Welcome to the Windy City
Selfishly (for the benefit of this team), I had been working for a couple years with coaches and directors in other midwest ECNL girls clubs to try and bring some of the top 2009 girls teams together for an event. COVID threw a wrench into the 2020 plans for obvious reasons, but things finally came together early this year with the help of the Eclipse Select organization and their Spring Classic event.
7 midwest ECNL clubs sent teams to Illinois this past weekend - MN Thunder, MI Hawks, SLSG MO, SLSG IL, KC Athletics (KS), FC Wisconsin, Eclipse Select (IL) and Greta Elite Academy (NE). These teams (some ECNL clubs sent multiple teams) were joined by Total Futbol Academy (OH) and Match Fit Academy Pre-ECNL (NJ), to make up the pool of 12 teams for the event (divided into 3 groups of 4 teams).
Played 2 matches on Saturday under a wind advisory. 30 mph winds with gusts of 40-50mph made it really, really difficult to play good soccer. But, these girls will play many games in their soccer careers in less-than-ideal conditions, and these matches will be more gut-checks than anything else - usually won by heart, and by sheer determination.
The girls rose to the occasion, beating FC Wisconsin Pre-ECNL 1-0 in a completely dominant performance Saturday morning, and coming back from a goal down to beat Total Futbol Academy (OH) 2-1 that evening.
In control of their own destiny, the girls needed to tie or beat SLSG IL Pre-ECNL Sunday morning to win the group and move on to a 4th game. Win the game and they would play for the championship, tie and they would play for 3rd place. We had tied SLSG IL in Nov of 2019 in St Louis and knew they had a core group of talented players. Again, going down a goal, the MTA girls battled back to win 2-1, win the group, and qualify to play in the championship game that afternoon as one of the top 2 of the 3 group winners.
The final would be against Match Fit Academy Pre-ECNL (NJ), currently ranked the #4 team in the country. We played them a month ago in the Jefferson Cup final and they absolutely trashed us. The match ended up 2-0 back in March, but it for sure wasn't that close. We were scared/intimidated, hesitant, and completely outplayed.
After that game, some crackpot thought it would be a good idea to sell them on coming to the midwest for this event
We knew they were a better team. The goal for the girls was to see if they could simply give a better account of themselves here in Chicago - play with more confidence, with more bite, don't back down/be intimated, and fight hard until the final whistle. If they did this, they could leave the complex with their heads held high after a weekend full of many other positives.
Though we would eventually fall 4-0 to another dominant Match Fit performance, the Minnesota girls' play was commendable. Night and day difference from Virginia.
I have never been prouder to leave an event with a runner-up medal.
