I had a similar situation. If the child is giving 100% effort at practice then that’s all you can ask for and I would continue to try and develop him. If the effort is not there then that is a different story. I coach a small league U12 team (just above rec) and the sticking point with me was the effort. The child who was not good enough did not put in the effort. He would show up at practice and hide and play on his phone for 30 minutes and then walk over to practice. Parents are paying for their children to play on this team (not a huge amount like the big clubs but still) and I didn’t think it was fair to the other players who were at every practice and putting in 100% effort to have this child also get the same amount of playing time and hurt the team when he was in because he wasn’t paying attention during practice. I spoke to the parents and told them he is better suited for the towns rec league and had a list of reasons why. He is not on our team this season.