General questions about 08G going select

Our daughter (born Dec 2008) is currently playing for an 08G academy team, and this is all new to us.  How will it work for her when the time comes for her to go select?  Will she need to go select in the summer of 2018, when she is nine (turning 10 later in 2018), or will it be during the summer of 2019 when she is 10 years old?

If her team stays together, would the whole team go select?  Can she try out for different clubs or teams?

Sorry if these are stupid questions, but as I said this is all new to us.

Thank you in advance!

Summer of 2018
Whole team qualifies together
She can tryout for individually any team or club before going select, including older teams... playing up.

What is LH rule? Teams can't play up their first year or girls can't play up their first year?

Teams can't play up. Only a player can play up.
Mine is doing that this year.

OK, great. Thank you.
Now, if she decides to tryout individually for a different team, and makes it, then it is a year-to-year commitment, correct? No changing teams mid-year?
Is there a certain date when all players must decide by, or does it vary by club?

Year long commitment. There are ways out of it, but different depending on registration via US Club or US Youth Soccer.

OK. When you said earlier that the :"whole team qualifies together", does that mean that her academy team has just reached the age where it calls itself "select", and the terms of membership change, or is there an actual qualification process?

There is an actual qualifying tournament. You sign contracts July 1, hand the club your $3500 and then at the end of the month your team plays in the qualifying tournament to see if they make it into Lake highlands girls classic league. If they don't make it you go play in one of the other leagues. If you don't make it in they keep the money and you stay playing there for the year.

Unless your team is a JDL team, which is a whole different can of worms. Haha

So the team makes it into LH girls classic league, some other league, or none at all--and she could be stuck in the none-at-all for a year? Yikes.

There are many leagues to play in if the team didn't qualify for Lake highlands. They would play somewhere. Plano premiere, league elite at the pit. Primetime select league, Arlington select league.

How many teams enter Lake Highlands each year? In your opinion, how do the others rate?

Generally 40-50 teams enter qualifying each year. Only top 30 make it.

I won't comment on league rank. Folk tend to get pissy about that. I'll just say besides JDL, there is a reason the teams all attempt to qualify for Lake highlands.

OK, thank you. What is the JDL?

At the risk of pissing some people off, where would you (or anyone else...) say an 08G team ought to be playing in preparation for the type of competitiveness required to make it into the LH?

(If too risky, no worries!)

I am assuming in the UAL?

Send me a private message.

I tried to--hopefully it went through!

bd2428 wrote:OK, thank you.  What is the JDL?

At the risk of pissing some people off, where would you (or anyone else...) say an 08G team ought to be playing in preparation for the type of competitiveness required to make it into the LH?  

(If too risky, no worries!)

I am assuming in the UAL?

UAL? Lol...

The secret league would tops. Followed most likely by The Pit... UAL is about dead.

Well as I said we're new to all this! What is "the secret league"?

Fairly simple just need to have your daughter play on one of the top teams on the FBR and you should have no worries. FBR rankings are fairly close to LH QT seeding and the top 10 teams have very little issue making LH D1. But a top team is pretty cut throat and if your DD is not performing she will lose playing time.. If a better player comes along she will be out of a job. It gets worse the older they get but one needs to be realistic and make sure your daughter is on a team that she gets a lot of playing time that may be a top 10 team of maybe its a lower ranked team. It would suck to pay $3000 and watch your kid play 5 minutes a game and since you signed the contract you are stuck for a year.

The "secret league" is an invite only '07 division for '08 teams. It gives the top 10 '08 teams the opportunity to play 9v9 instead of 7v7 and was/is the first/best way to get all the top teams to agree to play in the same league. Previously they were spread out between playing up a year, playing in boys divisions, Saturday vs. Sunday, etc. which meant you might get 2-3 good competition games out of an 8 game season. The 'secret league' ensures that pretty much every game is highly competitive.