Fairfax Virginia Union
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Anonymous
How is it that in a county as large as Fairfax, no one can figure out how to field uniformly successful ECNL teams? I know there are several other options in neighboring counties. Is this area truly just oversaturated with clubs? There are so many kids here that I can't believe it's a lack of talent. Are kids on Arlington or VSA/PWSI second team, for example, choosing to play RL rather than FVU? Wouldn't a good coach be able to develop kids that are more on the bubble, into players that can compete at that level? So seems it's either a lack of good coaching or a lack of talent identification. Maybe both? |
Anonymous
in my experience its money related. Tons of talent just cant afford it. They really need free academies. |
Anonymous
Who's going to foot the bill for free academies?!?! |
Anonymous
Imho, it is mostly due to a number of recent changes. Union changing over a handful of times and getting aligned with different partners. The brief GA is the future uprising that swayed parents of younger kids. And finally the age group change. I think once things are allowed to settle down a bit (that is if the landscape can stop having seismic changes every other year) then Union will have the chance to build, at least on the girls side. They are geographically best positioned to capture the most talent. No matter how much parents try to trick themselves, driving out to Long park is not how you want to be spending your week. Of course leadership must continue to push towards running the organization in a more professional manner, at least on par with other area clubs. Setting up a true pipeline so that there is a foundation of a team by u13 that they can add onto will need to be a priority. |
Anonymous
never happening.. talent will keep going to Arlington and VDA. And there isn't enough elite kids in area. FVU needs to start with actually getting fields they own. Going to be alot of pissed off parents after next season. |
Anonymous
ECNL is a dumpster fire. |
Anonymous
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Unless you have hard data supporting your dumpster fire claim, then you’re just a biased poster.
Anyone who has been to national events can tell you that both leagues have absolutely awful teams at the bottom and very good teams at the top. |
Anonymous
Yes, there are several players who excel at other sports and activities and want the flexibility RL and its coaches provide understanding about when these may overlap, and some of those same families and other families simply don't want the commitment level an ECNL generally demands. They are realists in that their kids can still potentially play in college and likely to end up at the same collegiate level with ECNL than with RL or their other activities. |
Anonymous
| Exactly! RL works great for our DD - she has other sports and commitments that she wouldn’t be able to do if she played for ECNL- and we have other kids in other travel sports so for us it would be doable if she was super committed/and wanted to play D1 but RL is just the right balance for us. (Playing sports in college was a hard balance for me so unless she’s all in we aren’t pushing that route) |
Anonymous
Fixed and yes!! |
Anonymous
Not FVU here. But know lots of FVU U14 made USID and ID2. No team wins with one good player. U13 and U14 won MA. So mush hate for this club makes no sense. Support DMV. |
Anonymous
Outside if the youngster teams the angst was earned u11-8. No excuses. |
Anonymous
| The lack of structured pathway way before U12 is what hurts the long term talent pipeline most. Primarily the boys side given the girls seem to have something more aligned to that. Teams that feed in have absolutely zero connection to the club. They’ve never played for them, never played against them. You’re asking parents to take a huge gamble putting their kid there vs clubs you’ve likely played against since U-littles. The lack of competitiveness at several age groups and perceived second tier nature of the org doesn’t help either. |
Anonymous
| I agree that this is a huge factor. Some of the other stronger local clubs (both ECNL and mls hg) have a strong connection to their feeder clubs. At the very least, a coach from the feeder club who does a few practices a month, invitations to practices with club, and talks to the players and parents about the pathway. Makes. Will/Has made a huge difference IMO. |
Anonymous
Yeah, very little of that from FVU. All they did was ask coaches to pick a few kids from their teams to train together starting in the fall, but never really evaluated anyone else. Maybe the coaches went to a couple of VPSL games, but I don’t even know. Six feeder clubs is way too many. |