Last time when there was this much upheaval?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s constant. My oldest started playing 11 years ago when boys CCL was king—pre DA. My older nephews when NCSL was dominant league.

I’ve seen some coaches/TDs at 3-5 different clubs. We have been with two clubs that don’t even exist anymore.

It’s never about the kids. It’s a pissing match between adults looking to screw one another over.

Boys CCL was actually never king, though you wouldn’t have known it from their marketing spiel. My oldest kids (early 20s now) started out in a system that now seems idyllic. Almost all travel girls played in WAGS, which was in a decline from its glory years but still functioning, and most travel boys played in NCSL, which was well run. The two leagues were promotion-relegation based, so 2 or 3 teams would go up or down from a division of 12 or so teams each season.

NCSL division 1 was lit back then! There were huge rivalries and great competition to win division 1. That’s when we first encountered JW, who has been discussed on the VA Union and now Arlington threads. He had a great team of boys who competed fiercely with my son’s team. I was really pleased to see he was named Executive Director at NCSL. Probably no way to turn back the clock, but I wish you all could have been around for the good old days before CCL and NCSL destroyed grass-roots soccer in our area.

Oh no -- I agree. I said NCSL for my older nephews. It was on its way out when my own kids started playing.

I played 10 years in WAGs myself--when it was the only league and competitive.

What I cannot get over is all of this driving across 4-5 state borders for regular season games---and missing 3-4 Fridays of school for it and then showcases where kids are sometimes missing a week of school.

There is no need to travel that far for regular season games. Travel like that should be confined only to tournament/showcases and they should be on holiday weekends only--like they used to be---or summer. We used to have summer tournaments--primarily when out of state play happened.

Normally this kind of travel would be exclusive to the absolute best of the best. Maybe one team like this per state.

Now everyone is elite as long as you can pay for it.

100%

Fully agree with this, Elite=Being able to pay 💰

This is why US soccer can’t compete and is a joke on the international stage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s constant. My oldest started playing 11 years ago when boys CCL was king—pre DA. My older nephews when NCSL was dominant league.

I’ve seen some coaches/TDs at 3-5 different clubs. We have been with two clubs that don’t even exist anymore.

It’s never about the kids. It’s a pissing match between adults looking to screw one another over.

Boys CCL was actually never king, though you wouldn’t have known it from their marketing spiel. My oldest kids (early 20s now) started out in a system that now seems idyllic. Almost all travel girls played in WAGS, which was in a decline from its glory years but still functioning, and most travel boys played in NCSL, which was well run. The two leagues were promotion-relegation based, so 2 or 3 teams would go up or down from a division of 12 or so teams each season.

NCSL division 1 was lit back then! There were huge rivalries and great competition to win division 1. That’s when we first encountered JW, who has been discussed on the VA Union and now Arlington threads. He had a great team of boys who competed fiercely with my son’s team. I was really pleased to see he was named Executive Director at NCSL. Probably no way to turn back the clock, but I wish you all could have been around for the good old days before CCL and NCSL destroyed grass-roots soccer in our area.

Oh no -- I agree. I said NCSL for my older nephews. It was on its way out when my own kids started playing.

I played 10 years in WAGs myself--when it was the only league and competitive.

What I cannot get over is all of this driving across 4-5 state borders for regular season games---and missing 3-4 Fridays of school for it and then showcases where kids are sometimes missing a week of school.

There is no need to travel that far for regular season games. Travel like that should be confined only to tournament/showcases and they should be on holiday weekends only--like they used to be---or summer. We used to have summer tournaments--primarily when out of state play happened.

Normally this kind of travel would be exclusive to the absolute best of the best. Maybe one team like this per state.

Now everyone is elite as long as you can pay for it.

100%

Fully agree with this, Elite=Being able to pay 💰

This is why US soccer can’t compete and is a joke on the international stage.

MLS and MLSn are doing well. Not on the international stage but considering America isn't a soccer/futbol country they're doing ok. The template has been set and NWSL is going to create NWSLn soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it just me or does it feel like the amount of changes/upheaval at clubs in NoVA this spring has been higher than usual? Just off the top of my head:

* FCV coaches leave en mass (mostly to Revolution but BP to VDA)
* SYC leaves VA Union for GA
* VA Union and Brave merge into FVU leaving players scrambling
* Revolution gets into GA
* FCV is hiring new staff but still nothing official on field space
* GFR leaves NVA no sooner than they joined and then fires two coaches and hires a new TD that's also the DOC at FVU
* LMVSC gets into RL

It's crazy!

* DMV FC folds into GFRSC
* NVA drops GFR from alliance

GFR left NVA by choice, not the other way around. But why GFR thought that was good idea in the first place I still don’t understand.

Oh interesting. They still have references to NVA on the GFR website so it sounded the other way around. No idea how they thought an ECNL partnership would help a smaller club since at least on the girls side they have very strong teams overall? I think the boys are pretty solid too, but only have girls at the club.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No idea how they thought an ECNL partnership would help a smaller club since at least on the girls side they have very strong teams overall?

I asked my DC’s coach that question when the NVA relationship was announced and I felt like the answers I got were straight out of a document titled “How to Answer Questions From Parents About NVA” by Loudoun Soccer. As far as I can tell, that relationship did nothing for GFR except result in their best players joining NVA teams (which obviously could have happened anyway but this was almost like encouraging it). And it wasn’t like the only way to end up on an NVA team was to play for Loudoun, GFR or Valor so I’ll never understand how the two smaller clubs expected to benefit from that relationship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The national programs are becoming ridiculous. From U13 and up around here there aren't many teams that realistically need to travel to find competition. Understandable if your team becomes one that just squashes everybody around for the entire year and needs to find that competition but thats few and far between around here. There's plenty of competition within 1-2 hours.

Many are focused on club competition when their kid is in need of individual basics development

*what kind of player are you without your teammates

[Anonymous]

I continue to wish there was one (or maybe two) ‘elite’ program in NOVA. Everyine wants that ECNL or GA tag, and there are tons of good players but not as many elite ones. It will never happen, but imagine if it did. Especially if it wasn’t affiliated with a club and didn’t have a ‘regular’ travel program.