Need Advice

The son of the sister-in-law of my common-law wife played in the qualifying tournament last week.  His team did not qualify for D1.  Apparently, his team would have qualified but for the tournament being improperly seeded, horrible officiating, and the sun being in their eyes for both halves.  He plays on an independent team.   Their coach focuses on development and is invested in the team.  All of the parents and other kids on the team are awesome.  

They asked for my advice.   I told them that they should immediately seek a release and find a D1 team from Solar, FCD, or Texans that has a spot for him.   There is no way that their son will succeed in soccer (or life) unless he plays DA at the age of eleven, and there is no way that is going to happen unless he plays D1 on a team of the "Big Three."  After asking about PPL, I spit in their face and told them that only bottom feeders play in that league.  Do you agree with my advice?   In retrospect, I am not sure that I properly expressed the dire situation they are facing.

I just threw up a little bit.

It was too kind of you to even acknowledge their existence. You're a much nicer person than me. If I had been trapped in that situation, I simply would have drifted in another direction and pretended like I couldn't see or hear them.

Before anyone on the forum can give advice we need to know how elite your nephew is. Would you say he is extremely elite, very elite or averagely elite?

My favorite is when the "cool kids" on the forum that have been around the proverbial soccer block a few times take time away from doing the elephant walk to make fun of the "new kids" silliness for being worried about U11 soccer. Cause we all know it doesn't matter.

Wow pretty surprised by your hard line response.  Agree with Socceropath, at U11 it doesn't matter.  I tell my boys college play hits a reset button anyway (pro, well that's a whole different discussion).  Success in any sport is a package deal: skill, discipline, mental toughness, ambition, resiliency etc.  Will share advice given to me by much wiser folks in this arena, focus on coaching style and team dynamics where your player will be challenged and more importantly enjoy.  Both my boys play for FCD and like anywhere else you have a variety of coaching styles.  The advantage I can see playing for a big club as oppose to an independent team is name recognition and exposure for college recruiting (FCD is investing in the college program), FCD premier and academy teams.  That said, competition is fierce.  Also don't agree with your comments on PPL.  I would stack up any PPL D1 against Classic teams.  Also it sounds from what you describe as their son's team not qualifying for D1 that the planets have to align for the team to be successful....LOL, all that is noise!

Someone's not picking up on the sarcasm...needs to spend a little more time on the forum.

I spoke with someone associated to PPL once but I immediately got an upset stomach with heartburn and diarrhea. Never again.

When my oldest didn't make Classic league and had to play PPL, I actually removed him from our Will.

One of my average elite kids didn't make D1 once.


Once

All my other kids are notoriously elite.

Obviously, the kids are not elite enough to play D1 much less DA. I think the coach should have just registered the team as a rec team so the kids can feel good about themselves for being so awesome!

As a funny joke, on the ceiling in my son's bedroom I painted, "If you do not play DA soccer our family will disavow you."

Classic league is to PPL as St. Mark's is to Kids 'R' Kids.

All this PPL talk is making me physically ill, I need to go watch some youtube videos of classic league games so I can function again.

bigtex75081 wrote:As a funny joke, on the ceiling in my son's bedroom I painted, "If you do not play DA soccer our family will disavow you."

I still don't understand why anyone would let a non-DA kid sleep indoors.

At a recent college camp they rated rising seniors by future level of play. Mine got intramurals, but it was well worth the camp fee to find this out. Now I just have to tell his mom.

04Soccerdad wrote:Obviously, the kids are not elite enough to play D1 much less DA.  I think the coach should have just registered the team as a rec team so the kids can feel good about themselves for being so awesome!

...only if they hand out participation trophies.