2018/2019 Season - U10

MTA had a single hybrid 08/09 girls team the year before, and were looking to create a team at each age group in July of 2018.

Six 2009 girls from MTA’s 2017 team (Mickey, Madi, Bean, Kenny, and Gwynn) and one 2010 girl (Bella), were joined at tryouts by maybe another six girls. Not a tryout number that you’d associate with an ECNL club, but what the evaluation session was lacking in quantity it made up for in quality.

Four girls ended up being added to the roster (my daughter Livi, Siena, Ains, and Dutch), and we moved forward with ten players. Those ten players represented eight different metro-area communities - Minneapolis, Edina, White Bear Lake, Farmington, Rosemount, Inver Grove Heights, Hastings, and St. Paul.

As a magnet club that attracts strong players from multiple communities, it’s difficult to find competition locally at our own age group. However, the decision was made to play our own age group that fall for a couple reasons:

1. To showcase the team

2. To scout other talent that was out there at our age group

Why showcase the team? Well, without a large in-house/recreational program to help feed numbers for younger competitive teams, people learn about/find MTA in few ways:

1. through their own initiative/research

2. by attending MTA camps/clinics

3. word of mouth

4. having an older sibling in the club

5. playing against us

The only one of these reasons I have control over is the last.

Everything I do with the team is geared toward preparation for ECNL competition, and obviously there was a need to build towards an 18-player roster. In my experience, the best was to attract future talent to the team is to have the team beat up on that future talent’s team.

Follow that?

I’m not a sadist. I don’t derive pleasure form completely smashing a less-skilled team, or a team that can’t compete with our athleticism. But because the state’s (or country’s) identification/recruiting rules are completely idiotic, I feel my hands are a bit forced here.

And don’t worry, I’m sure there will be a blog post addressing the lunacy of recruiting rules coming up in the near future.

But it is what it is.

So for two fall seasons (fall of 2018 and fall of 2019), this team would end up sacrificing competition in favor of building to the future.

Fall 2018

The Twin Cities Soccer Leagues (TCSL) Fall U10 Season went pretty much as expected. Games were played 7v7. Not much competition, and usually a struggle to impose restrictions on the girls so that they could continue to find challenge against weaker teams.

Why a struggle? Mainly because at this age the girls just want to score goals. It’s tough for them to see how imposed restrictions (2-touch in the attacking half, weak-foot shooting, etc) are designed to help them long-term.

The team also rolled through two fall events up in Blaine (MN), the NSC Fall Cup and the NSC Kick-or-Treat.

Once the fall was done, we set our sights on competing at the U11 (2008) age group locally, which got us on the 9v9 field a year earlier than we would have otherwise.

Winter 2018/2019

The TCSL formed a hybrid U11/U12 league that winter, which meant we faced some 2007 teams. The girls went undefeated in the 6 games (4-0-2) and were crowned league champions. Well, they would have been crowned league champions - if they had a coach who really cared about the W/L record and went through the trouble to notify the TCSL that they missed recording one of our games and that they recorded the score of another game incorrectly. So the final standings below show us in 3rd place, but we ended with 14 points, tied with Edina 07s, and beat them head-to-head.

Spring 2019

The Spring saw us travel to compete in two regional events - the Emerald Cup (Overland Park, KS), and the Eclipse Spring Classic (Chicago, IL), where the girls finished as Champions and Finalists respectively. We also played the NSC Spring Cup locally, competing in the top boys division and going a respectable 1-1-1.

Summer 2019

Rolling into the U11 TCSL Summer League, the girls had a rough start results-wise, dropping their first three (3) games vs Fusion 08s, St Croix Academy 08s, and Prior Lake 08s - all teams that we more athletic and physical than us overall, and all teams with a couple danger players who we had trouble containing.

Always to be expected when playing up an age group.

The girls would rebound to get draws against St Croix Academy 08s and Prior Lake 08s in our second meetings with the two powerhouses, and finish in 3rd place with a respectable 3-3-2 record. To me, this record was a clear indication that we were playing at the correct level - some wins, some losses, some draws, with very tight games overall.

We played our own age group (showcasing and scouting) at the All-American Cup (Blaine, MN) and at the USA Cup (Blaine, MN), winning both events fairly easily.

The team then finished the summer season competing in the TCSL Summer League Cup, and would get a huge win vs Prior Lake 08s (a team we had not beaten in two previous meetings this summer) in group play, then win the League Cup (effectively the U11G State Championship) with a resounding 5-0 vs Eden Prairie 08s.

Jump to our U11 year here.