MLSNext Pro League announced
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Anonymous
I am a little mystified by what else you would have expected - there had been one year of MLS Next play at U13 and U14 for Alexandria, SYC and Achilles, with little or no practical ability to recruit when Covid hit. I still think one of these clubs had a significant number of players go to DCU. Because player talent has started moving more to MLS Next, I suspect you will see more of this as time goes on. I think it is a function of where younger talent is choosing to go. That is why you see the family of one of the best recent DCU academy players choose SYC for a younger son instead of VDA or Arlington. But sure, there will be terrific players joining DCU from other clubs as well. They will select whom they think is best. We will see how many ECNL 08s end up at DCU next year. VDA probably has the most possibilities there among those teams. Maybe a couple from Loudoun as well. |
Anonymous
| When it's all said and done MLSNext is going to be the league that sends players to the pros. ECNL will just be good for players wanting to go to college. |
Anonymous
Think MLSNext Pro players will get the same minimum? |
Anonymous
On average, how many total players, DMV-wide, go to the pros in a given year...2? 3? These are players that go to the DCU Academy and are good enough to play up and be fairly dominant while playing up. There isn’t a given pathway for unicorns. |
Anonymous
Well I didn't expect anything else. I'm just fed up with the SYC shill (you?) pretending his club is a one way ticket to DC United or MLS Next Pro (before it even exists). So I was pointing out that it wasn't. And in my view, unless he hires some better coaches, it won't ever be. |
Anonymous
Wow SYC coach you really know a lot. Stop doing so poorly in MLS Next |
Anonymous
This is so wrong. You seem to think that the coaching doesn't matter. Whichever kid is the best talent at 11 will be the best at 14 or 15? The reason SYC wasn't as good as other clubs was because they didn't get the best talent? Now they're going to get better talent so they will start winning? This is so upside down. If this were correct why would a top talent bother going anywhere other than his local club? Since he's going to magically be the best talent three years later as well. It really doesn't matter which kids go where at 11. What matters is how well they develop over the next three or four years. Sure no coach is going to take a Virginia Valor second teamer and get them to DCU. But that's not what we're talking about - we're talking about a bunch of kids who are not that dis-similar in ability. Sure a handful will stand out even above the rest - bit they won't all end up at one place either. And the best coaches will end up developing the players that DCU want, because they have been developed. |
Anonymous
The difference in coaching is not as significant as the difference in talent that is readily visible at this age. I am talking about U13-14 top players and top teams. I do see significant differences in talent among players on and among top teams. You are simply wrong. And you are also wrong that where you are coached 8-12 doesn't matter. Of course it does. Go ahead and put your markers down and we will see how this plays out next year with selections. I don't think anybody ought to be selecting clubs and teams based on league. It is idiotic. But I can understand why some players want to (1) join teams with other top players, because practices are where most development occurs and higher caliber teammates increase the probability of better development, and (2) want to play in leagues where they think the best players will be in their conferences (even if you don't have pro aspirations). I also think the coach is important, but the variability is significant across top teams and clubs and is unpredictable YOY. |
Anonymous
If you are tallking about whether the best 14 year old is likely to be the best 15 year old then I agree. But that's not what you're talking abouit. You're suggesting that SYC is going to attract a lot of the top kids at U12/U13 and send a large number of those kids to DCU. That's where I strongly disagree. Over three years, the better coaching team will win out.
Huh? Of course it does. I'm the one arguing that coaching matters. You are the one suggesting that it doesn't. It matters at every age. Good coaching will help your kid improve. Bad coaching won't. Whether they are 8 or 14.
This is true. Kids may well want to do this. But they are making a mistake because the quality of coaching is the most important variable - more important than the caliber of the team or the competition (and in any case the competition isn't especially different).
It's not perfectly predictable but there are clubs where you chance of getting good coaching are much higher than others. I'm not going to name names so we keep this discussion theoretical. But there are multiple clubs in this area where you are almost guaranteed of getting an excellent coach for at least two of your four crucial years, and you may well get luckier than that. |
Anonymous
Loudoun is garbage. But you must know that, troll. |
Anonymous
1. It is not a question of whether SYC is likely to get top kids for U13. They already did. They already had a really good team. It got better. Same with Achilles and Bethesda. A lot of these players had the opportunity to stay with or go to really good coaches, and simply passed. I think you will see more of this. This is what we are trying to explain - why might this happen more, or why might it happen less. But it is already happening. 2. It is also not a question of whether the travel soccer whisperers could get a bunch of talented but not stellar athletes to outplay a team of better players with mediocre coaching. My son plays for one of those teams so I saw it happen over and over again. You are preaching to the choir. But he and almost all of this teammates have no shot whatsoever at going to DCU notwithstanding stellar coaching, team accomplishment, and victories over teams that will undoubtedly end up sending more players to DCU. And it really doesn't matter, because he is happy to play on a really good team with great coaches against the best competition. 3. You did in fact say that it doesn't matter who goes where at 11, so yes, you did imply that coaching at earlier ages doesn't matter, and no, you aren't "the one" arguing that really good coaching makes a difference - I already said as much. It makes a tremendous difference. But the differences among the coaches on top teams with top players will not offset the differences in talent when DCU makes selections. That is the only point we were discussing, and it is irrelevant for most kids in ECNL and MLS Next. 4. If you prove right, then all of those kids and parents whom you think made bad decisions can look back and say, you know what, despite the fact that we've had other kids/siblings/friends go to DCU, and despite the fact that we could have sent our kids to any club, we just didn't understand how to evaluate the quality or importance of coaching when we decided to send our kids somewhere other than ___ or ____. Right now, I'd defer to their judgment unless and until they are proven wrong. |
Anonymous
Are you sure you can tell which kids have the most talent?
That's not what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that the best coaches develop the kids. Sure that sometimes or even often turns into victories too. But in this discussion I am arguing that good coaches help the kids become better soccer players individually. And that, even if SYC gets good kids at 11 or 12 (something you seem to believe, but I think it is you who may be confusing team results with real talent here), better coaches elsewhwere will have coached kids who overtake them in talent.
I think you misunderstood what I was saying. My point was that no matter whioch kid may appear more talented at 11 and no matter which team they go to, three years later the ones that went to the best coach will have overtaken them.
No - you keep saying that no matter how good the coach, the most talented kids will remain the most talented kids. I am disagreeing with you.
Yes it will. It always does. I have seen it happen.
It is not irrelevant for them at all. Any kid in the top 20% - which means the top 5 kids on any of those teams - has a chance to get to DCU. I know this because I have seen it happen year after year. The ones who get good coaching increase that chance dramatically. The ones who don't, reduce it.
You have one example of a kid who passed through VDA to DCU whose brother is now going to SYC. But that's the exception that proves the rule. I'm talking from experience, having watched what happens for several years now. You will probably figure it out yourself as you watch what happens over the next three or four years. The difference between us is that I have already done that - and I'm telling you want I learned. You want to tell me you know it even though you have not trodden the path. As Ron Rivera likes to say "Don't draw me a map if you haven;t been there." |
Anonymous
Oh - and although I haven't seen the teams at this age group play, I would bet money you are just plain wrong here. One team never gets all the best players. DCU itself did not get all the most talented players - heck it didn't even get half of them - when it used to run teams at these younger age groups. Nor did VDA get all the best players when it was the only full DA in town. There will be a huge overlap between the rosters of all the top teams in both leagues, and even if SYC were the "most talented" I would bet good money that the best three players on any of four or five teams would be amongst SYC's top five. |
Anonymous
In the very next sentence, I also said Achilles and Bethesda are top teams in this age group and Achilles grabbed more top kids as well, so you are either dumb or intentionally misreading and mischaracterizing what I said. (And if your teachers were any good, this just confirms my point that even the best teachers cannot do much with mediocre talent, whether in soccer or reading comprehension). And it's not just one kid whose brother just got selected for USMNT U20 and who went through DCU (after Arlington, where both also played). it's talent from numerous clubs who went to SYC and Achilles, from Arlington, VDA, SAC, etc. Bethesda has been and remains the best team in that age group in the mid-Atlantic, along with Pipeline. Oh, and I agree, the top three to four players on every team are relatively equivalent to top three or four on every other top team, but I thought you said we could not identify those top players . . . . . So much for that. I think the difference now is what you call top teams. I am pretty sure entire teams dropped from that category, so we simply have fewer of those. There are a few top teams from top clubs that would not have a single starter on any of these other, more talented teams. No sense in denying it. You might as well say birds aren't real. 
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Anonymous
| Thanks for ruining a post about MLS Next PRO with your stupid and childish running dispute about SYC and where over compensating parents should have their 13 year old play. |