Here’s a question that has been bothering us, and we’re wondering if fans can weigh in with their opinions…
This is likely a problem with ANY kind of team – pro, semi-pro or amateur (college, high school, etc) – but it seems to be an important issue for our Chattanooga FC for 2010. If you are the coaching staff or recruiting staff or scouts (or whomever selects players for CFC), what do you do if you have better players trying out at EVERY position? Meaning, more talent than CFC had last year… do you go for all the best players, giving up the players the fans have come to know (and probably love)? We all have seen teams that have oodles of individual talent at each position, but somehow can’t jive as a team… do you run that risk?
Or do you keep some of the steady solid players from last year in order to have SOME of the team personality that gelled for the close of last season?
Or do you keep all returners and just try to fill positions where a player from last year did not come back?
We suspect this will be a particularly thorny issue with the best players on CFC… as they will most likely be crowd favorites, but they will also most likely be the ones with opportunities to play at higher levels – and therefore more likely not to return the following season.
So what do you do?
I don’t think you can play favorites based on the familiarity or marketability of the team. It’s not that Chatt FC fans don’t appreciate what the current players have accomplished but in a semi-pro environment player turnover is a fact of life. In larger professional venues players can be dropped from the first team at the coaches whim. If a player is picked up in the transfer window that plays your position better than yourself, you best be ready to work twice as hard to keep it.
Really, it depends on what the team wants to accomplish. If the team is looking to progress then recruitment and re-investment has to be a focal point. If the current players are willing to fight for their positions, then fantastic b/c naturally the overall quality increases. But if the team is looking to give the fans warm fuzzies it might come back to bite them when fans or players eventually lose interest due to lack of fighting spirit.
I think the coaching staff has a really tough decision on their hands…after all, much of the success of the first year was due to the fact that a lot of the players had local ties. I’ve heard they’ve already had over 100 inquiries from new players from all over the place, including overseas!
I’d love to go watch tryouts to see how the talent pool is shaping up.
Chatt FC tryouts are officially here. Register at http://cfc2010.eventbrite.com/. Fans and players welcome!