DD15 dropped from football team

[lookatallthisspace]

DD15 has played football for 4 years. She's been with the same team for the whole time although a number of girls have come and go. Their coach has been trying to find out who will be resigning for next season. He pulled me aside this week to say that he is considering dropping my DD from the team to allow a new player in who plays the same position, but she is welcome to stay as train only if she wanted to.

She's not the strongest player on the pitch but she's definitely also not the worst, has had a really good season and got player of the match on a couple of occasions.

When I asked for the reasoning behind this I was told that although she is good on the ball, her brain just isn't 'quick enough' for football and it takes her too long to make decisions on the pitch. DD15 is autistic (Asperger's) and one of her biggest issues is indecisiveness. I can see during her matches that sometimes she may take a little longer to make a decision but it doesn't seem to affect the game (she doesn't stand there for minutes deciding what to do, it's a matter of seconds!).

In a nutshell, the coach wants to sign this new player but can't unless he drops someone and although he has said he knows that DD can't help being autistic, it's going to be an issue for the next season as it is much more competitive (although this is still grassroots!).

Would I be unreasonable to talk to the club about this? My DD has been with the team the longest out of all the current players and is extremely upset.

It doesn’t make much sense to me that the coach would only want 1 player for each position. Surely you want to have options and depth.

It would be perfectly reasonable for him to bring in another player as competition for your DD which would keep both of them on their toes, but to drop her altogether is poor imo.

He won’t have just one player for every position (we know there are subs), but there’ll be a maximum squad size allowed by the league (I think it’s usually 20 players at the 15+ age group), which prohibits him from having 2 players for every position.

Whatever happened to second and third teams? We used to move less capable players between 1st,2nd & 3rd squads and more capable or improving players would be moved up and it could change within seasons as well as between them.

It seems a shame they don’t have lower level competitive teams for players who may be going through a bad patch or need more practice at set pieces and drills, which really can help competent neurodivergent players overcome some of the processing problems by making the response habitual (Talking from experience as both player and coach in my younger years)

There are 2 competing issues here. The first is that as a competitive team the coaches will always want the best players for the team but there is also a discrimination issue which arises not because of the daughter potential exclusion but the way in which it came about. It’s true that discrimination cannot be overcome by adjustment in elite sports but it can be overcome by having seasonal selection events/competitions among all competent available players (this is common practice in most team sports), alternative and backup teams and less competitive teams. No one should find themselves unable to play due to disability. Inclusive teams may be too slow for op’s daughter & where does that get her?

Only a couple of clubs where I grew up had B teams (none had C).

Other than the OP’s daughter, are there another 15-19 players who would want to play for the B team (particularly if there are other clubs around where they could be on the ‘A’ team)?

Are there sufficient coaches available to run B and C teams at the various age groups?

Does the local league even allow B teams?

Etc.

It's not meant to be all inclusive activity: it's meant to be the most competitive team. There's no way she's dropped if she isn't (in the round, for the moment) the weakest player.

Remind her about Jamie Vardy getting dropped from Football Academy at age 15.

I'm very impressed that it took until age 15 before she was dropped. Anyone who gets that far must be very good, actually. Could possibly get on another team. DS was dropped from community footie at age 9.

You need enough adults involved to run mulitple teams. Maybe the OP could offer to run one?

Can you start your own inclusive team?

My sisters started a girls football league in the Borough because there wasn't one.

Something similar happened to DS as a teenager @lookatallthisspace . It wasn't so much the dropping that upset him as the way it was handled – the coach viewed it purely as a playing decision and had no empathy for the fact that DS had been at the club for a few years and enjoyed the whole team environment etc. Coach was a former professional footballer and took it much too seriously for what was meant to be a church-affiliated inclusive community team.

We found him a new club which turned out to be a much better fit. He played for 3 more seasons and met boys from a different school he didn't know before who turned into some of his best friends.

It’s really upsetting.

My son has just been dropped from his little league team because “his application to learn is a little low, which means he picks things up more slowly.” (Direct quote from the coach.)

My son has dyslexia and ADHD so he finds it difficult to follow long instructions. The coaches did not try to accommodate him as far as I know. No one spoke to me to say that there was a problem.

What’s more upsetting, is that until very recently, all the feedback was super positive and they were telling him he could make it into their better team. No one has mentioned anything up until the bomb shell email on Friday morning.

Football was the only thing he thought he was decent at. School has been a disaster. This has destroyed him.