I wanted to ask the question of how to go about finding a new club for my daughter, and I was hoping for input on that.....
Then this is the question that needed to be emphasized. You added comments about unhappiness and leaving and, unfortunately, most (including myself) have tee offed on that aspect and not about find a new club/team.
You know the cliche, sometimes, less is more....
..............I'm kind of surprised that people take it so personally when someone wants to leave a team, if there was a kid on my daughter's team that wanted out and the parents were very upfront about it I would wish them well, why would anyone want someone there that didn't want to be there?
Generally speaking, I agree with you view but many of us also believe in commitment made, commitment kept. Its part of sportsmanship, its part of life. The negatives must be dealt with positively and that too is development in life of a child.
Clearly, if someone doesn't want to be there, its usually best that they goto a place where they want to be at. The rub is the commitment part. It is always unique situation and generalization cannot be used. Only you know the actual circumstances so its your challenge to balance teaching a child about commitment versus change in the face of breaking the intent.
In response to finding the right team and club, here are some recommendations:
1) Go watch one or two of the games (tournament is better than league but any game that means something). This will give you the temperament of the coach and how he uses subs. Also is the coach so focused on winning that the bench players only get few minutes on the pitch?
2) Attend practices and see how he runs the training. Goto at least two, and on the second training session, if there are other teams there, look how other teams in the same club is training. Compare the sessions.
3) Talk to parents on the perspective team and see where their head is at. Do you dislike them (don't have to like them but dislike is a problem)?
4) Consider and assess where your kid is at. Make sure that your kid is in the top half of the talent of the team, and not in the bottom half. This will avoid worrying about playing time for the most part. Vast majority of kids like playing and not sitting on the bench.
5) Last, and perhaps most important. What do you and your kid expect to get out of the relationship with the team? This can be anything from winning lots to just development to be a better player. In that spectrum of things, it helps to have realistic objectives for the year for your kid's soccer life. It does two things, a) keeps focus on what is important to you, and b) a measuring stick to monitor progress toward achieving your goals for the season.
Beyond that, there are things like is the club DA/ECNL club, is the level of league right and roster size and so on. Coach reputation can be misleading depending on who responds. But be aware that a really good coach (usually because he wins a lot) that has built a reputation of strong teams may not spend the time to develop players on the bottom half of the roster (because he knows there are more waiting to join the team), and that a development focused coach may have mediocre to poor win-loss record teams, especially at younger.
Thanks for responding to the question.
