High School Soccer Tryout Prep: The 6-Week Plan

The conditioning is the long pole. The first three weeks are about walking into day one already able to pass the fitness test, so the rest of the tryout is soccer.

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Find out the program’s fitness standard (a timed run, a beep test, 120s, shuttles) and run it once at full effort. Write down the number. Feel where it got hard: the breathing, the legs, or the head. That is where the next five weeks go. If the standard is unpublished, run a timed two-mile and a set of ten 120-yard sprints with a walk back, and use those.

Eight steps from the wall, two touch, alternating feet, one hundred reps. Feel the receiving foot soften and the ball settle one step in front. Then fifty driven passes with the laces, ankle locked, each foot. This is the touch that has to survive when the legs are gone in week four.

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Twenty-five minutes steady, at a pace where you could say a sentence but not hold a conversation. Two of these this week. Feel your shoulders stay down and your stride stay short; the long, bounding stride is what blows up on the hills. This is not the tryout pace. It is the base the tryout pace sits on.

Dribble through the cones at speed, turn at the end with the inside of the foot, come back, turn with the outside. Ten trips. Head up between cones. Feel the hips drop before every turn so you come out already moving. Land every turn on a bent knee, not a locked one.

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Sprint 120 yards, walk back. Ten reps. Time each one. The first three feel easy; by seven the legs get heavy and the stride shortens. That is the drill: keep the arm drive when the legs want to quit. Take a full rest day after.

Cone two steps behind you as a defender. Pass, receive across the body with the far foot to turn away from the cone, two dribbles, turn, pass again. Thirty each direction. On the last ten, say "turn" out loud as the ball arrives. The voice needs to be a habit before the tryout.

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Run the fitness standard again. Then, without sitting, go straight to fifty two-touch passes on the wall. Your first touch will be long and your pass will drift. Fix it by getting lower and slowing the touch, not by reaching. Compare the run to week one. Most players are past the standard here; if not, week five repeats this session.

Partner serves from ten yards and calls "man on," "turn," or "one touch" as the ball arrives. Play the call: back to the server on "man on," turn and dribble on "turn," first-time return on "one touch." Twenty-five serves. At a tryout the information comes late and the coach is watching whether the decision comes fast.

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Six 120s, then fifteen minutes of your position’s simple game. Back: receive facing forward, pass up the line, recover. Mid: half-turn, play forward, move. Forward: check, hold, lay off, spin behind. Keeper: set, catch, distribute. The job, not the highlight. This is the closest thing to day two you can build alone.

Pass into the wall at an angle and finish the return low into the far corner with the inside of the foot. Twenty each foot. Land on the striking foot with a soft knee. A shot on target that a keeper has to work for is remembered; a shot over the fence is remembered too.

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Three reps only, full rest between. Best of the six weeks. Then stop. The fitness is banked and this week you keep it.

Fifty two-touch passes, both feet, every touch clean; end on a clean one. The two days before tryouts, no hard running: walk through the warm-up, a passing line, and the shape your position plays. Lay out boots, shin guards, water, and the physical form. Sleep.

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Run the plan, then after the fitness day, tell us how the number compared to week one and which field your kid ended up on for the scrimmage. That is where the next plan starts.