Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
The other posters made good points about things beginning to change at U13+, and even the big clubs begin to lose teams. The difference between a club like Bethesda vs. a club like PPA, is that the Bethesda's of the world are not going to lose a significant number of players from its top team as an age group hits the teen years and continues to progress through the club. That is in part due to the fact that a club like Bethesda is one of the top clubs in the area, whose top team plays in DA (or ECNL on the girls' side). As a result, a club like Bethesda is not going to lose a significant number of its best players to rival top clubs. Plus, the players on those top teams are very committed to soccer, and less likely to drop soccer in favor of specializing in a different sport. And even if a club like Bethesda were to lose a couple of players from its top team, it is usually able to fill those positions from promoting a couple of kids from the B team or recruiting a couple of players from other clubs.
That is not the case with a club like PPA, whose top players on the Premier team will be successfully poached by top area clubs, which are able to offer a better developmental and recruiting platform than PPA could ever offer its top players. PPA's Premier teams also have players at the younger ages that play other sports, like lacrosse, and several of those kids will drop soccer and go full-time in their other sport. In our experience, once the Premier team suffered such player losses at U13+, it could never make up for the losses, whether through promoting players from the second team, recruiting new players, or playing up some younger players. This, in turn, caused several of the remaining boys from the Premier team to leave PPA for other clubs.
To be clear, there is nothing wrong with any of this, and it is just one of the consequences of being at a smaller club vs. one of the top area clubs. One of the things that makes PPA so good is that it is a club where young players are encouraged to play multiple sports, while still receiving good, quality soccer coaching and training. If they wind up wanting to specialize in soccer, then they can continue to do so at PPA, or they can move to a club that provides a better platform. If, on the other hand, they wind up wanting to specialize in another sport or drop sports entirely, then they will have had a fun, relatively stress-free experience playing with great PPA coaches and teammates, without any significant travel.
I think it is really hard to make predictions about where PPA is headed based on your experience which was two ago maybe when they first launched their Premier program? In fall 2018, PPA joined the DC United Development Academy pipeline program along with big names like Loudoun Soccer and Arlington Soccer Association. This is to offer opportunities for specifically the age group you are talking about which is U12-U14.
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}