Summary
Bottom line, most kids seem to have a great experience. They get to play lots of soccer in a distant land in big tournaments with lots of pageantry. Most make new friends with their teammates.
However, the trip is far from the organized machine that you would expect from a company that charges a premium and has been doing this for 30+ years. There is absolutely no transparency to customers about anything NSA does, from team formation to coach assignment to hotel arrangements. Parents who choose to join the trip are charged like customers but then treated like part-time employees.
Misc thoughts
Complete lack of transparency. Fred's motto when recruiting customers is that everything will work out and they just need to trust him. He deflects most questions about details, such as what team a kid will be on, where parents will be staying, etc. Some of it is out of necessity, because I think he was recruiting players until very late. I would appreciate some transparency around that.
The older girls team was formed around the wishes of a couple of returning families who were on the trip as staff, resulting in a team that was almost entirely 2010 or younger playing as 2009. But because of two 2008 girls they were entered as a 2009 team. For the bulk of the customers this was not ideal, but we had no awareness of any of this beforehand (see lack of transparency).
Fred extols his connections with local Swedish soccer clubs as a bonus for NSA. Which it is. But it's also true that they serve as cheap extra players for filling out rosters while not fully joining the team. The Swedish players who joined the older girls team did not participate in the team training camp. The younger girls team had a Swedish player who had only been playing soccer for a year, but whose family was housing Fred's.
The training camp before the tournaments was great. A nice way to quickly become a team and get some intensive practice in. The older girls loved their coach during training. They did not like it when Fred took over their training personally, which only happened a couple of times. When actually coaching Fred is a bit of an authoritarian. Old school coach, I guess.
Brought 13 players to a week-long tournament of 11-v-11. With one player needing to leave a few days before the end of the tournament. That was never going to work. After injuries happened they ended up needing guests from the younger team and then last-minute replacements from local clubs.
We assumed NSA would have the routine down after 30+ years. Yet after three long days of training, the group had a long travel day from Denmark to Sweden the day before the first tournament started. The older girls had their first game early the next morning. But Fred scheduled a scrimmage for the team with a local club that evening. It was scheduled so late that kids missed dinner and got to bed late. Against a dominant team that they couldn't do much against, and that was too physical for them. 3 injuries during scrimmage, each of which knocked the player out for multiple games. For a team that was heading into the tournament with a roster of 13. The girls were so discouraged.
Older boys team was somehow scheduled for 11v11 in the Dana Cup when they only had 9 players. NSA had no idea what happened. They scrambled and played a few girls with the boys.
Adults are charged like customers, then treated like part-time employees. Fred is very clear that everyone needs to be flexible, because plans change. All throughout the trip parent "supporters" are left to fend for themselves and find out about team plans, or plan changes, at the last minute. I actually think this is okay. Except for the big problem that Fred also charges these parents big premiums for their hotel stays and anything else he arranges (such as the tournament card). Cost-wise, Fred treats the parents like customers. Experience-wise he just tolerates them. I'm totally fine with the experience if and only if Fred arranges for their stay as more of a courtesy with minimal surcharge. Then, during the second tournament in Denmark, I became a de facto staff member simply because I had a rental car. NSA relied on the rental cars of parents for transportation. They just assume that parents with cars will be happy to help. I was initially, but then it became clear that wherever and whenever the team wanted to go somewhere I was expected to drive my carload. This included times when I drove them to go watch other teams play - teams I had no interest in myself. Instead of an afternoon of vacation I was a chauffeur - and I was paying my own money to do it (car rental and gas)! read more
