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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]To play this game gptvthe long term (i.e. until the end of the high school years), is it important to be really fond of your teammates? Or is it enough to just get along on the level that's needed to play? Is this the same in boys and girls? How important is the social piece/peace to continue to be motivated?[/quote]

I've spent some time coaching and a lot of time as a soccer parent and I have to agree with some of the other folks above. Girls have a much more delicate thing going on when they are together and it's much more obvious to me when they come together to squeeze one of their teammates into feeling irrelevant or unwanted.  If even one or two girls on the team are regularly being made to feel small, I consider it to be a cancer on the whole team.

Boys do it much, much less, in my observation, but I will say that those that I have seen do it have always struck me as being middle of the pack players. Not especially capable with their soccer, in relation to the stronger players on the team. Non-leaders. Just generally unkind.

But definitely a bigger problem with girls than with boys.

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Completely agree.  As a parent of boys and girls (in high school and college) who have played on top teams for big area clubs frequently discussed on this forum, we have seen similar differences between boys and girls.  I would add that, if you are thinking long term and want your kids to continue playing into their middle school and high school years, you should be sensitive to these issues as you consider whether to leave/stay at a club.  Most have probably heard/seen the statistics about the % of kids that quit playing soccer by the time they are 13 years old.  While there are several reasons behind why kids quit, one of the top reasons is "no longer having fun," and the internal dynamics of a team play a huge role in that on the girls side.  We know several girls who quit top teams by the time they were 13 or so because of internal, negative dynamics with their teammates.  Similarly, we know parents who pulled their daughters from one club to another (thinking the grass was greener at the new club), only to realize later that their daughter (a) had great relationships/friendships on her prior team and (b) was unable to replace them at the new club.  In every case but one, those girls quit playing soccer by the time they were 13.  This seems to be less of an issue for boys, who we have seen care much less about the internal team dynamics with the other boys, and are even willing to leave a team that has a number of their friends if it means joining a team that a boy thinks is somehow "better" than his current club.

Long way of saying, as we head into the silly season of spring tryouts in the DMV, parents should be particularly sensitive to the internal team dynamics between your kid and his/her teammates.  For parents of girls 13 and younger, I think this issue is probably more important than many of the others discussed on this forum (e.g., coaches, TDs, records of older teams at the club, etc.).  I appreciate that this is a broad generalization, and may not be applicable to anyone's son or daughter, so take it for whatever it is worth.

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