My now 15yo son is a typical "club soccer" story. We live in Central MA.
He does not have the offense mentality. He has the defense mentality. He was a late bloomer growing and athletically. He's still not fast, but he is fast enough. What this means for club is that since he wasn't a "show off", nor was he the fastest nor most physically gifted. He started at the lowest team and his skill set was not evident to most.
My son has always been able to see the field. He either makes the pass, finds the pass, or makes the correct play away. Rarely will he make a bad play and always seems to be in position. However, his greatest strength is talking. He LOVES to tell other people what to do, lol. Once the number of players on the field started growing, it was easy for a soccer fan to see his command of the game. However, this is not how clubs develop players. I always kept reminding him to play to his strengths, don't give up, and commit to giving your best.
As we are into 7th and 8th grade he grew bigger and stronger. Not taller, not much faster, but tall and fast enough. Adding more players to the field, his ability to see the field, make the pass, direct his teammates, and make tough plays on defense, he started getting called to higher and higher teams.
Last year was 9th grade. Our school is pretty big and usually has 2 JV teams and 1 V team with it basically being a "no-cut" on the second JV teams. Due to covid, we only had 1 JV team. He made the JV team and also was the captain of the top club team in the local club (not ECNL nor ENPL). This past summer he was invited to try out for the ECNL team. He was offered (and accepted) the regional ECNL (not national) team. However, for our entire club its the 3rd best team behind National ECNL and ENPL. He attended some clinics this summer playing against 18yo ECNL players who were able to smoke him. He loved it. He loves practicing against better competition.
My son is clearly a later bloomer. However, no one knows how his story will end. I would bet against a D1 opportunity, but if he continues to grow physically and in his game there is certainly a possibility. However, with his grades and how he as progressed, I would not bet against a D3 opportunity which as a parent with zero expectations of any of his kids is pretty cool.
Moral of the story? Soccer is tough, but parents are tougher. Parents want to win games. They don't understand that games don't matter. Winning doesn't matter. It starts with touches and grows into first touch and into heads up play. I can barely attend games any more. I get so mad listening to parents tell the players what to do, tell the refs how much they suck, and ultimately how much they know the game better than the coach we are playing thousands of dollars to. I have to stand far away from all parents. I have yelled at parents for my team as well as parents from other teams. The trigger is always some parent telling my kid how to play. Please don't ever do that. You want to tell your kid how to play, when the coach doesn't thinks its important, have at it. But don't talk about my kid unless its positive. Rant over, but yes parents are the worst.
(it doesn't equal info or the Italy flag in this case, it = skill and insane drive), go all in and do what it takes to get them into an academy. You're better off dumping money in a trainer at the age of 10-13 so they stand out enough to get them into an academy. If they make it, the academy costs will be just your travel. If they don't make it, hopefully they'll be discouraged and burned out and explore other avenues to enjoy life.
Pipeline has become a good rivalry; it was pretty damn cool to see them rock them 5-0.
