I don't want to be that crazy sports mom, but...

Sports are... weird.

There are leagues and there are leagues for youth sports. Generally speaking, the more open to the public a sport is, the less serious it is. There are lesser known leagues that involve some sort of "in" to learn about, but they are more competitive and serious. Did you sign up for a park district? You might have better luck at a soccer club or soccer-specific league.

By me, we have "Peewee/Junior <high school>" leagues. Let's say your local high school's mascot is the Tigers. Well, you have peewee tigers for the 3-8 crowd and junior tigers for the 8-13 crowd (or something like that). It's like an underground railroad to high school athletics. You have really invested coaches pushing kids along to prepare them for high school. As far as I know, we have it for football, cheerleading, baseball, basketball, and I think soccer.

I get how you feel. If you're going to invest the time and energy into an athletics program, you want to see it done "right". I'd encourage your daughter to have fun and to praise awesome effort and cool moves. As far as the ump telling her to step aside, brush it off like "dude you were so fast out there, he just wanted the other kids to have a chance! way to go!" It can be ego boosting, while still fostering a sense of hard work.

Start poking around to see where the "good" soccer league is. You might want to try searching for futbol + your city, as that might give you a better chance of finding a community that is more serious about the game. We have a pretty sizable Latino population near me, so bilingual websites (or at least websites that are smart enough to include futbol throughout the site and as an SEO term) will attract those families.

/r/Parenting Thread