Empowering Female Soccer Players to try go Pro ver.2018-2019
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Anonymous
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At any time, a coach can send an email to Diane drake, who runs the training centers for the local area recommending a player to attend a training center. If the coach is someone she knows already, it probably has a lot more credibility than if it's from someone she doesn't know. But her job is to find those type of players locally. At one point the coaches at GMU and UVA were involved in running the girls training centers. The head coach of the spirit sometimes runs the training centers that take place in Maryland.
The other route is to show up at Maryland or Virginia odp and impress at the district, state, and regional level in succession. However a lot of the local players in ynt player pools have never done odp so I think route #1 is more likely. |
Anonymous
| So if you show up at one of those sessions and are a level even above the other players who made be "bubble" candidates for a ynt training invitation, then you've got a shot perhaps. There's no sneaking through through, you truly do have to have legitimate ability and very few players have it. |
Anonymous
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Youth national team player at every level and still waived. This is the level of talent that we are wasting here in the US
http://washingtonspirit.com/pro/washington-spirit-waives-midfielder-maddie-huster/ |
Anonymous
| If she can't make it with that type of playing resume, who can? |
Anonymous
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What I know from seeing it over and over is well connected coaches can get their players places that other coaches can't. So I believe - based on all I know from years of doing this - that after deciding in the spring to join FCV, it as a club was able to leverage its influence to see her in the camp.
And that if she had stayed at VDA or gone somewhere else, she'd have been less likely. Which is NOT to say she isn't talented. She has skills. I'm just saying that just talent is enough, nor is being the best actually. You may be the best and still get overlooked. But if you are talented PLUS play for a connected coach, you will be able to access opportunities that someone else your equal or perhaps even maybe better, can't. I've seen better players (not than her specifically, I just mean in general) never get that opportunity. If you are not talented, then a mediocre player won't get opportunities like that. |
Anonymous
| Yet another recruiting carrot |
Anonymous
Someone with the right connections. |
Anonymous
| Her sister Tori Huester already plays for the spirit. How much more of a connection can you even get? |
Anonymous
For the WNT? Plenty. There's not but so many roster spots. |
Anonymous
It’s always been a buddy system. Instead of pure talent, it’s always coach-to-coach connections on both boys and girls side. US soccer has been this way forever. And that’s why we have the players we do—-minus the ones that can run to Europe and bypass the political bullsh*t, get on a foreign coach’s radar. And the sh@t starts way young. |
Anonymous
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I wonder if - in addition to leaving the US for other leagues - we might not start see a trend of American soccer players leaving to play for other national teams. Case in point:
Jonathan Gonzalez (https://www.theguardian.com/football/2018/jan/19/jonathan-gonzalez-usa-mexico-switch-soccer) "'It’s only working for the white kids': American soccer's diversity problemWhile US Soccer remained unconvinced of his quality, González received offers from 13 Liga MX teams after his Sueno performances. He signed with Monterrey where he climbed the youth ladder and made his senior first team debut in July last year alongside veteran internationals from Mexico, Argentina, Uruguay and Colombia." And I remember there was a female soccer player from America who now plays for Canada and went with them to the Olympics and won a medal. Plus the Brooklyn female player mentioned earlier who played for England's U23s. Just wondering about defections. |
Anonymous
| The NWSL also has non Americans on some teams so it goes both ways I suppose. |
Anonymous
Sure, I have noticed most commonly Latinas, like several Brazllians, some Columbians, and also of course Canadians. I wonder if that is partly because for sure the NWSL is more developed than their native leagues. I don't know of any European female soccer players. If there are, I would love to read up on them to see their thoughts on it. |
Anonymous
| There’s a pretty long list: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_foreign_NWSL_players |
Anonymous
Soooo, not to poopoo your list or the search to get facts (which I appreciate and applaud), but it’s not all that it seems, which may not be readily apparent if you haven’t been following women’s football. The Latinas and Canadians I will skip over, because they will always find their way into the NWSL, since their home countries don’t have fully functioning professional leagues in most cases. Canada doesn’t have a professional league, but if they did, they would probably join the NWSL, just like with the MLS. In fact, the DA has teams in Canada. We should talk roster rules. First off, the NWSL is only allowed 4 foreign players per roster. It’s a league rule. However, while they are allowed 4 per roster, different clubs have traded those 4 spots around, so like Dash in theory has 4, but maybe they only have 1, because they gave up 3 to the Thorns. Also, if you look at that list, a lot players came in the early stages of the NWSL, played for a year and left. It started in 2012 by the way. Some were club trades, like Sonia Bermudez. She was playing for Barcelona, they gave her a passage to play 1 season with 2014 in the NWSL, then brought her back. So she was their player. She eventually left for Atletico and has since stayed in that league. Some come to the NWSL when they are in between contracts and successfully use that time to gain another contract elsewhere. Like Ghoutia Karchouni played largely for PSG, spent a year in the NWSL then went back to France to join Bordeaux. (by the way, I find it telling that France in particularly has such a tiny list of just 2 players. That is likely because France has a very successfully women’s pro league which has one of the highest average salaries, among other things). Maruschka Waldus also played in the NWSL briefly, renegotiated a contract to get back to Denmark during that year and went back. Some are at the end of a career, and come to the NWSL, much as other European players come to the MLS to try to continue a little while longer, like Adriana Martin, who joined for the inaugural season and then left for Chelsea. As her career was waning, she came back for another season, but has finally gone down to a division 2 team in Spain. Or like Sonja Fuss, who was at the end of her career after years of playing in Germany, came to the Stars, and then after playing briefly for them, retired from a professional career. Inka Grings’ career followed a similar trajectory. I think the NWSL is a great start, but let’s face it. It is just a start and actually our 3rd try at a women’s pro league. It has a lot of growing to do, as does American soccer in general. Because the US WNT won for a while, we fell asleep at the wheel. Meanwhile, some of these leagues have been around for 30+ years. Moreover, they have the support of the men’s clubs, which is huge (and also the secret to the Portland Thorns having the largest audiences in the NWSL). Having those big time coaches, big time fields, clubs, etc supporting them creates a high level environment. |