Pre-travel in Chantilly/Herndon

[Snorlax]

I have a 2015 son who likes soccer, I wasn't originally into travel sports but feels this might makes him happy given his interest so far.

He's accepted in FC Dulles pre-travel. Herndon has a pre-travel program that is open to all. We will try out Reston club pre-travel in July.

But CYA has no pre travel team but Valor has a short pre travel spring session, as far as I can tell. (very outdated and confusing website) Anyone has info on that?

My question would be

(1) which team has better training? I have no idea whether a team took my son because they'll have any paying customer or they do have some standard to uphold.

(2) some club says pre-travel will likely become travel team, how feasible is it we try out next year for another clubs travel team?

(3) what's the story with FC Dulles? I get that CYA, Herndon, Reston are town/area based with multiple sports, but Dulles seems to be just focused on soccer.

New to this board, has a lot catching up to do.

[DaniRojas]

1)

FC Dulles: Poor pre-travel program, but they fired the previous coach so unknown what next year will look like.
http://www.fcdulles.org/pre-travel

Herndon: Good technical training.
https://www.herndonyouthsoccer.org/pre-travel


Great Falls/Reston: Good technical training. Very large group (2x+ size of Herndon).
https://www.gfrsoccerclub.org/Default.aspx?tabid=1328457

CYA/SYA/Valor: I think this is similar to clubs that allow rec players to attend an additional pre-travel training as a supplement to rec. And so you pay and attend as an addon per rec season, and not full season year (fall + spring).
https://www.virginiavalorfc.org/rising-valor

Another very new local one you may not have seen yet: https://dmvfc.org/recreation/#u9-pretravel

2) You can try out anywhere and everywhere. Whichever pre-travel you join will already have a deep understanding of your child's skill so you could even skip that tryout.

3) It's just newer and smaller than the others.

All the clubs should let you attend 1-2 pre-travel trainings for free. From there, pick what you like. I'd recommend going to at least 2 to see how they switch things up. You don't want to do the same thing every practice because your child won't grow.

The most important thing right now is technical training. Once you get into travel there's less technical training. They expect you to do more training independently. So don't get into technical debt now.

You don't have to commit to anything right now. Any club will take your money for pre-travel at any time

[Snorlax]

Thanks for the info. That's really helpful.

both Herndon and Reston's coaching are strong. Dulles is kind of weak. e.g. D and E license vs. B and C license

CYA , I am passing since they don't have a full season pre-travel. Even though their fields are closest to our home.

DMV, or Total Futbul, I guess gives us an option for U9 pre travel next year.

The choice seems to be GF/R if he got picked, otherwise Herndon since their pre-travel is open to all. My last question is: what's the pro/con of bigger size of GF/R vs. Herndon?

It's nice to bounce ideas off someone. Don't know anyone playing soccer seriously.

[soccer_dc]

FC Virginia is another one you could add to the mix. Mostly a girls club but they are building out the boys side and Chantilly is one of the pre-travel locations added for next year. https://www.fcvirginia.com/page/show/6183159-program-information-

[Snorlax]

soccer_dc wrote:FC Virginia is another one you could add to the mix. Mostly a girls club but they are building out the boys side and Chantilly is one of the pre-travel locations added for next year. https://www.fcvirginia.com/page/show/6183159-program-information-

Thanks for the information. I followed up with them, it seems the Chantilly nZone location is only part of their "North Region". The nZone would be their winter indoor location. But their outdoor fields are all over eastern Loudoun and it's not close to our home.