Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss Part II

[Anonymous]

I like the quote about the US clubs that will take their kids to train at Barcelona academy for a week, but are too proud or too stubborn to ask the Barcelona coaches any questions while they are there. “It’s not about you man, it’s about the kids. You coach kids”. Preach , Geoff.

[Anonymous]

I think Geoff plagiarized from my many posts on here about the same exact things right down to his use of arrogance among travel club coaches and the term “Guardiola-wannabes strutting on the sidelines” to describe them. He’s correct to make it in US s—it’s about who you know, your size and what ridiculous fancy club you play for and what you did when you started at age 9/10 and nothing about the here and now fighting for your spot on a daily basis.

Such absolute nonsense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think Geoff plagiarized from my many posts on here about the same exact things right down to his use of arrogance among travel club coaches and the term “Guardiola-wannabes strutting on the sidelines” to describe them. He’s correct to make it in US s—it’s about who you know, your size and what ridiculous fancy club you play for and what you did when you started at age 9/10 and nothing about the here and now fighting for your spot on a daily basis.

Such absolute nonsense.

Actually, if you substitute "club" for private school, the path is very similar to the college admissions path in the US.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Someone was asking about McLean's U12 boys DA....Apparently, the Board agreed to terminate the program for next year based on the consensus of the technical staff.

Well this is very frustrating to be honest. MY DS will be trying out for U9 this spring with mclean being (was?) the preferred club. He is a good player but have no way if he will be a DA player. It just sucks that option wont be available. How many more times will mclean go for DA. Was hoping for a nice transition from mclean juniors to travel to DA by U12

Now will have to seriously consider Arlington...

At U9 you don’t need to worry about 4 years from now. Wrong focus. I wouldn’t even do pre-DA U12-14.

Look for the best coach/training in a conducive training environment without crazies.

Would you mind telling us why not to do DA u12-14. The PP has a legitimate concern for planning purposes. How harder would it be for a newcomer to go to a new club come DA u12 as opposed to being with the same club and having the coaches know the players skill set come tryouts for DA. I believe that the best training in travel is offered by DA coaches anyways. That’s the point right?

No, DA is just as much a career ladder as others believe it is for their children. The aim is to get these players scouted for college, if they stumble upon a good player, their hope is the player is such a high potential player that they are taken by a European club, or the player has strong dreams of playing pro and will be willing to delay/skip college and play for a MLS pro team. If strong club's A team were to practice 4 days a week, I'm pretty sure they could compete with a DA team.

If you are talking boys, don't be ridiculous. There are soooo few soccer scholarships. 9 total for the entire 4 years at even big universities (not 9 per incoming class). There are 16-18 kids or so on a team. If the upper classmen have them that means they might be able to split one scholarship in teeny tiny parts for incoming freshmen. Even better, the schools are not always academically sound. This is the most idiotic crap I hear from boy soccer parents. Your kid will not get a scholarship and the amount you spend on travel/DA and driving and flying all over the US won't matter.

Next, training sucks for the most part all over the US---yes, DA too. The post mentioned being taken by a European club---I just fell out of my chair laughing. The only chance a kid has for that to happen is to head to Europe by 12-years old. Let's all be real. European coaches certainly aren't scouting US DA programs.

I think Christian Pulisic might differ.

And they found Pulisic because they were scouting Haji Wright.

https://www.si.com/planet-futbol/2016/11/09/christian-pulisic-borussia-dortmund-usmnt-usa

[Anonymous]

Nope. Pulisic has said similar—the need to go to Europe. He also had many connections that Cameron never had. His dad’s pro friends were able to protect and nurture him along the way and give him opportunities the average unconnected tiny kid would never receive. Pulisic himself has acknowledged there were 100s of kids just as good as him in his youth that never got a chance. The family is incredibly modest and thankful. He’s not at a place to be critical either whereas Cameron is 32 years old and done anyways.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Pulisic has said similar—the need to go to Europe. He also had many connections that Cameron never had. His dad’s pro friends were able to protect and nurture him along the way and give him opportunities the average unconnected tiny kid would never receive. Pulisic himself has acknowledged there were 100s of kids just as good as him in his youth that never got a chance. The family is incredibly modest and thankful. He’s not at a place to be critical either whereas Cameron is 32 years old and done anyways.

Sure.

But he was discovered in the DA, which a PP insisted can't happen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Pulisic has said similar—the need to go to Europe. He also had many connections that Cameron never had. His dad’s pro friends were able to protect and nurture him along the way and give him opportunities the average unconnected tiny kid would never receive. Pulisic himself has acknowledged there were 100s of kids just as good as him in his youth that never got a chance. The family is incredibly modest and thankful. He’s not at a place to be critical either whereas Cameron is 32 years old and done anyways.

Sure.

But he was discovered in the DA, which a PP insisted can't happen.

He was discovered on the US U17 Men’s National team.

[Anonymous]

Let them think Dortmund is coming to scout they’d kids non-MLS DA teams, pp. Ha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Let them think Dortmund is coming to scout they’d kids non-MLS DA teams, pp. Ha!

And he already had quite of bit of training and exposure at La Masia prior.

Delusional DMV parents.

[Anonymous]

I have no problem with people giving a reality check to starry-eyed parents who think their kid is going to go pro just because he made a U12 DA team. Your odds are very long of even getting to play D1, much less get a significant scholarship at a D1 school, much less go pro. That being said, European scouts and club reps (including those from Dortmund) do indeed come to a number of DA events to evaluate players. If you were at the GA cup in Atlanta last weekend, you would have noticed quite a few. In some cases they are there to see particular players, but they definitely watch games to scout potential unknowns/little knowns as well. There are plenty of foreign scouts at the playoffs and some at the regular DA showcases too.

Many of the players who the scouts look at are, of course, those on the youth national teams. How did they get on the youth national teams? In almost all cases for the recent crop of players, it's because they performed well on their DA teams, and this includes both MLS and non-MLS DA teams. Check out this recent post from bigsoccer about a bunch of kids who are trying/poised to go pro: http://www.bigsoccer.com/threads/should-i-stay-or-should-i-go.2081252/ Virtually all of them grew up in the US and rose to prominence from within the DA program.

Also, as has been pointed out many times before on here, it's kind of ridiculous to just say kids should go to Europe at 12 (or whatever age) if they want to have any chance of going pro. That is simply not possible for kids under 18 to do in 99% of cases unless the family has a European passport, which most don't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Pulisic has said similar—the need to go to Europe. He also had many connections that Cameron never had. His dad’s pro friends were able to protect and nurture him along the way and give him opportunities the average unconnected tiny kid would never receive. Pulisic himself has acknowledged there were 100s of kids just as good as him in his youth that never got a chance. The family is incredibly modest and thankful. He’s not at a place to be critical either whereas Cameron is 32 years old and done anyways.

Sure.

But he was discovered in the DA, which a PP insisted can't happen.

He was discovered on the US U17 Men’s National team.

And he was on the Men’s National Team because scouts saw him in the DA environment.

[Anonymous]

^^ oh great! Good luck to your son on his future FIFA contract!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^ oh great! Good luck to your son on his future FIFA contract!

So posting a fact about Pulisic means I think my kid is going pro now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Pulisic has said similar—the need to go to Europe. He also had many connections that Cameron never had. His dad’s pro friends were able to protect and nurture him along the way and give him opportunities the average unconnected tiny kid would never receive. Pulisic himself has acknowledged there were 100s of kids just as good as him in his youth that never got a chance. The family is incredibly modest and thankful. He’s not at a place to be critical either whereas Cameron is 32 years old and done anyways.

Oh yes, let's marginalize the players who can barely afford travel as it is! Speaking about going to Europe like it's a run-of-the-mill thing, FFS. Pulisic couldn't even play straight away, and he has a Croatian background. We need to fix soccer HERE, not just rely on Europe to train our players and solve our problems. If your kid is good enough and it's financially feasible for them to do so, go for it, but do not paint it as the end-all-be-all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Nope. Pulisic has said similar—the need to go to Europe. He also had many connections that Cameron never had. His dad’s pro friends were able to protect and nurture him along the way and give him opportunities the average unconnected tiny kid would never receive. Pulisic himself has acknowledged there were 100s of kids just as good as him in his youth that never got a chance. The family is incredibly modest and thankful. He’s not at a place to be critical either whereas Cameron is 32 years old and done anyways.

Oh yes, let's marginalize the players who can barely afford travel as it is! Speaking about going to Europe like it's a run-of-the-mill thing, FFS. Pulisic couldn't even play straight away, and he has a Croatian background. We need to fix soccer HERE, not just rely on Europe to train our players and solve our problems. If your kid is good enough and it's financially feasible for them to do so, go for it, but do not paint it as the end-all-be-all.

I think you misread that. Cameron is at the end of his career so can afford to speak the truth. Pulisic has many years of endorsements and USMNT appearances to go. Re-read the article, I think you’ll find you’d agree with everything Cameron stated.