It is a Wednesday night in Westbury and you have three tabs open. One is a Mineola club running since 1956 that does not list a single price. One is the club in your own village, where half the parent testimonials on the homepage are in Spanish and tryouts are open all year. One is Carle Place, a hamlet of five thousand people that fields twenty-one travel teams and is the only club of the three publishing the age rule that is about to move your kid into a different group. Three towns sharing a border, a train line and a hospital. Three completely different answers. Here is what each one actually offers, and the questions that get you a real number before you pay.
Written by Fernando, founder of Tiempo Soccer Academy (Rockville Centre, NY). Last reviewed: August 2026.
The short answer for Mineola, Westbury and Carle Place families
None of the three town clubs publishes a registration fee anywhere on its website. Not one. What they do publish is more useful than the price: how many teams they actually field, when tryouts happen, who runs the training, and a 2026-27 age cutoff change that will reshuffle rosters across all three towns. Read those first. Then call and ask for the number, because you will have to ask.
The league underneath all of this is enormous: LIJSL runs roughly 60,000 players across 97 member clubs and more than 3,500 teams, including over 1,600 travel teams (NY Red Bulls / LIJSL, 2026). And what decides most family decisions is not talent. In the Aspen Institute’s April 2026 look at youth soccer across New York City and New Jersey, about 150,000 kids want to play and cannot get in, and 32% of families name fees as the main barrier (Aspen Institute Project Play, 2026). An unpublished price is not a small annoyance, then. It is the first filter, and it filters quietly. If the tier words are still fuzzy, start with the Long Island development guide and the Nassau club selection guide. This page needs the local map.
The three clubs side by side
All of it from each club’s own site or the public 2026 LIJSL team listings, checked in August 2026.
| Club | Youngest program | Travel starts | Teams listed, 2026 | Tryout window | Fee published |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mineola Athletic Association (Mineola SC) | Not stated online | U9 in the listings | 23: 16 boys, 7 girls, oldest U15 | Not published | No |
| Westbury Youth Soccer Club | Little Dragons, ages 3 to 5 | U9, Pre-Travel at U7 and U8 | 13: 12 boys, 1 girls | Open tryouts, year round | No |
| Carle Place Soccer Club | Minis, ages 2 to 3 | U8 | 21: 12 boys, 9 girls, oldest U17 | June, rising U9s in May | No |
Look at that girls column. It is the biggest difference between these three towns and no flyer mentions it. Carle Place, with five thousand residents, fields nine girls teams. Westbury, three times the size, fields one. That is not a judgment on anybody’s coaching. It is a fact about where your daughter will have teammates next fall.
The 2026-27 rule change that moves your kid into a different age group
US Club Soccer, US Youth Soccer and AYSO announced on June 10, 2025 that youth soccer is moving off the calendar-year model and back to a seasonal year running August 1 to July 31, starting with the 2026-27 season (US Club Soccer, 2025). LIJSL has adopted it for all teams. So a kid born between August 1 and December 31 is no longer in the age group they were in last season.
Of the three clubs, only Carle Place has written it down for parents. Its age change page spells out who moves, who can stay, and one honest exception: because the club is small and combines ages to field 11v11 teams, it is not applying the change to its oldest groups. A player already on a Carle Place roster with an August-to-December birthday may try out with current teammates, but only in the first year.
Here is why it matters more than it sounds. The change is designed to reduce the relative age effect, where the kid born in December spends every season as the youngest and gets read as less talented than she is. If your kid has a late birthday and has been quietly discouraged for two years, this is the season that stops working against her. Still deciding whether travel is the right jump at all? The travel readiness checklist is the piece to read before tryouts, not after.
Mineola: seventy seasons old, and almost nothing online
The Mineola Athletic Association was established in 1956 and calls 2026 its seventieth season. Its soccer page lays out a three-season year: fall outdoor September to November, winter indoor December to February, spring outdoor March to June, with travel teams training multiple times a week. Field locations and schedules are not on the site at all. They go out through TeamSnap once you are registered.
The league listings show 23 Mineola teams for 2026, sixteen boys and seven girls, with four separate U9 boys teams and a top group of U15. Four teams at U9 is a real signal: this club is deep at the entry level, which usually means a kid new to travel gets placed rather than cut. The thin end is the top. If your kid is eleven and you are picturing a path through high school, ask what happens at U16 and above, because the published rosters stop before that.
One more thing. As of late August 2026, the association’s Programs page was still advertising registration for Spring 2026. Volunteer clubs run behind on their websites. That is not a scandal, but it is a reason to get the fall answer from a human.
Westbury: the club that already works in Spanish, and the girls gap nobody names
Westbury Youth Soccer Club runs the Dragons out of 346 Post Ave. Its programs page lists Little Dragons for ages 3 to 5, intramurals built on US Soccer’s Play-Practice-Play curriculum, Pre-Travel for U7 and U8 in the LIJSL Player Development Initiative, travel for U9 through U19, and a winter indoor league. Its seven fields are all Westbury public schools, the water district lot, or the Yes We Can Center on Garden Street. Nobody is driving your kid to another town for a Tuesday practice.
The tryout model is genuinely unusual. Most Nassau clubs hold one week of tryouts in May or June and that is your window for the year. Westbury runs open tryouts year round. If your kid gets cut somewhere in June, or your family moves in October, there is a door open. In a village where 32.4% of residents were Hispanic or Latino at the 2020 census, and where families arrive mid-school-year, a rolling door beats a polished website.
On language, the evidence is on the club’s own homepage rather than in a marketing claim: two of the four parent testimonials are written in Spanish, by named Westbury parents, and the listed coaching staff is largely Spanish-speaking. If you have been filling out English forms at the kitchen table at 10 p.m., guessing what a guest player is, that matters more than any tier label. See the guide for Spanish-first families.
Now the honest part. The 2026 listings show 13 Westbury teams, and twelve are boys. One girls team, at U13. If you have a daughter here, do not assume a team will exist for her age next fall. Ask before June, because the answer may be Carle Place, Mineola, or a club further out. The girls soccer guide shows how to read a club’s real commitment to the girls side.
Carle Place: five thousand residents, twenty-one travel teams
Carle Place is a census-designated place of 5,005 people, known as Frog Hollow and then Mineola Park before it got its own name. Its soccer club is a 501(c)(3) that reported roughly $199,000 in program expenses on its most recent published Form 990, for 2024, and it fields 21 teams, nine of them girls. Per capita, the densest participation of the three towns by a wide margin.
It is also the most transparent process by a distance. The tryout page tells you what most clubs make you learn the hard way. Tryouts are drop-off only, so nobody is coaching from behind the fence. Players wear a white shirt and no club apparel, so evaluators cannot see who came from where. U8 through U13 are picked by independent evaluators, not by the coach who wants to keep his team together. And the club states plainly that not every player who tries out will make a team.
The training is named, which is rare. Carle Place partners with Royal Sporting Group, led by Nicky Costa, a former Adelphi University assistant coach who played in the NPSL with the New York Cosmos and in the USL with Arizona United, and who serves as the club’s Director of Training. Royal Sporting trainers lead at least one of the two weekly sessions. Games are Saturday for travel, Sunday for Pre-Travel, across an 8 to 10 week season.
The first-grade Developmental program is the part I would point a six-year-old’s parent to. It uses the LIJSL Player Development Initiative: 4v4 with no goalkeeper, four twelve-minute quarters, kick-ins instead of throw-ins, no score keeping or standings. The club’s stated reason is blunt and correct: the win-at-all-costs habits of local pre-travel divisions work against kids that age. A club that says that in writing is telling you how it thinks.
The fourth door most parents in these towns miss
NCPAL runs a joint Westbury / Carle Place unit at 357 Rockland Street, by appointment, at 516-750-8019, and soccer is one of its listed sports. Countywide it runs 31 units serving about 20,000 kids a year on donor funding, with none from any municipality. That is usually what keeps a PAL program cheaper than a travel club. If cost is the constraint, make this call before you talk yourself out of soccer. The Nassau cost breakdown has the annual math.
7 questions that get you a real number before you register
Since none of the three publishes a fee, these are the phone questions. Write the answers down. A club that answers all seven cleanly is well run, whatever the price turns out to be.
1. What is the total cost for the year, including everything?
Not the registration fee. The total: registration, kit, tournament entries, indoor winter, trainer fees. Long Island competitive soccer commonly runs $2,000 to $5,000 a year once it is all added up, and registration is often the smallest piece.
2. Is the uniform included, and where are we in the kit cycle?
Westbury’s kit runs through a Macron club shop. Carle Place told parents it is moving to new uniforms in fall 2026, at the end of a two-year cycle. Arriving in year two means buying twice.
3. Is there financial aid or a payment plan, and who do I ask?
Ask for a name, not a policy. Volunteer boards almost always have a way to handle this quietly and almost never advertise it. Ask the registrar or the treasurer, not the coach.
4. How many teams are you fielding at my kid’s age and gender this year?
One team at an age group means one roster and a hard cut. Three means placement by level and a real chance of playing. The answer changes every year.
5. What happens at U15 and above?
Mineola’s published rosters stop at U15, Westbury’s at U16, Carle Place’s at U17. Small clubs combine ages or fold teams as kids leave for school ball. Ask what the last three years looked like.
6. Under the new August 1 cutoff, which group is my kid in?
Have them say it out loud, then confirm it on the US Soccer age calculator yourself. If your kid was born between August 1 and December 31, this changed this year, and a registrar who has not thought it through is a warning sign.
7. What is the refund policy if my kid does not make a team, or quits in October?
Ask before you pay, in writing if you can. Nobody wants to ask this one. Ask it anyway.
Most training builds technique. Tiempo builds skill.
Where Tiempo fits, and when it does not
We are not a club. We do not run LIJSL travel teams, we do not compete in tournaments, and we are not an alternative to Mineola, Westbury or Carle Place. We are the structured individual development layer that sits next to your kid’s club, in Rockville Centre, through the PaC Method and a six-week Athlete Development Blueprint.
Which means, for most families reading this page, the honest answer is: not yet. If your kid is six and you are looking at Carle Place’s 4v4 no-standings program, buy that and nothing else. If your kid is nine and just needs more touches, go to the park. If your daughter in Westbury needs a team that exists at her age, that is a roster problem, and private training does not fix a roster problem. Paying for individual development before a kid has a stable weekly environment is the wrong purchase, and we will say so on the phone before you spend anything.
Questions Mineola, Westbury and Carle Place parents actually ask
My kid was born in November. Which age group is he in for 2026-27?
Under the seasonal-year model starting with 2026-27, groups run August 1 to July 31, so a November birthday sits in the group above where the old calendar-year rule put him (US Club Soccer, 2025). Carle Place lets a player already on one of its rosters try out with current teammates for the first year only. Confirm the group with the registrar in writing before tryouts.
Can my daughter play travel soccer in Westbury?
The 2026 listings show one Westbury girls team, at U13. That does not mean the club will not form another, and open tryouts run year round, so call 516-468-2071 and ask what exists at her age this fall. If nothing does, Carle Place fields nine girls teams and Mineola seven. Learning this in August beats discovering it in June.
Why will nobody tell me the price?
All three are volunteer non-profits with fees that change season to season, so the websites lag and the boards handle money by email. It is not a trick. It does mean you should get the total in writing before you register, and expect the full year across registration, kit, tournaments and indoor to land well above the registration line. The Nassau cost guide has the ranges.
My kid is five and has never played. Where do we start?
Carle Place Little Kicks takes Pre-K and Kindergarten on Saturday afternoons and lists Minis for ages 2 to 3; Westbury’s Little Dragons covers 3 to 5. At that age you are buying a good first experience and a size 3 ball, not development. Buy the cheapest one close to your house, then read the first-time parent guide.
When are tryouts, exactly?
Carle Place holds them in June for the following fall and spring, with rising U9s in May, and requires registration to attend. Westbury runs open tryouts all year. Mineola does not publish a window, so ask the board. If tryouts are new to your family, the tryout preparation guide covers the two weeks before, which matter more than the day itself.
Sources
- Club sites, accessed August 2026: Mineola Athletic Association soccer; Westbury YSC programs, tryouts, fields; Carle Place SC tryouts, age change, developmental, Little Kicks, FAQ.
- US Club Soccer, age group cut-off update for 2026-27, June 10, 2025. usclubsoccer.org
- Youth Soccer Games 2026 team listings: Mineola SC, Westbury YSC, Carle Place SC.
- NCPAL Westbury / Carle Place, accessed August 2026. nassaucountypal.org
- NY Red Bulls / LIJSL league partner page, 2026. newyorkredbulls.com
- Aspen Institute Project Play, State of Soccer in NYC and NJ, April 2026. aspeninstitute.org
- US Census 2020: Westbury, Mineola, Carle Place.
- Carle Place Soccer Club Inc, EIN 11-2885875, Form 990 program figures. impala.digital
Fees, divisions and tryout dates change every season, and all three clubs are run by volunteers with day jobs. The registrar is the source of truth. This page is the shortcut to knowing what to ask. One town west, the New Hyde Park and Floral Park guide covers your border.
¿Prefiere leer en español? Lea esta guía en español: cómo elegir club de fútbol en Mineola, Westbury y Carle Place.
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– Fernando, Tiempo Soccer Academy · Rockville Centre, NY · tiemposoccer.com
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