Washington Spirit VA ID sessions this Sunday

[Anonymous]

Spirit has made some mistakes. It’s undeniable. Spirit has also done some things right, including a much longer training year than the ECNL and without the misery of FCV. It’s not too late for it to become a strong choice to some current players and there may be room in all age groups for disgruntled talent from elsewhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Spirit struggles because they have no teams below U13. This means they must recruit talent from all the competition (DA / ECNL). Most players who are starters will not leave a team unless the team is terrible. And, if the team is terrible, is terrible players going to Spirit. Yes, McLean 06 is a hot mess. They lost most of their best players to Arlington DA. But, McLean does a good job recruiting at the older ages because they have a history of placing kids in college etc. BYRC, while small, also has a history of doing the same. Both teams identify talent fairly well, and develop that talent well. Arlington has sucked up the rest of the oxygen within the beltway for DA and has plucked kids from DC United, McLean, Bethesda, and Annandale. When you add FCV and Loudoun out west (DA / ECNL respectively), Spirit is pinched out. Its not their fault. But their business model is bad, they don't have younger teams to build an early "base" of players to create legitimacy. Spirit should partner with as many teams around to pluck "guest" players for a showcase team at the U16-19 level. Otherwise, its bad after bad. If you had a top player at any of the teams I have mentioned above, would you even think of going to Spirit? The answer is no. Pretty simple.

DC United has the same situation. So what makes them so successful?

Good question. I would say that they established themselves before the DA / ECNL team explosion, they partnered with ASA to feed their best boys over to the DC United team, and they are a boys program not girls - where DA dominated the landscape. Spirit is the opposite - they did not exist with DA prior, other teams were the powerhouse ECNL and CCL teams, and those teams for the most part flipped to being ECNL and DA - retaining most of their players and using their pipeline to fill the gaps while recruiting.

The girls side is different with ECNL having been there. Also boys aren’t as social with their sports, girls are. They want to play with their friends, not for the “prestige” of a pro club necessarily.

This is aside from Spirit. All of Europe and many other countries as well have moved to full year academies. If ECNL truly guts DA, we will find our GNTs and WNTs being hopelessly behind in the very near future.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spirit has made some mistakes. It’s undeniable. Spirit has also done some things right, including a much longer training year than the ECNL and without the misery of FCV. It’s not too late for it to become a strong choice to some current players and there may be room in all age groups for disgruntled talent from elsewhere.

+1. This was said a few pages back about the much maligned 2006 group. 3-4 talented players as described above could really put that group on par with the other area clubs. The same can be said for a few other age groups as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Spirit has made some mistakes. It’s undeniable. Spirit has also done some things right, including a much longer training year than the ECNL and without the misery of FCV. It’s not too late for it to become a strong choice to some current players and there may be room in all age groups for disgruntled talent from elsewhere.

Nice sales pitch to recruit ECNL players. Bravo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Spirit struggles because they have no teams below U13. This means they must recruit talent from all the competition (DA / ECNL). Most players who are starters will not leave a team unless the team is terrible. And, if the team is terrible, is terrible players going to Spirit. Yes, McLean 06 is a hot mess. They lost most of their best players to Arlington DA. But, McLean does a good job recruiting at the older ages because they have a history of placing kids in college etc. BYRC, while small, also has a history of doing the same. Both teams identify talent fairly well, and develop that talent well. Arlington has sucked up the rest of the oxygen within the beltway for DA and has plucked kids from DC United, McLean, Bethesda, and Annandale. When you add FCV and Loudoun out west (DA / ECNL respectively), Spirit is pinched out. Its not their fault. But their business model is bad, they don't have younger teams to build an early "base" of players to create legitimacy. Spirit should partner with as many teams around to pluck "guest" players for a showcase team at the U16-19 level. Otherwise, its bad after bad. If you had a top player at any of the teams I have mentioned above, would you even think of going to Spirit? The answer is no. Pretty simple.

DC United has the same situation. So what makes them so successful?

Good question. I would say that they established themselves before the DA / ECNL team explosion, they partnered with ASA to feed their best boys over to the DC United team, and they are a boys program not girls - where DA dominated the landscape. Spirit is the opposite - they did not exist with DA prior, other teams were the powerhouse ECNL and CCL teams, and those teams for the most part flipped to being ECNL and DA - retaining most of their players and using their pipeline to fill the gaps while recruiting.

The girls side is different with ECNL having been there. Also boys aren’t as social with their sports, girls are. They want to play with their friends, not for the “prestige” of a pro club necessarily.

This is aside from Spirit. All of Europe and many other countries as well have moved to full year academies. If ECNL truly guts DA, we will find our GNTs and WNTs being hopelessly behind in the very near future.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Guess we’ll have to see about the 2006 and 2007s over the next few years instead of speculating based on a pilot year that they didn’t heavily recruit for last year and one that doesn’t even start until fall.

Why is so much emphasis being placed on a non standard age group anyway? Part of the psychosis of the troll, I imagine.

What's all this troll garbage. I thought this whole thing (read between the lines) was to try to get some sort of idea as a parent as to what to do. I didn't play this nor did my husband. Based on a few years dealing with our older son we know most of these coaches just blow smoke and it's about money. But I also know I need to get her playing with better players than our small club. Next year is a big transition year so you acting like the 07 doesn't matter obviously doesn't have a kid that age. Spirit keeps telling me they will have the players but I see the 06 group and their unfortunate results and I see the GFRSC failing as the feeder club and I ask myself how is that possibly happening. There are just too many DA/ECNL for the girls how can this be good for the girls.

[Anonymous]

It comes down to a simple decision. If you like the DA version of elite soccer in NOVA, there are three options. Each has a bunch of good coaching on staff and training level is fairly consistent. There are pluses and minuses with each choice, but at the end of the day the place talented players decide to play will eventually rise to the top. FCV had been an ECNL club and Arlington has been a big youth soccer club for many years, no surprise their teams have had the advantage. But it only takes several talented kids to make the decision to join Spirit to even out the scale. The rest of this garbage is simply people trying to justify their decisions, including someone who has posted on this forum attacking Spirit for months. That individual is called the troll, and she is psychotic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It comes down to a simple decision. If you like the DA version of elite soccer in NOVA, there are three options. Each has a bunch of good coaching on staff and training level is fairly consistent. There are pluses and minuses with each choice, but at the end of the day the place talented players decide to play will eventually rise to the top. FCV had been an ECNL club and Arlington has been a big youth soccer club for many years, no surprise their teams have had the advantage. But it only takes several talented kids to make the decision to join Spirit to even out the scale. The rest of this garbage is simply people trying to justify their decisions, including someone who has posted on this forum attacking Spirit for months. That individual is called the troll, and she is psychotic.

There are two versions of elite soccer in NOVA when it comes to girls, DA and ECNL. Find a team that fits your child's style of play, figure our if you want year round or ability to play HS sports in the Spring, and go to that team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Spirit struggles because they have no teams below U13. This means they must recruit talent from all the competition (DA / ECNL). Most players who are starters will not leave a team unless the team is terrible. And, if the team is terrible, is terrible players going to Spirit. Yes, McLean 06 is a hot mess. They lost most of their best players to Arlington DA. But, McLean does a good job recruiting at the older ages because they have a history of placing kids in college etc. BYRC, while small, also has a history of doing the same. Both teams identify talent fairly well, and develop that talent well. Arlington has sucked up the rest of the oxygen within the beltway for DA and has plucked kids from DC United, McLean, Bethesda, and Annandale. When you add FCV and Loudoun out west (DA / ECNL respectively), Spirit is pinched out. Its not their fault. But their business model is bad, they don't have younger teams to build an early "base" of players to create legitimacy. Spirit should partner with as many teams around to pluck "guest" players for a showcase team at the U16-19 level. Otherwise, its bad after bad. If you had a top player at any of the teams I have mentioned above, would you even think of going to Spirit? The answer is no. Pretty simple.

DC United has the same situation. So what makes them so successful?

Good question. I would say that they established themselves before the DA / ECNL team explosion, they partnered with ASA to feed their best boys over to the DC United team, and they are a boys program not girls - where DA dominated the landscape. Spirit is the opposite - they did not exist with DA prior, other teams were the powerhouse ECNL and CCL teams, and those teams for the most part flipped to being ECNL and DA - retaining most of their players and using their pipeline to fill the gaps while recruiting.

The girls side is different with ECNL having been there. Also boys aren’t as social with their sports, girls are. They want to play with their friends, not for the “prestige” of a pro club necessarily.

This is aside from Spirit. All of Europe and many other countries as well have moved to full year academies. If ECNL truly guts DA, we will find our GNTs and WNTs being hopelessly behind in the very near future.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Have you been paying any attention to the state of our YNTs? It already fell. When the up and coming crop starts to filter into the WNT, you'll see just how naive you really are. The current GNTs are an abysmal failure.

[Anonymous]

Yup, and the YWNT is stocked with ECNL Alums too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Spirit has made some mistakes. It’s undeniable. Spirit has also done some things right, including a much longer training year than the ECNL and without the misery of FCV. It’s not too late for it to become a strong choice to some current players and there may be room in all age groups for disgruntled talent from elsewhere.

Nice sales pitch to recruit ECNL players. Bravo.

It's not a sales pitch. It is my personal opinion of Spirit. If you don't like it, don't hang out on a Spirit thread. Nothing wrong with ECNL, with CCL, nothing even wrong with rec for that matter. It's all in what a player wants and in what a family finds acceptable to do. If you are happy where you are, go hang out on that thread. We weren't, so we left. We can always go back if Spirit doesn't turn itself around.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Spirit struggles because they have no teams below U13. This means they must recruit talent from all the competition (DA / ECNL). Most players who are starters will not leave a team unless the team is terrible. And, if the team is terrible, is terrible players going to Spirit. Yes, McLean 06 is a hot mess. They lost most of their best players to Arlington DA. But, McLean does a good job recruiting at the older ages because they have a history of placing kids in college etc. BYRC, while small, also has a history of doing the same. Both teams identify talent fairly well, and develop that talent well. Arlington has sucked up the rest of the oxygen within the beltway for DA and has plucked kids from DC United, McLean, Bethesda, and Annandale. When you add FCV and Loudoun out west (DA / ECNL respectively), Spirit is pinched out. Its not their fault. But their business model is bad, they don't have younger teams to build an early "base" of players to create legitimacy. Spirit should partner with as many teams around to pluck "guest" players for a showcase team at the U16-19 level. Otherwise, its bad after bad. If you had a top player at any of the teams I have mentioned above, would you even think of going to Spirit? The answer is no. Pretty simple.

DC United has the same situation. So what makes them so successful?

Good question. I would say that they established themselves before the DA / ECNL team explosion, they partnered with ASA to feed their best boys over to the DC United team, and they are a boys program not girls - where DA dominated the landscape. Spirit is the opposite - they did not exist with DA prior, other teams were the powerhouse ECNL and CCL teams, and those teams for the most part flipped to being ECNL and DA - retaining most of their players and using their pipeline to fill the gaps while recruiting.

The girls side is different with ECNL having been there. Also boys aren’t as social with their sports, girls are. They want to play with their friends, not for the “prestige” of a pro club necessarily.

This is aside from Spirit. All of Europe and many other countries as well have moved to full year academies. If ECNL truly guts DA, we will find our GNTs and WNTs being hopelessly behind in the very near future.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

Have you been paying any attention to the state of our YNTs? It already fell. When the up and coming crop starts to filter into the WNT, you'll see just how naive you really are. The current GNTs are an abysmal failure.

Man you are dumber than I thought. My mockery to you was that you are sounding some alarm on this thread about the YNT and WNT falling apart. This thread was about a parent asking for advice on how to decide on what was best for their child. You turn it into "our WNT is abysmal failure." Get a grip man. Nobody cares. offer her up some advice on how to pick a good team for her kid. Nobody is debating the health of the YNT or the WNT here. Start a separate thread if you care so much about the implosion of the YNT and WNT. Your comment shows how naive you really are about youth soccer, parenting etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup, and the YWNT is stocked with ECNL Alums too.

No argument there. Senior team will survive, even if they just got pounced by France. Let's talk the younger generation, like the U20s who lost at the group stage. or the U17s, who failed in 2014 to even qualify for the world Cup. The same U17 team who got pounced in Jordan by Japan. And if you saw that game, it showed Japan completely outclassed our side.

But I don't want to sidetrack the thread. I'm sure you have more Spirit bashing to attend to. So if you want to hash it out more, open a YNT thread, where you can sell us all on how the ECNL is doing a great job preparing the YNT players to compete on the international level. Or will you at that point suddenly say wins and records don't job

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yup, and the YWNT is stocked with ECNL Alums too.

Says the DA parent.....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yup, and the YWNT is stocked with ECNL Alums too.

No argument there. Senior team will survive, even if they just got pounced by France. Let's talk the younger generation, like the U20s who lost at the group stage. or the U17s, who failed in 2014 to even qualify for the world Cup. The same U17 team who got pounced in Jordan by Japan. And if you saw that game, it showed Japan completely outclassed our side.

But I don't want to sidetrack the thread. I'm sure you have more Spirit bashing to attend to. So if you want to hash it out more, open a YNT thread, where you can sell us all on how the ECNL is doing a great job preparing the YNT players to compete on the international level. Or will you at that point suddenly say wins and records don't job

"yawn"