Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^6 teams per age group is a complete farce. They didn't even increase field space with the 16 new teams (U9-U12 boys/girls) in the last two years. Training sucks. Not consistent and it's a top-down recruitment organization. People think the name reflects on their own child and lots of ego/chest-beating. It's $3k for glorified poor babysitting. The infiltrators that came from the implosion they caused at other local big clubs rely on the ignorance of their parent base. Arrogance is pervasive amongst the technical/mgmt staff.

Eddie, wtf, bro

lest we forget German and Krieger.

FWIW, Arlington was late to the party. It did not have the size or early successes or development in the 1980s that the clubs such as Fairfax, Braddock Road, Springfield, Annandale did. The history is lacking. The sheer number of kids playing, the existence of only one club option and the growth of the County is a big reason for it being put on the map. The parents need to wake up though. They don't even see what is happening right under their eyes. These people do not have their kids' interests at heart. History will tell you that. Take a look at what happened in McLean, Loudon, VYS, Prince William...these are the people you hired in recent years.

You're drunk, go home.

Nah, they don't allow drinking at Longbridge...

Finally, a Segway to something more entertaining. Just because they don't allow drinking doesn't mean you can't do it Of course at tournaments on fields that are not affiliated with the schools, the game changes. I've seen teams at tournaments will full-scale bloody Mary bars set up.

Segway? perhaps segue? Or were you riding your Segway to something more entertaining?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's all so random. Maybe not totally random, as some parents might really, really do their homework but it seems to me...that every club has good and bad trainer/coaches. All of the clubs discussed above have produced some great teams. However, why don't they ALWAYS produce great teams? It's the kids that come into the program at that time. It's the quality of that particular trainer/coach. It's the commitment of the parents of those kids. Not every season do you get a group of talented kids who work hard outside of practice, who get a great trainer/coach, and with committed parents. At any given year, that can can happen at any of these clubs regardless of the league. It could even happen at the smallest of clubs. And I think that's what this message board is all about...trying to find THAT team each year or the closest thing to it. My kid is younger and plays in the NCSL and the teams that he's been on have beaten the crap out of just about all of the teams mentioned above. Does that mean they are bad clubs? No, it just means that they don't have the group of kids, etc that we do at this time. So I think all this league and club talk is BS. The quest is to find a great trainer with a great bunch of teammates.

+1

The clubs that do it consistently are either huge (Arlington, Loudoun) or managed to build a tradition decades ago (Braddock Road).

Most of the CCL clubs, maybe half of the VPL clubs and a handful of NCSL clubs can produce good teams. It's trickier these days to keep them together, with the DA and ECNL picking off the top players and Loudoun/Arlington/BRYC taking a few more, but some teams do pretty well for themselves all the way through the age groups.

And for 80-90% of travel players, it hardly matters. There's no magic formula to tell you whether Loudoun's C team is a better place than Herndon's B team or vice versa.

^^^ infrastructure ain't so great when 80% get cut.

Fields. Depth of coaching -- coaches can develop within the club and benefit from working together. Depth of talent -- if D.C. United takes three players, they can move up decent players from the B team.

Money to pay for all this. You've seen the accusation elsewhere -- a lot of C-, D- and F- teams are just subsidizing the coaches and scholarship money for the A team. And if they have big rec programs, or if they have the resources to put on big money-making tournaments, they can pay those A-team coaches to stay and subsidize scholarships and travel.

If you play at Arlington for anything other than an A team -- which applies to hundreds and hundreds of kids -- some of your money is going to make the A teams better. You can be annoyed by that, or you can take pride in it. Or you can just figure you like your coach, you like the convenience of where you play, and the costs aren't any better some place farther away. Up to you.

This is BS. Fees are about the same across all clubs - no one's getting rich on your fees, or fleecing the B team parents. Everything an elite team does that is different than a B or C team comes out of the parents pockets. Travel, extra training, tournament fees, etc is all funded by the players/parents on the team and fundraising. There is no free ride for the A team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^^6 teams per age group is a complete farce. They didn't even increase field space with the 16 new teams (U9-U12 boys/girls) in the last two years. Training sucks. Not consistent and it's a top-down recruitment organization. People think the name reflects on their own child and lots of ego/chest-beating. It's $3k for glorified poor babysitting. The infiltrators that came from the implosion they caused at other local big clubs rely on the ignorance of their parent base. Arrogance is pervasive amongst the technical/mgmt staff.

So true. The field space is a big issue in Arlington. And they shortened some of the sessions to accommodate more groups rotating through - so clearly the emphasis is on $ and numbers, rather than training.

And side note - it's not even glorified babysitting when the organization also requires a parent from the team to stay on-site for the training sessions. Even at the U16 and up ages, when the players are driving themselves to practices. I could not believe that when I heard it. These coaches can't even handle running practices without a parent there to help out with whatever they need. That's pathetic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^6 teams per age group is a complete farce. They didn't even increase field space with the 16 new teams (U9-U12 boys/girls) in the last two years. Training sucks. Not consistent and it's a top-down recruitment organization. People think the name reflects on their own child and lots of ego/chest-beating. It's $3k for glorified poor babysitting. The infiltrators that came from the implosion they caused at other local big clubs rely on the ignorance of their parent base. Arrogance is pervasive amongst the technical/mgmt staff.

Eddie, wtf, bro

lest we forget German and Krieger.

FWIW, Arlington was late to the party. It did not have the size or early successes or development in the 1980s that the clubs such as Fairfax, Braddock Road, Springfield, Annandale did. The history is lacking. The sheer number of kids playing, the existence of only one club option and the growth of the County is a big reason for it being put on the map. The parents need to wake up though. They don't even see what is happening right under their eyes. These people do not have their kids' interests at heart. History will tell you that. Take a look at what happened in McLean, Loudon, VYS, Prince William...these are the people you hired in recent years.

You're drunk, go home.

Nah, they don't allow drinking at Longbridge...

Finally, a Segway to something more entertaining. Just because they don't allow drinking doesn't mean you can't do it Of course at tournaments on fields that are not affiliated with the schools, the game changes. I've seen teams at tournaments will full-scale bloody Mary bars set up.

Segway? perhaps segue? Or were you riding your Segway to something more entertaining?

As long as it's not "Paul Blart, Mall Cop." Really disappointing movie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^6 teams per age group is a complete farce. They didn't even increase field space with the 16 new teams (U9-U12 boys/girls) in the last two years. Training sucks. Not consistent and it's a top-down recruitment organization. People think the name reflects on their own child and lots of ego/chest-beating. It's $3k for glorified poor babysitting. The infiltrators that came from the implosion they caused at other local big clubs rely on the ignorance of their parent base. Arrogance is pervasive amongst the technical/mgmt staff.

So true. The field space is a big issue in Arlington. And they shortened some of the sessions to accommodate more groups rotating through - so clearly the emphasis is on $ and numbers, rather than training.

And side note - it's not even glorified babysitting when the organization also requires a parent from the team to stay on-site for the training sessions. Even at the U16 and up ages, when the players are driving themselves to practices. I could not believe that when I heard it. These coaches can't even handle running practices without a parent there to help out with whatever they need. That's pathetic.

That's crazy. They don't even require that at our Club--even at the youngest ages tryouts or practices. In fact, they encourage parents to go grab a coffee or such.

We have friends that just started with Arl lamenting that the kids have all regressed since they left a really great Rec coach. Parent said now they swarm in bunches like Kindergarten. These kids really knew how to move to space and pass. Now it's bunch ball. A big part of practices is unsupervised free scrimmage with nobody disciplining bad behavior. They dont realize activity does not equate to efficiency.. It's good they have such a huge player pool because they can really just rely on physical attributes in the early years. Then--they dump them in teen years for kids trained elsewhere. Not the best developmental model.

[Anonymous]

As with the VYS crap, you might want to start your own Arlington thread if there are concerns that are related only to that club and not of general interest.

[Anonymous]

How could a club add 16-18 new teams and not realize they didn't have the field space to support it? When you have just enough spots for every.single.girl. that showed up at tryouts--maybe you are taking too many kids? Some may have not been developmentally ready. Just cause you can get the $3k doesn't mean you should take it if you don't have the means to provide quality and field space.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How could a club add 16-18 new teams and not realize they didn't have the field space to support it? When you have just enough spots for every.single.girl. that showed up at tryouts--maybe you are taking too many kids? Some may have not been developmentally ready. Just cause you can get the $3k doesn't mean you should take it if you don't have the means to provide quality and field space.

Start a Arlington thread please, nobody gives a shit if they aren't in Arlington.

[Anonymous]

^this thread is 239 pages, not all of which applies to everyone. What, exactly, would you prefer a thread entitled Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss be about?

I don't know that we need individual threads started for Vienna, Arlington, older kids, younger kids, CCL, girls side of soccer, DA programs, blah blah.

If it doesn't apply to you, move along

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^this thread is 239 pages, not all of which applies to everyone. What, exactly, would you prefer a thread entitled Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss be about?

I don't know that we need individual threads started for Vienna, Arlington, older kids, younger kids, CCL, girls side of soccer, DA programs, blah blah.

If it doesn't apply to you, move along

When it starts to bog down about a particular club and a particular problem at that club it stops being a general interest discussion.

[Anonymous]

yes, the 5 or so posts in the past week about Vienna or Arlington have totally taken this thread out of the general discussion arena.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:^this thread is 239 pages, not all of which applies to everyone. What, exactly, would you prefer a thread entitled Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss be about?

I don't know that we need individual threads started for Vienna, Arlington, older kids, younger kids, CCL, girls side of soccer, DA programs, blah blah.

If it doesn't apply to you, move along

League discussions are far more general in scope and are pertinent to the overall local soccer landscape. Bitching about fees at a particular club and how that pertains to their field space issues is not of general interest but is reasonable within the context of its own thread.

And here is the kicker, threads are free to start. They don't cost nuthin, so try it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^this thread is 239 pages, not all of which applies to everyone. What, exactly, would you prefer a thread entitled Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss be about?

I don't know that we need individual threads started for Vienna, Arlington, older kids, younger kids, CCL, girls side of soccer, DA programs, blah blah.

If it doesn't apply to you, move along

League discussions are far more general in scope and are pertinent to the overall local soccer landscape. Bitching about fees at a particular club and how that pertains to their field space issues is not of general interest but is reasonable within the context of its own thread.

And here is the kicker, threads are free to start. They don't cost nuthin, so try it.

Who says bitching about particular clubs is not of general interest? You clearly have not been with us from the beginning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^this thread is 239 pages, not all of which applies to everyone. What, exactly, would you prefer a thread entitled Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss be about?

I don't know that we need individual threads started for Vienna, Arlington, older kids, younger kids, CCL, girls side of soccer, DA programs, blah blah.

If it doesn't apply to you, move along

League discussions are far more general in scope and are pertinent to the overall local soccer landscape. Bitching about fees at a particular club and how that pertains to their field space issues is not of general interest but is reasonable within the context of its own thread.

And here is the kicker, threads are free to start. They don't cost nuthin, so try it.

Who says bitching about particular clubs is not of general interest? You clearly have not been with us from the beginning.

Well then if you are gonna bitch about the club then at least post the facts vs claims of $3000 fees for ALL teams to only get a patch of practice field.

Here are the fees and they vary, shockingly, against the popular opinion, A teams actually pay more. So fine bitch, just be correct in your bitch.

http://www.arlingtonsoccer.com/travelsoccer/tryouts-fees-registration/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^this thread is 239 pages, not all of which applies to everyone. What, exactly, would you prefer a thread entitled Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss be about?

I don't know that we need individual threads started for Vienna, Arlington, older kids, younger kids, CCL, girls side of soccer, DA programs, blah blah.

If it doesn't apply to you, move along

League discussions are far more general in scope and are pertinent to the overall local soccer landscape. Bitching about fees at a particular club and how that pertains to their field space issues is not of general interest but is reasonable within the context of its own thread.

And here is the kicker, threads are free to start. They don't cost nuthin, so try it.

Who says bitching about particular clubs is not of general interest? You clearly have not been with us from the beginning.

Absolutely it is. My club can't be the only one with issues. ha ha. Because I pay $3k I expect my kid's F team at the club to destroy every team they play against and he is definitely going to be ready for the DA team at U8.