FRISCO – The national champions are back to work before their season gets going in early September - but this time at a new level.
The FC Dallas Girls' Development Academy's inaugural preseason is well underway after opening camp last week prior in Tyler. The players who won the U-16 National Championship a few weeks ago - now graduated to the U-18 level - as well as five other age groups are all making history with FCD.
For the first time, U.S. Soccer is launching the Girls' Academy. In prior years, the FC Dallas girls teams competed in the previous highest-level girls' league in the nation, ECNL. Now, though, just like on the boys' side, an Academy system has been set up for girls to move through the ranks within clubs. The Tyler camp was crucial in showcasing what it takes to wear the FC Dallas badge on a new stage, according to coach Matt Grubb.
“It was an important camp for us,” Grub said. “We immerse them in what we feel like is a good environment to teach them culture. What our players should be not only character wise, in life, in soccer, on the field or off the field.”
The commitment to the Girls Academy has opened up more time for the coaches to work with the players and address their needs.
"It gives us an extra practice day," Grub said. "We can accomplish more, and we can really get down to the personal needs of these players in ways that we could not before."
The expectations are higher than ever off of a national title, but don't think it's phasing them. For Shelby Craft, she knows what she and her teammates must do to accomplish what they did last season.
“We know the intensity can’t drop,” Craft said. “Just because we’re national champions doesn’t mean we get to slow down. Everyone is going to try and pass us up.”
The team set the bar high last season en route to the title. A 15-1-2 regular season led to a first place finish in the Texas Conference. The team did not lose a match from November 12 on last season. That continued into the playoffs as the girls rolled on to four straight wins a trip to the national tournament in California.
It was a tough tournament full of adversity for FC Dallas, but despite giving up the first goal in the final, the FCD Women fought back to win 2-1 over FC Stars. The pressure is there to defend their national title, but Sadie McGill welcomes it.
“Oh yeah the pressure is there,” McGill said. “It’s there to motivate us more than anything. We have to defend it. That pressure will always be there but we have to deal with it and get through it.”
Their coach thinks they can do it - even on a bigger stage.
“It’s a hard thing to do,” Grub said. “We were the beneficiaries of a few lucky bounces, and I like to think that it comes from our will to win. I think we can. We’ll have to proceed the same way we did last year. We’ll experiment early and see what works.”
