 (EAL) inside the same club
- its level-2 league carries real college recruiting traffic
- clubs with teams well above a kid’s level tend to carry deep rosters, so minutes are the thing to ask hard about
- its level-2 league sits in a pricier cost tier; get the all-in number in writing
Elite Academy League is national-elite ball ten minutes from your door. The odds of a town-travel player making the EAL roster in any given tryout season are low, and the tryout is still worth attending: you will see exactly what level 2 looks like at U13, and their lower teams are a real path.
- 12 min drive (5.2 mi), inside your stated drive limit
- teams at every level from 2 to 4, so a near-miss lands on the level-3 team
- its level-2 league carries real college recruiting traffic
- clubs with teams well above a kid’s level tend to carry deep rosters, so minutes are the thing to ask hard about
A National Academy League program with teams at three levels below it. Clubs structured like this are forgiving places to aim high: a near-miss lands on the level-3 team, not on the street.
Tall ladder or short ladder
Some clubs on this page run teams far above Mateo's level; others top out a rung or two up. Neither is automatically the better home. A tall ladder means the next level lives inside the same club: the move up is an internal tryout, not a club switch, and recruiters already watch its top teams. The cost is depth. Big clubs carry big rosters, and a kid in the middle of a deep pool can sit more and touch the ball less. A club that tops out closer to his level usually means more minutes, a bigger role and often a shorter drive, and the cost runs the other way: climbing past its top team later means changing clubs, with new tryouts and new politics. At this age minutes win most ties. The question that settles it, club by club, is on every card above: which team would he actually make, and how much would he play.
Ask each club the question on its card, then the minutes question: which team would Mateo actually make, and how much would he play. Ask to guest-train with that exact team, and watch one of its practices, not the top team’s. Look that team up on its league’s standings page to see the level for yourself. Get the all-in yearly cost in writing before any offer. The parent playbook page holds the ten questions that sort clubs fast.
Red Bull NY (MLS NEXT, 6.1 mi) and Ironbound SC (MLS NEXT, 6.5 mi) run the two level-1 academies near you. Neither belongs on a U13 tryout plan for a level-5 player, and both matter to your long game: their scouts watch USYS NL, NAL and EAL matches within driving distance. Playing well at level 2 or 3 IS the application. Page 13 covers what an academy invitation would change.
Montclair United, mapped
A club is not one level. Here is the whole structure around Mateo: every league the club fields teams in, where the internal ladder tops out, and what the league table says.
In this report because this is Mateo’s club today.
Mateo’s level (5) is already the highest Montclair United fields. Development can absolutely continue here, and the next LEVEL, when it’s time, means a different club. That is what the options pages are for.
Montclair United 2014B on the table
The league lists the team in the B12 North division with a record of 6-3-1. That is a competitive division placement: games that can go either way, which is where development lives.
Clubs almost never link this, but the league posts standings all season. Check it any week:
“Montclair United is proud to announce that our 2014 boys premier team has been accepted into EDP Soccer for the 2026-27 season.”
https://www.montclairsoccer.com/news
U13 boys tryouts near you
Spring tryout season is when clubs form their fall rosters, roughly April through June. These are the sessions that match a 2014 boy at the clubs from the last two pages.
CHECKED WEEKLY DURING TRYOUT SEASON · Representative sample for this demo booklet, shaped exactly like the verified rows in our calendar. In a live report every row links to the club’s own posting and carries the date we last checked it.
Expect 60 to 90 minutes: warm-up, small-sided games, maybe a scrimmage. Coaches sort kids into groups quickly and watch decisions more than tricks. A quiet kid who passes well and moves into space reads better than a loud one who dribbles into traffic.
Decisions come fast, usually by email within a week, sometimes a verbal offer on the spot. Offers at this age often come with a 48-to-72-hour deadline. That is a pressure tactic every club uses. It is okay to ask for a few more days, and okay to say no.
Plan the calendar so his current club's evaluation comes last. By then you will know what else is on the table.
- Ball, water, both light and dark shirts
- Arrive 20 minutes early, registered online the night before
- Tell him one thing only: play simple, talk on the field
- Parents stay off the touchline and let the coaches run it
- Afterward, ask him if he had fun before you ask anything else
What it costs
The money and the hours, priced rung by rung. General guidance from national patterns, labeled as such on every page that uses it.
- 01What changes if he moves up
- 02The money and the time
What changes if he moves up
A move from town travel to a level-4 club is not a bigger version of the same season. It is a different family contract. Here is the same week, before and after.
General guidance · national patterns, not quotes from these clubs
The jump in cost buys league access and coaching hours. It does not buy minutes. A kid who starts every game at level 5 can sit at level 3, and a season on the bench at 12 develops less than a season in the middle of everything one rung down. When you talk to clubs, the question that matters is not "can he make the roster" but "will he play".
The money and the time, plainly
Registration is the visible number. The right column is what families report it grows into.
Level 1 deserves its own sentence: pro-club academies like Red Bull NY are typically fully funded. Free is real there. Selection is the cost.
The move to level 3 costs roughly one restaurant dinner a week and most of one weekend a month. Families who decide that on purpose at tryout time are glad in November. Families who discover it in November are not. If you have a second kid with their own Saturdays, count that too.
The plan
The next twelve months in order, the years after that in outline, and the one rule change every club family is living through right now.
- 01The next 12 months
- 02The long view: 12 to 18
- 03The age-group change, decoded
The next 12 months, by season
"Hi coach, my son Mateo is a 2014 central midfielder, currently with Montclair United’s travel team. We’re looking at U13 options for fall and would love for him to join a training session before your tryout if you allow guests. Thank you."
Three sentences. Send it to the age-group coach, not the info@ address, if the website lists one.
He stops wanting to go. The plan serves the kid, never the reverse
He is dominating at the new level by spring. Ask about the club’s higher team before next tryout season
He is buried on the bench past week 6 and the coach has no path for him. The level-4 clubs from page 7 are the right-sized correction
The long view: 12 to 18
You do not need a six-year plan. You need to know which years contain real decisions, so the others can just be soccer.
Notice that nothing on this table before 9th grade involves a camera, a recruiter, or a personal brand. Anyone selling you those for a 12-year-old is selling to you, not to him.
The age-group change, decoded
After a decade of calendar-year age groups, US youth soccer is switching how teams are formed. If your kid has been in the game a while, the labels you knew are about to stop matching the kids on the field. Here is the whole change, from the official decisions.
Starting with the 2026-27 season, US Youth Soccer, US Club Soccer and AYSO form age groups by an August 1 to July 31 window, aligning teams with school grades. 2025-26 stays on birth year.
ECNL (boys and girls), Girls Academy, USYS National League and NPL adopt the school-year window. MLS NEXT’s top division keeps the calendar birth year; its Academy Division switches.
Some clubs name the new group after its oldest members, others after the school-grade cohort. Both names describe the same birth-date window, which is why one club says a kid “repeats” a U-number and another says they moved up. Always check the birth-date window, not the label.
The national decision sets the registration window; team formation stays with clubs and leagues. Many clubs let existing rosters stay together where the league allows it. Whether yours will is a club question, not a rule.
Born March 2014, Mateo keeps his school-grade cohort: kids born Aug 1, 2013 to Jul 31, 2014. The label may read U13 or U14 depending on the club’s naming, and a posting that says “2014 boys” may now mean two different rosters. Check the birth-date window on the fall team before reading anything into the U-number.
Teammates match school grade: same classmates, same graduation year, fewer “trapped players” cut off from their grade group
8th and 12th graders stop aging out of their friends’ teams mid-school-career
Recruiting timelines line up with grade, which is how college coaches already think
One-time shuffle: rosters built on birth year get split or re-formed, and a kid can lose teammates through no decision of your own
Aug-Dec kids switch from oldest-in-group to a new mix; relative-age advantages reset
During the transition the same group is called different U-numbers by different clubs, so labels mislead for a year or two
A kid chasing the MLS NEXT track lives in BOTH systems at once: birth year there, school year everywhere else
Which window is the fall team built on: Aug 1 school year or calendar birth year?
Is the current roster staying together, and if not, how are you re-forming teams?
What do you call Mateo’s new group, and what birth dates does it actually span?
If we ever look at MLS NEXT, how do you handle the kid playing across two systems?
The long roads
High school, college and pro, each with its real numbers attached. A twelve-year-old decides none of this yet. Read it now anyway, because the sales pitches arrive years before the decisions do.
- 01High school soccer
- 02The college road
- 03The pro road, told straight
- 04The college picture
High school soccer, and the rule to know early
In this report because Mateo enters 7th grade. This decision lands in 8th.
In two years Mateo picks a high school path, and one league rule shapes it, laid out in the table below. Montclair High has a strong program, and playing for your school is a real and underrated experience: Friday lights, classmates in the stands, a varsity letter.
The trade is not athletic prestige vs sentiment. Plenty of college players, including D1 players, played high school ball alongside level-2 and level-3 club soccer. The trade is schedule: club seasons at level 2-3 run through fall, and New Jersey high school soccer is a fall sport, so the two negotiate. Clubs at those levels are used to it.
The top academies bar outside play. An invitation means giving up the school season
Club seasons run through fall, and NJ high school soccer is a fall sport. Clubs at these levels are used to sharing
No conflict. Many kids play both
Nothing, except know it is coming. If an academy invitation ever arrives, this is the page to reread, because it would mean giving up the high school season.
The college road, with numbers attached
In this report because your family said "play as high as he can". College is the realistic top of that road.
of US high-school soccer players reach a college roster, all divisions combined (NCAA, NAIA and junior college)
About one in ten can sound slim until you see how many doors that is. Roughly 1,600 men’s college programs field rosters every fall, most of them nowhere near a TV camera, many of them excellent educations.
College coaches do not scout level-5 town leagues. Of the leagues available at clubs near you, USYS National League and EAL carry high recruiting visibility and NAL carries solid visibility. That is the concrete link between page 7 and this page: the level-3 move is also the college-road move, three years before any recruiter calls.
One reframe for the spreadsheet: a partial D1 scholarship averages a few thousand dollars a year. Strong grades plus D3 merit aid routinely beats it. The reason to chase the higher level is the soccer and the doors, not the tuition math.
The recruiting clock
No college contact happens yet, and nothing is behind. The league a kid plays in now is what gets them seen later, so this is a ladder decision, not a recruiting one. Core-course grades start to count soon.
Coaches can watch but cannot contact a player yet. The work: play at a visible level, keep a short highlight clip current, register with the NCAA Eligibility Center, and go to ID camps at schools that fit.
Division I and II coaches can start calling, texting, emailing, and making verbal offers. A verbal commitment is not binding, which cuts both ways.
Official and unofficial campus visits open on August 1. Junior year is the busy stretch: take visits, keep playing where coaches actually watch, and narrow the list. Most commitments land between now and senior spring.
Offers get finalized and signed. If junior year stayed quiet, D3 and NAIA recruit later and more flexibly, so senior year still holds real options.
The pro road, told straight
In this report for context. Two MLS NEXT academies sit within 7 miles, so the question will come up at your sidelines.
of youth club players ever sign a professional contract
The American pro path runs almost entirely through the level-1 academies, in the three steps below. Red Bull NY, six miles from you, has produced exactly this arc and their scouts watch the leagues named on page 7.
What it means for a 12-year-old: nothing to do. There is no form to fill, no fee to pay, no camp that buys the outcome. Academies find players who dominate at levels 2 and 3. The plan in this booklet, play at the highest level where he gets real minutes, is the same plan whether the ceiling turns out to be varsity captain, D3 starter, or something wilder.
One warning, since the question comes up at sidelines: any program charging thousands and marketing itself with the word "pro pathway" is describing your money’s pathway. The funded academies do not advertise for players.
How many college programs exist
men’s college soccer programs in total, across all five divisions
players is the Division I roster cap at schools that opted in to the House settlement
The dates and the money
Before that date a D1 soccer coach may not call, text, DM, or email your player, and may not make an offer. A "recruiting interest" email that arrives in 8th or 9th grade is camp marketing, not recruiting. Division II uses the same June 15 date; Division III schools set their own, looser contact rules.
From August 1 before junior year, a D1 program can host your player on an official visit (the school pays) and talk recruiting during unofficial visits. Campus tours before then are fine, but the coaching staff cannot be part of them in a recruiting sense.
D1 eligibility takes 16 NCAA-approved core courses with a 2.3 core GPA. Ten of the 16 (seven in English, math, or science) must be finished before the start of senior year, and those ten grades are locked. Division II requires the same 16 cores at a 2.2 GPA, without the ten-course lock.
D1 schools that opted in to the House settlement carry at most 28 players on a soccer roster, men’s and women’s alike, starting 2025-26. The old scholarship caps are gone at those schools: they may now fund anyone on the roster, though almost none fund all 28. You may see 32 quoted on recruiting-service sites; the settlement table says 28.
Soccer is an equivalency sport: a coach splits a scholarship budget across the roster, so most offers cover a slice of costs, not a full ride. Division II caps the budget at 9 equivalents for men and 9.9 for women; NAIA at 12 and 12. A "full scholarship" conversation in soccer should make you ask exactly what percentage is on the table, in writing.
D3 programs award no athletic money at all; families combine academic merit and need-based aid instead, which at many private D3 schools ends up larger than a partial D1 offer. D3 also fields more soccer programs than any other division, so it is where most college soccer actually happens.
- 1NCAA Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete — ncaa.org/student-athletes/future/guide-college-bound-student-athlete
- 2NCAA Guide for the College-Bound Student-Athlete (visit rules) — ncaa.org/student-athletes/future/guide-college-bound-student-athlete
- 3NCAA Eligibility Center, Division I and II academic requirements — eligibilitycenter.org
- 4House v. NCAA settlement roster-limit table (Soccer: 28 M / 28 W); NCAA D1 Q&A, June 2025
- 5NCAA DII bylaws (financial aid limits); NAIA scholarship limits by sport — naia.org
- 6NCAA Division III financial aid rules — ncaa.org/sports/division-iii
The field guide
The reference half: what the extras cost, the ten questions that sort clubs fast, what this report could not know, and where every fact in it came from.
- 01Beyond the club
- 02The parent playbook
- 03What this report could not know
- 04Glossary + sources
Beyond the club season
Somewhere around U10 the flyers start: ODP tryouts, college ID camps, private trainers, futsal leagues. None of them replaces the club season, and a couple genuinely add to it at the right age. Here is each one, what it runs, and when it starts making sense for Mateo.
Small-sided soccer on a hard court, five a side with a low-bounce ball. A kid touches the ball far more often than in a full 11v11 game.
The cheapest skill work in the sport. If the club doesn't run a winter program, most town futsal leagues take individual signups.
State-association tryouts that feed a state training pool, with camps and interstate events. US Club Soccer runs a smaller invitation-only version called id2.
Real coaching against strong kids at a modest price. Its old role as the college scouting path has mostly moved to the league ladder, so treat it as training, not a ticket.
A camp on a college campus, run by that program's own coaching staff.
Worth money at a school Mateo could actually attend, ideally after emailing the coach so someone is watching for him. The mass-market multi-school versions mostly sell hope.
One coach with one kid or a few, working a specific gap: first touch, weak foot, goalkeeping.
It amplifies a motivated kid and does nothing for a dragged one. The tell is who asks for the session. If Mateo asks, try it.
Pickup with mixed ages, and a ball against a wall for twenty minutes. Watching a full match and following one player instead of the ball teaches more game sense than most paid sessions. None of it shows up on an invoice.
Extras add to a season; they never replace one. If the budget forces a choice between a private trainer and the right team with real minutes, take the team. Game minutes are the training nothing else supplies.
The parent playbook
One thing the data cannot do is keep this fun, and fun is the engine of everything in this booklet. Kids who own the game stay in it; kids whose parents own it quit at 13. The whole contract fits in two lines: before the game say "have fun, play hard". After it say "I loved watching you out there". Save the tactics talk for the car ride only if he starts it.
What this report could not know
Here’s what we couldn’t pin down for Mateo, each with the fastest way to find it out. Closing the first two changes the club decision most.
How good is he, really?
Two tryouts at two different levels during tryout season. That is the whole test, it is free, and it closes when rosters fill.
His current coach’s read
Fifteen minutes, not at a game. Ask: "would level 3 stretch him or sink him next year?" Coaches at town clubs give you a straighter answer than anyone in the system.
NJ Stallions’ real all-in U13 cost
Our catalog knows league cost tiers, not club fee sheets. Ask for the number in writing at the tryout.
Which EDP division Wizards’ U13 team plays in
One email. Divisions inside level-4 leagues range from near-level-3 to near-level-5.
Whether he wants this
Ask him directly, without selling: "want to try out at a couple of bigger clubs, or stay with your guys another year?" Both answers are good news. Twelve-year-olds know.
The words this report used
Teams are built by calendar birth year. 2014-born kids are U13 in the 2026-27 season, regardless of grade
New Jersey Youth Soccer, the state association. Its travel leagues are level 5
Eastern Development Program, a multi-state league operator. Its divisions sit around level 4
US Youth Soccer National League. Level 3, with high college visibility
National Academy League and Elite Academy League. Level 2 national competitions
The pro-academy league run by Major League Soccer. Level 1. Entry is by scouting
A tournament whose real product is the college coaches on the sideline. Matters from U15
A club-run session for evaluating prospective players, often a soft tryout
Practicing with a team you do not belong to. The single best low-stakes evaluation tool
An MLS deal for a player from the club’s own academy
NCAA soccer money is split across rosters. Full rides are the exception
The US model where families fund club soccer. The reason this report has a money page
Nothing in this report is paid placement. No club can buy its way onto page 7.
Youth soccer is a maze, and mazes feel designed to make you anxious. The facts in this booklet point the other way: your kid plays, he is surrounded by options, the next step is close to home and costs one email to explore. Whatever tryout season decides, in ten years he will not remember the league acronym. He will remember that he played, and that you were there.
This sample report shows the full superset of sections. A live report includes only the pages that apply to your kid.
Built from more than 10,000 clubs and more than 80 leagues · Catalog and tryout data updated regularly. Live reports pull the latest. · 35 pages