GFR Falling apart?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When did GD join GFR-2022? I remember someone wrote in an old post he usually stays about 3 years at a club and then moves on so timing would be right to move if he is

Spring 2021

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When did GD join GFR-2022? I remember someone wrote in an old post he usually stays about 3 years at a club and then moves on so timing would be right to move if he is

Not long after TSJ bought FCV and he lost the club-wide futsal gig. I think 2019.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did GD join GFR-2022? I remember someone wrote in an old post he usually stays about 3 years at a club and then moves on so timing would be right to move if he is

Not long after TSJ bought FCV and he lost the club-wide futsal gig. I think 2019.

No, it was right after Covid I believe- at least that’s when he took over my DD’s team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When did GD join GFR-2022? I remember someone wrote in an old post he usually stays about 3 years at a club and then moves on so timing would be right to move if he is

Not long after TSJ bought FCV and he lost the club-wide futsal gig. I think 2019.

No, it was right after Covid I believe- at least that’s when he took over my DD’s team

Ok…you are probably right.

[Anonymous]

im not whatever a wine mom is but are coaches really leaving?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McLean isn’t doing any more unions anytime soon. Already too many GA teams in the area so only path for GFR to “up” their pathway is to join FVU.

And that's a terrible idea as GFR learned with NVA....

What did they learn with NVA?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:McLean isn’t doing any more unions anytime soon. Already too many GA teams in the area so only path for GFR to “up” their pathway is to join FVU.

And that's a terrible idea as GFR learned with NVA....

What did they learn with NVA?

Discussed back in page 56 of this thread.

09/24/2025 16:40
Anonymous

Anonymous wrote:


+1000

You cannot claim to want to be a “local” club then pay the high salaries of the heavy hitters from TF. Something happened between GFR and FVU and neither party is coming clean about it. Now, the claim of “local neighborhood” club sounds disingenuous.


It was clear around March of 2025 that NM and ML were not going to be returning to FVU after the season was over. After that, the merger of GFR into FVU fell apart. My guess is that NM convinced RS to not be a part of it, to which RS happily obliged. Now NM and ML are doing ECNL at Bethesda while keeping a foot in the door at GFR (NM is still TD at GFR). So, they cannot allow GFR to go GA/MLSNext and again RS is happy to oblige. But they blew the one chance for GFR to dominate in a ECNL alliance. So the GFR families are now being told that "local neighborhood" club is the way to go. This kind of stuff is why we left season and don't plan on ever coming back!”

[Anonymous]

It seems like there are people that so want to see certain individuals fail at GFR that they have made that their end goal and don't consider the fallout for the kids with their continued pursuit of [whatever they are pursuing]. Both the kids who are already at GFR and the kids who could join GFR in the future and help make this club stronger will suffer as adults [pursuing whatever they are pursuing] continue to negatively chip away at the coaches, the organization and even the players.

If you [get whatever you are pursuing] by encouraging -- not necessarily with words, but actions -- players to either leave or tryout, you are preventing an entire local population of soccer players from have a strong club where they can thrive and gain all the benefits of a team sport.

There is a strong new Executive Director in place. Give her space and time to lead and build the GFR of the future. So many families and kids will benefit from a strong GFR at the rec and travel levels, pathway or not.

Find another way to get [whatever you are pursuing]. Or spell out exactly what you want to see happen to this club and why that will benefit the kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like there are people that so want to see certain individuals fail at GFR that they have made that their end goal and don't consider the fallout for the kids with their continued pursuit of [whatever they are pursuing]. Both the kids who are already at GFR and the kids who could join GFR in the future and help make this club stronger will suffer as adults [pursuing whatever they are pursuing] continue to negatively chip away at the coaches, the organization and even the players.

If you [get whatever you are pursuing] by encouraging -- not necessarily with words, but actions -- players to either leave or tryout, you are preventing an entire local population of soccer players from have a strong club where they can thrive and gain all the benefits of a team sport.

There is a strong new Executive Director in place. Give her space and time to lead and build the GFR of the future. So many families and kids will benefit from a strong GFR at the rec and travel levels, pathway or not.

Find another way to get [whatever you are pursuing]. Or spell out exactly what you want to see happen to this club and why that will benefit the kids.

Agree it’s kids who are/will be hurt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It seems like there are people that so want to see certain individuals fail at GFR that they have made that their end goal and don't consider the fallout for the kids with their continued pursuit of [whatever they are pursuing]. Both the kids who are already at GFR and the kids who could join GFR in the future and help make this club stronger will suffer as adults [pursuing whatever they are pursuing] continue to negatively chip away at the coaches, the organization and even the players.

If you [get whatever you are pursuing] by encouraging -- not necessarily with words, but actions -- players to either leave or tryout, you are preventing an entire local population of soccer players from have a strong club where they can thrive and gain all the benefits of a team sport.

There is a strong new Executive Director in place. Give her space and time to lead and build the GFR of the future. So many families and kids will benefit from a strong GFR at the rec and travel levels, pathway or not.

Find another way to get [whatever you are pursuing]. Or spell out exactly what you want to see happen to this club and why that will benefit the kids.

ML doesn’t care about any of this. His daughter is about to graduate and his son is a mediocre player on a mediocre team. He doesn’t understand the landscape of NoVa soccer at all which is why no good coach is going to leave GFR to work for his glorified rec travel program. It is very unfortunate that he’s allowing his issues with RS to cloud all of this. The majority of the BoD has been working hard to fix the issues that he brought up (none of which were criminal) and have taken a lot of necessary steps to make sure the club has a good path forward. Absolutely unforgivable for ML to continue going after GFR at this point and destroy families and friendships and the careers of some of the coaches who got caught trying to side with him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems like there are people that so want to see certain individuals fail at GFR that they have made that their end goal and don't consider the fallout for the kids with their continued pursuit of [whatever they are pursuing]. Both the kids who are already at GFR and the kids who could join GFR in the future and help make this club stronger will suffer as adults [pursuing whatever they are pursuing] continue to negatively chip away at the coaches, the organization and even the players.

If you [get whatever you are pursuing] by encouraging -- not necessarily with words, but actions -- players to either leave or tryout, you are preventing an entire local population of soccer players from have a strong club where they can thrive and gain all the benefits of a team sport.

There is a strong new Executive Director in place. Give her space and time to lead and build the GFR of the future. So many families and kids will benefit from a strong GFR at the rec and travel levels, pathway or not.

Find another way to get [whatever you are pursuing]. Or spell out exactly what you want to see happen to this club and why that will benefit the kids.

Agree it’s kids who are/will be hurt.

Always and these men never think about that because of their own egos.

[Anonymous]

You can continue to put all the blame on ML, but to pretend that there are no other factors at play is disingenuous. The acrimony between and amongst coaches has been off the charts. Many of the coaches and players leaving are doing so for reasons unrelated to ML. The club admin abruptly leaving, to my knowledge, had nothing to do with ML. It’s been chaos, with and without ML. Maybe the new ED will get things fixed, but it’s probably too little, too late for those with HS aged kids that have had to deal with this s-show.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The amount of coaches and directors at these NOVA clubs who have history of funny business hasn't stopped them from getting other jobs. It a carousel of the same people going from here to there.

Look at the Revolution thread and see how coaches are shagging moms left and right.

I heard GD is going there which proves anyone can still get a job despite their past shady dealings lol

Is he going to teach little kids? Even if GD leaves, the ECNL status doesn’t follow him so won’t most parents of older kids choose to stay at GFR to stay on ECNL track-since new club can’t use GFR stats and “In order to be considered for acceptance, a club must have existing teams in every ECNL age group (U13, U14, U15, U16, U17, U18/U19).”

If they are smart, they work a deal with Herndon and can play RL on their girls side. Herndon needs the help. NA and GD both don’t like NM, so maybe.

Rich Great Falls parents playing under Capelli Herndon jerseys? Can't see that happening. I can see other clubs

In a perfect world, GFR joins forces with McLean but haven't really thought that through so I am sure there's something I'm missing and why that hasn't happened yet.

GFR is ECNL and MYS is MLS2/GA so one would have to change if they did a joint pathway.

GFR is ECNL RL, so MLS2/GA would be an upgrade.

MLS2 is certainly not an upgrade from boys ECNL-RL, and it is debatable whether GA is an upgrade from girls ECNL-RL.

Perhaps true with the boys, definitely NOT true with the girls, short term and especially long term. GA will eventually overtake ECNL for girls b/c of it's affiliation with MLSN.

Maybe, I guess we will see. My point is the local GA divisions are, on the whole, not much of an upgrade from the local ECNL-RL divisions in many of the age groups.

Name the years where this is true?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You can continue to put all the blame on ML, but to pretend that there are no other factors at play is disingenuous. The acrimony between and amongst coaches has been off the charts. Many of the coaches and players leaving are doing so for reasons unrelated to ML. The club admin abruptly leaving, to my knowledge, had nothing to do with ML. It’s been chaos, with and without ML. Maybe the new ED will get things fixed, but it’s probably too little, too late for those with HS aged kids that have had to deal with this s-show.

Fair but ML could have done more to help GFR instead of the weird attempted takeover after only being on the BoD for 6 months. Dude couldn’t even be bothered with reading the bylaws or getting the whole board on the same page to try to make changes and just tried to go rogue and start firing people like he was trump. It’s definitely not too late for this club overall but the real damage was absolutely because of ML not trying to work with people

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You can continue to put all the blame on ML, but to pretend that there are no other factors at play is disingenuous. The acrimony between and amongst coaches has been off the charts. Many of the coaches and players leaving are doing so for reasons unrelated to ML. The club admin abruptly leaving, to my knowledge, had nothing to do with ML. It’s been chaos, with and without ML. Maybe the new ED will get things fixed, but it’s probably too little, too late for those with HS aged kids that have had to deal with this s-show.

Fair but ML could have done more to help GFR instead of the weird attempted takeover after only being on the BoD for 6 months. Dude couldn’t even be bothered with reading the bylaws or getting the whole board on the same page to try to make changes and just tried to go rogue and start firing people like he was trump. It’s definitely not too late for this club overall but the real damage was absolutely because of ML not trying to work with people

What month/year did he join?