4,000 Soccer Girls Descend On Phoenix Friday For U.S. Tournament

PHOENIX — Phoenix soccer fans are in luck this weekend. Thousands of soccer-playing girls ages 12 to 19 from across the U.S. will converge in Phoenix for a top-ranked-player ECNL National Selection Game on Friday night, followed by a Saturday-Sunday tournament of hundreds of games. Three hundred college coaches and scouts will also be in attendance at the massive event, to cherrypick players and decide who really is the best of the best. Meanwhile, ECNL (Elite Clubs National League) Commissioner Jen Winnagle says ECNL does more than teach sports skills. It promotes leadership and life skills too.

As players from 18 U.S. cities gather in Arizona’s capital city to prepare for the weekend’s girls’ soccer games, Winnagle took time out to cover how the ECNL utilizes leadership principles in its female league founded a decade ago. “Through the ECNL, players are encouraged to maximize their potential and achieve their goals. Throughout the ECNL, there is a spirit of collaboration and respect. We believe that leading through these principles enables individuals the freedom and passion to do more,” she explained. “Leadership is about making those around you better, and surrounding yourself with those who help to make you better.”

Accordingly, the ECNL girls soccer league’s theme for this season, kicked off by this weekend’s National Selection Game, is “Leaders Play Here.”

And the league’s drive to help its players participate more successfully in life is not just talk. Winnagle has the statistics to back it up, saying that 99 percent of ECNL players attend college, and 90 percent later play on collegiate soccer teams.

Concerning ECNL soccer girls’ later life success, Winnagle references an article in Forbes reporting that 96 percent of “C-suite” (CEO, CFO, COO, CIO) female executives in a study had played sports during their primary or secondary school, college or other tertiary educational years. “The message to this is that you can accomplish things if you are willing to work for them and with those around you to help you get there. The passion, hard work and collaboration that are needed to succeed on the soccer field are not so unlike what it takes for people to succeed in life beyond soccer,” Winnagle explained.

“Soccer is 90 minutes of hard work and – win or lose – great moments of satisfaction. Life should be 90 years of the same,” she added.

This weekend, more than 4,000 of the nation’s top young female soccer players will get their opportunity to build and exercise those life success skills while competing in the intensive games. Competition will span 18 playing fields at the Reach 11 Sports Complex at 2425 E. Deer Valley Road in Phoenix. Admission to the weekend’s games is free, and the complex has an onsite “village” offering food and activities.

First off is tonight’s National Selection Game at 7 p.m., where 36 of the league’s top players nationwide handchosen by league management compete. Among those selected is Arcadia High School sophomore Maggie Cagle of Phoenix. Those who can’t attend in person can catch the game livestreamed on YouTube.

Then the tournament’s hundreds of soccer games will be held Saturday and Sunday from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. at the sports complex.

The Phoenix Rising and Arizona Arsenal member clubs are just two among many whose players will be competing in ECNL’s national tournament.