$$$$$$$$ |
ECNL is the league to be seen by college coaches. ECNL RL is something they created for B teams. Local and the drop off in talent and level of play is significant.
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Tall and Fast is good (seriously).
Move clubs. Get on the RL team. Kill RL. Have her play a different position. Tall/Fast girls are looked at a lot as defenders. Get with a well known trainer in the area who is connected in some way to major programs (Union, BSC, Maryland United, NVA, Arlington...) Have her play and train with boys. Have her watch ECNL games for her age group and older. I have firsthand knowledge of this subject. My daughter went from a rec ball player to starting on one of the above mentioned teams as a center back in about a 3 year time frame. I didn't hurt that she grew to 5'9 and runs like a locomotive. I think the biggest advice is to get solid trainers around her. That doesn't just include soccer trainers. She needs a speed/mobility trainer as well. Good luck! |
Get a lot of playing time! Try and play on a team that challenges her but gets good time on the field. Bring her to lots of tryouts now even if it wouldn't be a team she would play on. The extra reps are great. |
Try your best to NEVER go to an open tryout or ID session. Call the coach directly and see if you can drop by at a practice for that age group. |
As others have said, I would get a personal trainer for her to really focus on her technical skills. Then see if you can jump to a club with an in-house ECNL team. E-mail the coach and ask if she could attend a practice with the older girls to evaluate what she needs to work on for the next level.
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Still very young. Align her with reputable trainers/coaches and keep developing. |
Yup like I said... $$$$$$$$$$ |
This. Feels way too young to be thinking about this. |
How do you figure when ecnl is in 2 years? Some folks said there's not enough time. |
Agree it's not too early to think about it. I'm in the North-Atlantic and Pre-ECNL starts at U12 (eg 4-5 months) and is functionally the same league setup as ECNL with the same clubs. Lots of moves already happening. |
She needs to get bigger and faster. Seriously this is the ECNL. There is not much demand for technical players which results in a slow speed of play. This means straight line speed and physicality are coveted with size. |
Here is the unfortunate reality, by U14, it is super super hard to move onto an ecnl roster unless you are coming from another ECNL/GA team or you are just ripping it apart in RL or NPL/E64.
I just took a glance at the pics we have for our now-college kid, her ECNL squad had only three kids move up internally that weren’t on the team as U13. 4 kids left, and other kids were added from other clubs, but of the final roster, 12 were on the top squad by U13 and the three additional internals had moved by U15 |
She's 5'2 so she has the size. I think the speed too. Working on stamina and footwork. |
There’s multiple paths. At this age make sure she has a good coach and is receiving proper outside training and development. Daughter will be on her first ecnl team (U14) in the fall and she had no idea what ECNL was at U11 |