Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

This comment isn't only about Joga, but soccer in general. I know kids who are at the pool all day everyday. They aren't necessarily "training" but they swim all day. Is that overuse? My coworker has a kid who plays for hockey. I think he's 10. Goes to Raleigh, NC, then Philly, then Boston, then Buffalo for tournaments. His older boy...league play is Richmond, VA Beach, etc. Their are 7-8 year olds on the ice at 6am training before school and then coming back after school several times a week. Crazy? If we did this in soccer, it would be considered crazy. As to 5 days a week....last season, my son "trained" 5 days a week last year if you include game day. He doesn't look at it training. He looks at it as doing something he loves to do with his friends.

Anyway...I believe that Joga looks to expose the kids to different soccer cultures/experiences other than driving from Herndon to Woodbridge to Mclean for a soccer game. It's not that Joga can't find competition in this area (as a poster said a while ago on this forum); it's all about the experience and exposure and giving kids something to work hard for. Right now, Joga kids are in Holland scrimmaging. Is it about the competition? No. It's about giving the kids a taste of what's out there. If I'm not mistaken, Alexandria has an exchange program with a club in Brazil now. A few kids go down to Brazil for a few weeks and a few Brazilians come up here. I think it's wonderful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

This comment isn't only about Joga, but soccer in general. I know kids who are at the pool all day everyday. They aren't necessarily "training" but they swim all day. Is that overuse? My coworker has a kid who plays for hockey. I think he's 10. Goes to Raleigh, NC, then Philly, then Boston, then Buffalo for tournaments. His older boy...league play is Richmond, VA Beach, etc. Their are 7-8 year olds on the ice at 6am training before school and then coming back after school several times a week. Crazy? If we did this in soccer, it would be considered crazy. As to 5 days a week....last season, my son "trained" 5 days a week last year if you include game day. He doesn't look at it training. He looks at it as doing something he loves to do with his friends.

Anyway...I believe that Joga looks to expose the kids to different soccer cultures/experiences other than driving from Herndon to Woodbridge to Mclean for a soccer game. It's not that Joga can't find competition in this area (as a poster said a while ago on this forum); it's all about the experience and exposure and giving kids something to work hard for. Right now, Joga kids are in Holland scrimmaging. Is it about the competition? No. It's about giving the kids a taste of what's out there. If I'm not mistaken, Alexandria has an exchange program with a club in Brazil now. A few kids go down to Brazil for a few weeks and a few Brazilians come up here. I think it's wonderful.

Sure, some of that is fun. PAC takes a lot of kids to England. ODP goes all over. That's great.

Going to Dallas for a tournament? That's just ego.

Hockey is a tough one because there aren't as many rinks as there are soccer fields or basketball gyms.

The other aspect to consider -- most of the soccer pros I've seen who've talked about their childhoods (a number in the dozens) played multiple sports growing up.

And Joga says it's doing things the European way. Take a look -- it's not: http://www.ecaeurope.com/Research/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

This comment isn't only about Joga, but soccer in general. I know kids who are at the pool all day everyday. They aren't necessarily "training" but they swim all day. Is that overuse? My coworker has a kid who plays for hockey. I think he's 10. Goes to Raleigh, NC, then Philly, then Boston, then Buffalo for tournaments. His older boy...league play is Richmond, VA Beach, etc. Their are 7-8 year olds on the ice at 6am training before school and then coming back after school several times a week. Crazy? If we did this in soccer, it would be considered crazy. As to 5 days a week....last season, my son "trained" 5 days a week last year if you include game day. He doesn't look at it training. He looks at it as doing something he loves to do with his friends.

Anyway...I believe that Joga looks to expose the kids to different soccer cultures/experiences other than driving from Herndon to Woodbridge to Mclean for a soccer game. It's not that Joga can't find competition in this area (as a poster said a while ago on this forum); it's all about the experience and exposure and giving kids something to work hard for. Right now, Joga kids are in Holland scrimmaging. Is it about the competition? No. It's about giving the kids a taste of what's out there. If I'm not mistaken, Alexandria has an exchange program with a club in Brazil now. A few kids go down to Brazil for a few weeks and a few Brazilians come up here. I think it's wonderful.

Sure, some of that is fun. PAC takes a lot of kids to England. ODP goes all over. That's great.

Going to Dallas for a tournament? That's just ego.

Hockey is a tough one because there aren't as many rinks as there are soccer fields or basketball gyms.

The other aspect to consider -- most of the soccer pros I've seen who've talked about their childhoods (a number in the dozens) played multiple sports growing up.

And Joga says it's doing things the European way. Take a look -- it's not: http://www.ecaeurope.com/Research/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies.pdf

I personally don't think it's ego. I think it's trying to get kids exposure. SAC goes there, Bethesda goes there, Philly Gunners go there, etc.

As to the soccer pros who played multiple sports growing up...this is tough for me. Soccer pros must be amazing athletes in general and probably MOST are amazing natural athletes and therefore, have the natural ability to play multiple sports and still be able to play soccer at the highest levels. So I wouldn't be surprised if Neymar can play basketball or baseball well for example. However, most kids aren't born with most pro soccer players' natural abilities and need to work VERY HARD. So, just because many pro soccer players played multiple sports when they were younger...to me it does not correlate to that being the path to becoming a pro soccer player. I hope that makes some sense.

Thanks for the attachment. I look forward to reading.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

I don't have any views on Joga, but the bolded comment seems off-base to me. If you are familiar with both high level travel soccer and high school soccer, you'd realize that the two often don't have much in common. There are a lot of high school coaches in this area who would be thrilled to stack their teams entirely with kids from the football and track teams, and wouldn't necessarily care if they had any soccer skills at all. Of course what the kids play doesn't really resemble soccer, but it can be an effective approach to getting around the competition and scoring some goals.

If Joga is obsessive about training kids to play like those from good European academies, I imagine they'd prefer their teams not to play high school soccer at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

This comment isn't only about Joga, but soccer in general. I know kids who are at the pool all day everyday. They aren't necessarily "training" but they swim all day. Is that overuse? My coworker has a kid who plays for hockey. I think he's 10. Goes to Raleigh, NC, then Philly, then Boston, then Buffalo for tournaments. His older boy...league play is Richmond, VA Beach, etc. Their are 7-8 year olds on the ice at 6am training before school and then coming back after school several times a week. Crazy? If we did this in soccer, it would be considered crazy. As to 5 days a week....last season, my son "trained" 5 days a week last year if you include game day. He doesn't look at it training. He looks at it as doing something he loves to do with his friends.

Anyway...I believe that Joga looks to expose the kids to different soccer cultures/experiences other than driving from Herndon to Woodbridge to Mclean for a soccer game. It's not that Joga can't find competition in this area (as a poster said a while ago on this forum); it's all about the experience and exposure and giving kids something to work hard for. Right now, Joga kids are in Holland scrimmaging. Is it about the competition? No. It's about giving the kids a taste of what's out there. If I'm not mistaken, Alexandria has an exchange program with a club in Brazil now. A few kids go down to Brazil for a few weeks and a few Brazilians come up here. I think it's wonderful.

Sure, some of that is fun. PAC takes a lot of kids to England. ODP goes all over. That's great.

Going to Dallas for a tournament? That's just ego.

Hockey is a tough one because there aren't as many rinks as there are soccer fields or basketball gyms.

The other aspect to consider -- most of the soccer pros I've seen who've talked about their childhoods (a number in the dozens) played multiple sports growing up.

And Joga says it's doing things the European way. Take a look -- it's not: http://www.ecaeurope.com/Research/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies.pdf

I personally don't think it's ego. I think it's trying to get kids exposure. SAC goes there, Bethesda goes there, Philly Gunners go there, etc.

As to the soccer pros who played multiple sports growing up...this is tough for me. Soccer pros must be amazing athletes in general and probably MOST are amazing natural athletes and therefore, have the natural ability to play multiple sports and still be able to play soccer at the highest levels. So I wouldn't be surprised if Neymar can play basketball or baseball well for example. However, most kids aren't born with most pro soccer players' natural abilities and need to work VERY HARD. So, just because many pro soccer players played multiple sports when they were younger...to me it does not correlate to that being the path to becoming a pro soccer player. I hope that makes some sense.

Thanks for the attachment. I look forward to reading.

Exposure at U9? Hoping to be spotted by someone scouting for a California U10 team?

On playing multiple sports -- Brandi Chastain credits softball with her ability to judge a ball in the air. Basketball and handball (the team variety, not racquetball minus racquets) help players learn to play as a team. Running is just good conditioning work, anyway, so you could hardly fault a soccer player for running a cross-country meet.

And beyond that, you want kids to have multiple interests. They're kids. They need to see more of the world than just a soccer field.

You're right that in many cases it's simply true that good soccer players are good athletes. You don't see a lot of fat soccer players. Some players have outstanding hand-eye coordination, which is why a couple of big-time U.S. soccer players were also drafted in baseball. Tim Howard was one of many who could play a decent game of basketball. I remember Kansas City's Danish forward Miklos Molnar retiring from soccer and taking up triathlon -- I wouldn't be surprised to see a player make that transition at a high level one day.

Soccer players do indeed need to spend a considerable amount of time building up their skills. But the "10,000 hours" ideology was pretty well refuted by "The Sports Gene." It's really not a good idea to sacrifice a childhood on the off chance that a kid is a good enough athlete to play in the pros or college.

Some coaches think they can develop anybody. I'd like to see them try. Come out with my House teams and make them all college-ready stars. I'd be impressed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

I don't have any views on Joga, but the bolded comment seems off-base to me. If you are familiar with both high level travel soccer and high school soccer, you'd realize that the two often don't have much in common. There are a lot of high school coaches in this area who would be thrilled to stack their teams entirely with kids from the football and track teams, and wouldn't necessarily care if they had any soccer skills at all. Of course what the kids play doesn't really resemble soccer, but it can be an effective approach to getting around the competition and scoring some goals.

If Joga is obsessive about training kids to play like those from good European academies, I imagine they'd prefer their teams not to play high school soccer at all.

They might, but Joga players do indeed get cut from HS teams on occasion.

And come on -- if you can't make a Fairfax County high school team, you're not going to play for Ajax. Full stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

I don't have any views on Joga, but the bolded comment seems off-base to me. If you are familiar with both high level travel soccer and high school soccer, you'd realize that the two often don't have much in common. There are a lot of high school coaches in this area who would be thrilled to stack their teams entirely with kids from the football and track teams, and wouldn't necessarily care if they had any soccer skills at all. Of course what the kids play doesn't really resemble soccer, but it can be an effective approach to getting around the competition and scoring some goals.

If Joga is obsessive about training kids to play like those from good European academies, I imagine they'd prefer their teams not to play high school soccer at all.

They might, but Joga players do indeed get cut from HS teams on occasion.

And come on -- if you can't make a Fairfax County high school team, you're not going to play for Ajax. Full stop.

Does Joga even have high-school age players? Where are you getting this from?

[Anonymous]

Can someone explain to me how all these different leagues fit in? In particular, what are the NPL and the YDL? Are they not affiliated with U.S. Youth Soccer? What's EDP? Can clubs have teams in all these leagues, including NCSL and ODSL, at the same time?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain to me how all these different leagues fit in? In particular, what are the NPL and the YDL? Are they not affiliated with U.S. Youth Soccer? What's EDP? Can clubs have teams in all these leagues, including NCSL and ODSL, at the same time?

Oh boy -- where to start ...

A single club can have teams in many, many leagues. It may put its developmental teams in ODSL, its mid- to upper-tier teams in NCSL, then a top team or two in CCL, EDP, NPL or a U.S. Youth Soccer regional or national league.

NPL (of which VPL is an affiliate) is affiliated with U.S. Club Soccer. That doesn't mean they're completely separate from U.S. Youth Soccer -- you'll see NCSL and NPL teams in the same tournaments. (But not Development Academy teams, which are the only teams that can ONLY play each other, at least in official games.)

YDL is the league that has the least information online. From what I've seen, the point is to take top U9 and U10 teams and have them play two concurrent 5v5 games instead of full-scale 7v7 games. But I might be wrong on that -- again, they're the hardest to find online.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain to me how all these different leagues fit in? In particular, what are the NPL and the YDL? Are they not affiliated with U.S. Youth Soccer? What's EDP? Can clubs have teams in all these leagues, including NCSL and ODSL, at the same time?

Oh boy -- where to start ...

A single club can have teams in many, many leagues. It may put its developmental teams in ODSL, its mid- to upper-tier teams in NCSL, then a top team or two in CCL, EDP, NPL or a U.S. Youth Soccer regional or national league.

NPL (of which VPL is an affiliate) is affiliated with U.S. Club Soccer. That doesn't mean they're completely separate from U.S. Youth Soccer -- you'll see NCSL and NPL teams in the same tournaments. (But not Development Academy teams, which are the only teams that can ONLY play each other, at least in official games.)

YDL is the league that has the least information online. From what I've seen, the point is to take top U9 and U10 teams and have them play two concurrent 5v5 games instead of full-scale 7v7 games. But I might be wrong on that -- again, they're the hardest to find online.

Nice summary.

On the girls side, it's set up pretty much the same, but instead of DA teams, you have ECNL teams playing under the US Club Soccer banner and who are allowed to play against non-ECNL teams in tournaments, etc. In this area, a club's top travel team will usually compete in one of four leagues: ECNL, CCL, NPL or WAGS. Sometimes a top (non-ECNL) team will also compete in the regional or national league but that requires qualifying/applying. A club's B team might compete in WAGS, CCL2 or ODSL depending on the drop in quality, and in the case of FCV and other northeastern ECNL clubs, the B teams play in NPL/VPL. Oversimplifying, but EDP is a separate league more for individual competitive teams whose clubs aren't CCL or ECNL, and has teams from fairly wide geographic area. Suburban Friendship League is just a house/rec league for clubs who don't have enough rec teams to field a league of just their own teams.

Yes, clubs can have teams in several of these leagues at the same time. For example, McLean will have teams in ECNL, CCL, CCL2, and WAGS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

I don't have any views on Joga, but the bolded comment seems off-base to me. If you are familiar with both high level travel soccer and high school soccer, you'd realize that the two often don't have much in common. There are a lot of high school coaches in this area who would be thrilled to stack their teams entirely with kids from the football and track teams, and wouldn't necessarily care if they had any soccer skills at all. Of course what the kids play doesn't really resemble soccer, but it can be an effective approach to getting around the competition and scoring some goals.

If Joga is obsessive about training kids to play like those from good European academies, I imagine they'd prefer their teams not to play high school soccer at all.

This may have been true in the past, but is no longer true at any FCPS high school I know of. Even a lot of kids who have played travel soccer for years are not making high school teams now.

They might, but Joga players do indeed get cut from HS teams on occasion.

And come on -- if you can't make a Fairfax County high school team, you're not going to play for Ajax. Full stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

I don't have any views on Joga, but the bolded comment seems off-base to me. If you are familiar with both high level travel soccer and high school soccer, you'd realize that the two often don't have much in common. There are a lot of high school coaches in this area who would be thrilled to stack their teams entirely with kids from the football and track teams, and wouldn't necessarily care if they had any soccer skills at all. Of course what the kids play doesn't really resemble soccer, but it can be an effective approach to getting around the competition and scoring some goals.

If Joga is obsessive about training kids to play like those from good European academies, I imagine they'd prefer their teams not to play high school soccer at all.

This may have been true in the past, but it is less and less true at any FCPS high school I know. High school soccer is still more physical and played with less finesse than high level club soccer. That said, the days when track and football players could walk onto these teams are long gone. Many kids who have played travel for years are often shut out of high school teams.

They might, but Joga players do indeed get cut from HS teams on occasion.

And come on -- if you can't make a Fairfax County high school team, you're not going to play for Ajax. Full stop.

Does Joga even have high-school age players? Where are you getting this from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

This comment isn't only about Joga, but soccer in general. I know kids who are at the pool all day everyday. They aren't necessarily "training" but they swim all day. Is that overuse? My coworker has a kid who plays for hockey. I think he's 10. Goes to Raleigh, NC, then Philly, then Boston, then Buffalo for tournaments. His older boy...league play is Richmond, VA Beach, etc. Their are 7-8 year olds on the ice at 6am training before school and then coming back after school several times a week. Crazy? If we did this in soccer, it would be considered crazy. As to 5 days a week....last season, my son "trained" 5 days a week last year if you include game day. He doesn't look at it training. He looks at it as doing something he loves to do with his friends.

Anyway...I believe that Joga looks to expose the kids to different soccer cultures/experiences other than driving from Herndon to Woodbridge to Mclean for a soccer game. It's not that Joga can't find competition in this area (as a poster said a while ago on this forum); it's all about the experience and exposure and giving kids something to work hard for. Right now, Joga kids are in Holland scrimmaging. Is it about the competition? No. It's about giving the kids a taste of what's out there. If I'm not mistaken, Alexandria has an exchange program with a club in Brazil now. A few kids go down to Brazil for a few weeks and a few Brazilians come up here. I think it's wonderful.

Sure, some of that is fun. PAC takes a lot of kids to England. ODP goes all over. That's great.

Going to Dallas for a tournament? That's just ego.

Hockey is a tough one because there aren't as many rinks as there are soccer fields or basketball gyms.

The other aspect to consider -- most of the soccer pros I've seen who've talked about their childhoods (a number in the dozens) played multiple sports growing up.

And Joga says it's doing things the European way. Take a look -- it's not: http://www.ecaeurope.com/Research/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies/ECA%20Report%20on%20Youth%20Academies.pdf

I personally don't think it's ego. I think it's trying to get kids exposure. SAC goes there, Bethesda goes there, Philly Gunners go there, etc.

As to the soccer pros who played multiple sports growing up...this is tough for me. Soccer pros must be amazing athletes in general and probably MOST are amazing natural athletes and therefore, have the natural ability to play multiple sports and still be able to play soccer at the highest levels. So I wouldn't be surprised if Neymar can play basketball or baseball well for example. However, most kids aren't born with most pro soccer players' natural abilities and need to work VERY HARD. So, just because many pro soccer players played multiple sports when they were younger...to me it does not correlate to that being the path to becoming a pro soccer player. I hope that makes some sense.

Thanks for the attachment. I look forward to reading.

Exposure at U9? Hoping to be spotted by someone scouting for a California U10 team?

On playing multiple sports -- Brandi Chastain credits softball with her ability to judge a ball in the air. Basketball and handball (the team variety, not racquetball minus racquets) help players learn to play as a team. Running is just good conditioning work, anyway, so you could hardly fault a soccer player for running a cross-country meet.

And beyond that, you want kids to have multiple interests. They're kids. They need to see more of the world than just a soccer field.

You're right that in many cases it's simply true that good soccer players are good athletes. You don't see a lot of fat soccer players. Some players have outstanding hand-eye coordination, which is why a couple of big-time U.S. soccer players were also drafted in baseball. Tim Howard was one of many who could play a decent game of basketball. I remember Kansas City's Danish forward Miklos Molnar retiring from soccer and taking up triathlon -- I wouldn't be surprised to see a player make that transition at a high level one day.

Soccer players do indeed need to spend a considerable amount of time building up their skills. But the "10,000 hours" ideology was pretty well refuted by "The Sports Gene." It's really not a good idea to sacrifice a childhood on the off chance that a kid is a good enough athlete to play in the pros or college.

Some coaches think they can develop anybody. I'd like to see them try. Come out with my House teams and make them all college-ready stars. I'd be impressed.

Yup. The fields of the DMV are littered with kids who were told if they only worked harder than everyone else they could make it. Somehow their coaches and parents forgot about the "talent" part.

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Anonymous wrote:While Joga continues to develop possession-oriented tactics that look extremely advanced for the age group, their teams have trouble attacking when faced with players of roughly equal talent. It's like a four-corners thing on steroids that leads nowhere. They play sloowwwww. Some may call it sophisticated soccer; others may see overcoaching that makes everyone lose sight of what the game is supposed to be about (scoring). Style over substance, if you will. We considered Joga for our son, but on the one hand we doubted he was quite good enough, and on the other we felt that the Joga kids practice way too much for elementary-age players. Thoughts?

I think time will tell whether Joga has the right approach. I look forward to seeing how these current U9s-U11s develop and where they go, and whether they stay with the program or dump it (or whether Joga dumps them when someone better comes along).

The issue with Joga isn't training. It's taking 8-year-old kids to practice five days a week, travel to Dallas and be told the club is only training future pros. Gotta sting when a couple of them don't make their high school teams.

From all I hear, the practices and coaching are exceptional. Is it worth it?

I don't have any views on Joga, but the bolded comment seems off-base to me. If you are familiar with both high level travel soccer and high school soccer, you'd realize that the two often don't have much in common. There are a lot of high school coaches in this area who would be thrilled to stack their teams entirely with kids from the football and track teams, and wouldn't necessarily care if they had any soccer skills at all. Of course what the kids play doesn't really resemble soccer, but it can be an effective approach to getting around the competition and scoring some goals.

If Joga is obsessive about training kids to play like those from good European academies, I imagine they'd prefer their teams not to play high school soccer at all.

This may have been true in the past, but it is less and less true at any FCPS high school I know. High school soccer is still more physical and played with less finesse than high level club soccer. That said, the days when track and football players could walk onto these teams are long gone. Many kids who have played travel for years are often shut out of high school teams.

They might, but Joga players do indeed get cut from HS teams on occasion.

And come on -- if you can't make a Fairfax County high school team, you're not going to play for Ajax. Full stop.

Does Joga even have high-school age players? Where are you getting this from?

No- they don't. Jogs started for birth year 2003. I don't know where people get this crap.

Fwiw--the majority of travel players don't make their HS teams. Just too many players and one JV, one Varsity team. Many HS have 600+ students per grade. You do the math.

Politics rule the roost just about everywhere for spots. It's never raw talent.