Team formation

During the registration process, parents can indicate which days their children are available/not available to practice.  Division commissioners for each age group will take availability information into account when forming teams. Other factors:

• Balanced teams. We aim for a mix of skills and experience on each team
• Schools. Each player will be assigned to a team with at least one and as many as three other schoolmates.  Most teams will include players from three or four different schools so that players see familiar faces and have the opportunity to make new friends. Grouping players by schools also facilitates carpooling

Practices

Team coaches select the fields and days that they will hold weekday practices with the exception of kinderleague, which has no weekday practices. Practices are scheduled for 4:30 and 5:30 every weekday at park and school fields throughout Menlo Park and Atherton.

Younger teams (1st & 2nd) typically hold one practice per week; older teams practice twice a week. Practices last about an hour and begin in late August.

Games

All games are held on Saturdays except for the high school divisions, which play on Sundays. Game times will vary from week to week, but most games are in the morning. In the younger age divisions, all games are played in our region; older teams may occasionally travel to nearby cities (Portola Valley, Redwood City) for games. 

Game length is as follows:

Kinderleague: one hour combination practice and game
1st & 2nd: two 20-minute halves plus a halftime of approximately five minutes
U10: two 25-minute halves plus halftime
U12: two 30-minute halves
U14: two 35-minute halves
U19: two 45-minute halves