I can’t answer this directly as I’ve played team sports my whole life. However I do currently play on some recreational teams and there are a few people on my team who are in their 20s/30s who are playing for their first time ever. I’m going into my second season with my current team and all of the rookies signed on to keep playing because of how much they’ve been enjoying it.

Many of the rookies on my team have found their participation very motivating to get fit— start running, going to the gym— because they want to get better at the sport and be able to keep up with more experienced people.

I think your experience largely depends on the type of league you join and your team dynamic. My team is super supportive, puts effort into making sure everyone gets equal play time, and doesn’t avoid passing the ball to less-skilled people. A non-competitive recreation or social focussed league is great because even the really skilled people enter those leagues mostly for the socialization.

On a personal. it’s, I’ve found starting back up with team sports as an adult very rewarding because it feels more functional than running/lifting and is an awesome way to diversify my regular fitness routine— I am an avid runner and had even recently trained for a marathon before I started up with soccer. I’d assumed I was in pretty good shape because of that but I literally thought I was going to die during my first game because it is such a different form of cardiovascular fitness. And I was sore for like a week afterward because I was using muscles in ways I didn’t normally.

The worst case is that you hate it, stick out the season, and then don’t rejoin.