justneededaname
SILVER ELITE
I need some advice. It is tryout season. My middle school dd has offers from 3 different teams. She needs to decide, and my wife and I need to help her decide which team to play on. I am hoping people on here have some good advice, so here is the background. I honestly don’t know which way to encourage her.
My daughter is not some stud soccer player. She is Flight 1 good, but not Surf/Blues/Slammers good. I am not thinking about pro, or national team, or scholarships. I want her to be challenged, to grow as a person and a player, develop healthy habits, and be happy (and most of all be kept busy through the rest of middle school).
None of the offers are ECNL. I am unwilling to sit in traffic because it makes me angry so she doesn’t even get to try out at the ENCL teams in our area. All three teams are between 15 and 25 minutes from our house without an aggravating amount of traffic. Two teams are GA and one is NPL/DPL(TBD).
Team 1 is her current club team. She has good friends on the team. We really like the families. The player quality is the highest of the three and she will have to really push to get regular starts.. The coach is excellent and she loves playing for him. The team tries to play nice possession soccer but wont sacrifice results on the alter of playing out of the back. The club is small and doesn’t have any acronym league affiliations, so it will play in NPL or DPL if they are accepted. They applied for GA, but who knows if they will get it. The only teams that gave them any competition will be in ECNL or GA next year, so they will likely not play many league games that offer good competition. Their training fields are unsettled, sometimes not of good quality, and keep moving farther and farther away from our home.
Team 2 is a GA team. It is the farthest from our home (distance wise, not necessarily travel time). It has the best fields of the three options. The coach doesn’t know me from Adam and out of the blue let my dd come to a training of his GA team a year older than my dd and then let her keep training with that team for several months as many days as she wanted to come. She loves his trainings. Every day she comes home happy. She is starting to know his older team, but only knows a couple of kids on the team she will be on. The team is moving from Flight 2 to GA. They are going to need a lot of work to be competitive. The team plays direct soccer, but not kick ball. I have no idea whether she would be a starter or on the bench. Our family likes to travel, so the GA travel schedule is kind of appealing.
Team 3 is a GA team. It is the closest to home. The fields are decent grass, but only portable lights in the winter. The team is a complete rebuild with only a handful of players returning from this season. It will probably not be very good next year. I expect she will be a starter. The team plays a style that is a blend of possession and direct, it is nice but pragmatic. She and my son were both at this club for many years before leaving a couple of years ago (on good terms), so there is a level of familiarity with it that is very nice. The coach was my son’s coach for 5 years. I have a great rapport with him, he is an excellent coach, and my daughter loves him.
My daughter currently doesn’t know what she wants to do. Her answer is “I wish I could play on all three”. Teams 1 and 2 want answers sooner, rather than later, and I understand why.
So, anyone have any advice? It is a good problem to have. But honestly I don’t know what to do.
My daughter is not some stud soccer player. She is Flight 1 good, but not Surf/Blues/Slammers good. I am not thinking about pro, or national team, or scholarships. I want her to be challenged, to grow as a person and a player, develop healthy habits, and be happy (and most of all be kept busy through the rest of middle school).
None of the offers are ECNL. I am unwilling to sit in traffic because it makes me angry so she doesn’t even get to try out at the ENCL teams in our area. All three teams are between 15 and 25 minutes from our house without an aggravating amount of traffic. Two teams are GA and one is NPL/DPL(TBD).
Team 1 is her current club team. She has good friends on the team. We really like the families. The player quality is the highest of the three and she will have to really push to get regular starts.. The coach is excellent and she loves playing for him. The team tries to play nice possession soccer but wont sacrifice results on the alter of playing out of the back. The club is small and doesn’t have any acronym league affiliations, so it will play in NPL or DPL if they are accepted. They applied for GA, but who knows if they will get it. The only teams that gave them any competition will be in ECNL or GA next year, so they will likely not play many league games that offer good competition. Their training fields are unsettled, sometimes not of good quality, and keep moving farther and farther away from our home.
Team 2 is a GA team. It is the farthest from our home (distance wise, not necessarily travel time). It has the best fields of the three options. The coach doesn’t know me from Adam and out of the blue let my dd come to a training of his GA team a year older than my dd and then let her keep training with that team for several months as many days as she wanted to come. She loves his trainings. Every day she comes home happy. She is starting to know his older team, but only knows a couple of kids on the team she will be on. The team is moving from Flight 2 to GA. They are going to need a lot of work to be competitive. The team plays direct soccer, but not kick ball. I have no idea whether she would be a starter or on the bench. Our family likes to travel, so the GA travel schedule is kind of appealing.
Team 3 is a GA team. It is the closest to home. The fields are decent grass, but only portable lights in the winter. The team is a complete rebuild with only a handful of players returning from this season. It will probably not be very good next year. I expect she will be a starter. The team plays a style that is a blend of possession and direct, it is nice but pragmatic. She and my son were both at this club for many years before leaving a couple of years ago (on good terms), so there is a level of familiarity with it that is very nice. The coach was my son’s coach for 5 years. I have a great rapport with him, he is an excellent coach, and my daughter loves him.
My daughter currently doesn’t know what she wants to do. Her answer is “I wish I could play on all three”. Teams 1 and 2 want answers sooner, rather than later, and I understand why.
So, anyone have any advice? It is a good problem to have. But honestly I don’t know what to do.