One of the biggest things I’ve learned watching girls develop in soccer is that, on a macro level, the best girls usually stay the top girls, assuming they continue training consistently.
In boys soccer, puberty often acts like a rocket booster. In girls soccer, it can sometimes feel more like an obstacle course and rarely do you see the rapid change.
Overall, the girls who are technically advanced and soccer-smart early tend to remain near the top.
What surprised me most wasn’t that skill mattered. Everyone knows skill matters. What surprised me was just how massive the skill and decision-making burden is to become truly elite.
It takes years longer than I expected.
My daughter’s development made me realize this. She would learn a skill, start using it effectively, then seemingly forget it existed for years.
She had:
- a fake-shot phase,
- an “always go left” phase,
- an “always go right” phase,
- a step-over phase,
- the pull-back era.
- push and chase era
- rollover era
- the I forgot how to feighnt – every touch takes the ball somewhere era
At first, I found it frustrating. Why are these skills getting abandoned?
But over time – as you see the skills re -emerging, I started realizing development doesn’t work like building a staircase. It works more like assembling a giant puzzle.
Early on, kids build the corners and edges:
- one move,
- one pattern,
- one solution,
- one way to escape pressure,
- one way to beat defenders.
Individually, none of it looks complete. Sometimes it even looks random. But they’re quietly accumulating tools.
Then years later, something clicks.
The fake shot comes back — but now it’s combined with a change of pace. The pull-back returns, but this time it’s used to create a passing lane instead of just escaping pressure. The weak foot suddenly appears in games because the player finally understands when to use it.
The pieces start connecting.
That’s the part I completely underestimated as a parent. It takes an unbelievable number of hours for technical actions to become permanently available under pressure. Not just executable — integrated.
That process takes forever.
Which is why I’ve become skeptical of the idea of true “late bloomers” in girls soccer. I think that was possible in an era where the level wasn’t even close to what it is now.
But almost all of the high-level girls I’ve seen had deep soccer foundations years earlier.
Soccer is just too technically and cognitively demanding. A player starting seriously at 11 is not only behind in ball mastery. She’s behind in pattern recognition, spacing, timing, scanning, pressure awareness, and decision speed. Those things are accumulated over thousands of hours and hundreds of games.
The gap is enormous.
That’s what makes elite players so impressive. When you watch them closely, you realize they aren’t just athletic or “talented.” They’ve spent years layering skills, solving problems, revisiting ideas, and building instincts piece by piece. And most of that work is invisible while it’s happening. From the outside, it can look repetitive, stagnant, and even worse, regressive. But, the player is slowly building a complete game. Part of the process.
justinsadauskas 