Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:CCL guy here.

Through U12 CCL is a very good league. Good clubs, good competition. The league is well structured and organized. But, at these younger ages it is best to simply find the right coach and environment for your kid. Don't want to drive to Richmond for a U10 game then find a spot on a team in NCSL. But the point is shop the coach not the league.

At U13 and above you need to shop both coach, team and league a bit more. It depends on your kids actual playing level and their potential. Lots of things happen between 12-14 so finding the right coach is still the priority over league.

If your kid is talented and playing in college is realistic then the exposure that a team can provide via league play and showcases becomes more important. CCL does not offer the same quality of exposure as DA or ECNL.

But chest pounding over what league is what from U9-U14 is a waste of energy because it just doesn't matter, and that means you "I don't like the travel in CCL guy". Don't do it because it doesn't matter one bit in the long run. No College coach ever asked what league your kid played in when they were nine years old.

"Through U12 CCL is a very good league. Good clubs, good competition. The league is well structured and organized."

...how much ccl paying u?!...ccl sucks!

Just because the league that your 9 or 10 year old plays in doesn't matter to a college coach doesn't mean the league sucks. Does the college care what Elementary School your kid went to as well?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^^ ignore system coaches clubs leagues
ccl is certainly not a well-structured TRAVEL league if it puts my 6th grader in a car driving that far

skip everyone of those games and go spend time playing soccer with a friend over a tennis net or against a wall

Again, you put your kid in the car not CCL. You placed league status above what is best for your kid and family.

...you are clueless about travel soccer...

I'm clueless about soccer yet you are the one who is complaining about how a league for your 9-10 year old kid is run as if it matters?

[Anonymous]

Ditto. Same experience. We had a choice between two convenient nearby clubs. Both A teams. One in NCSL and one in CCL.

We chose the CCL team because the coach was an amazing coach, female for my DD, and the training plan more advanced. There was a big sacrifice of course as we knew we would have to play in CCL, which is poorly organized and has unnecessary travel distances.

At U9 and 10, it has a bad structure, where you play the same 7 clubs over and over, many of which have shaky teams. Playing the same bad teams over and over was not enjoyable.

At U11 and U12, it got even worse, with travel to Richmond, VA Beach, Williamsburg, Roanoke, etc. to play some real weak teams at times. We all hated those drives, as did almost every parent on the team, but chose not to switch clubs because of the amazing coach we had, as we all know how important the coaching choice is, and we all know the advice that leagues should not matter.

But unfortunately they do to some extent . . . when we scrimmaged Great Falls, Alexandria, Bethesda, etc. locally and realized all the good teams in this area, we realized the scam that CCL is.

My advice is to find the best coach you can on a team that does not play in CCL. Apparently, CCL knows it has an UNreasonable travel problem and is addressing it.

It is true there is a crazed poster on here that beats a dead horse and tries to sell CCL as a well designed, well organized, league for U9 to U-12. He or she must work for CCL and this is their job to build it up on DCUM! LOL.

Trust us. It is not. Trust the many posts that have explained how the long travel for 5th and 6th graders is just insane. I forgot to mention that at U11, many of these weaker southern CCL clubs can't even field teams, so you end up with a season where you maybe play 6 games total in Fall, and about the same in Spring. NCSL seems to have a structure that works and avoids this, but our coach said she had know choice under club rules but to play in CCL. She didn't like it either, so that tells you a lot!

So I get your situation, but the poster who labels himself as the CCL Guy thinks we pick CCL to impress friends and should move to a different coach and team if we don't like the travel in CCL travel soccer. He is full of contradictions to his own advice, and has an agenda to defend CCL.

Or, he may just be a pure troll after all. Got a good laugh out of that . . .

How can Beach FC be linked to a weak Southern CCL team? The club has one the Overall Girls side for the past two years with top A teams from BRYC, Loudoun and Arlington. I acknowledge that Maryland United and McLean don't field their A teams in the U13 and above age brackets but have met those ECNL teams in previous tournaments and the games have been very competitive. SOCA, and VA Legacy might not field teams that are very competitive but have several age groups that are near the tops of their division. Beach FC has never failed to field a team in an age bracket so that would be a false statement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ditto. Same experience. We had a choice between two convenient nearby clubs. Both A teams. One in NCSL and one in CCL.

We chose the CCL team because the coach was an amazing coach, female for my DD, and the training plan more advanced. There was a big sacrifice of course as we knew we would have to play in CCL, which is poorly organized and has unnecessary travel distances.

At U9 and 10, it has a bad structure, where you play the same 7 clubs over and over, many of which have shaky teams. Playing the same bad teams over and over was not enjoyable.

At U11 and U12, it got even worse, with travel to Richmond, VA Beach, Williamsburg, Roanoke, etc. to play some real weak teams at times. We all hated those drives, as did almost every parent on the team, but chose not to switch clubs because of the amazing coach we had, as we all know how important the coaching choice is, and we all know the advice that leagues should not matter.

But unfortunately they do to some extent . . . when we scrimmaged Great Falls, Alexandria, Bethesda, etc. locally and realized all the good teams in this area, we realized the scam that CCL is.

My advice is to find the best coach you can on a team that does not play in CCL. Apparently, CCL knows it has an UNreasonable travel problem and is addressing it.

It is true there is a crazed poster on here that beats a dead horse and tries to sell CCL as a well designed, well organized, league for U9 to U-12. He or she must work for CCL and this is their job to build it up on DCUM! LOL.

Trust us. It is not. Trust the many posts that have explained how the long travel for 5th and 6th graders is just insane. I forgot to mention that at U11, many of these weaker southern CCL clubs can't even field teams, so you end up with a season where you maybe play 6 games total in Fall, and about the same in Spring. NCSL seems to have a structure that works and avoids this, but our coach said she had know choice under club rules but to play in CCL. She didn't like it either, so that tells you a lot!

So I get your situation, but the poster who labels himself as the CCL Guy thinks we pick CCL to impress friends and should move to a different coach and team if we don't like the travel in CCL travel soccer. He is full of contradictions to his own advice, and has an agenda to defend CCL.

Or, he may just be a pure troll after all. Got a good laugh out of that . . .

How can Beach FC be linked to a weak Southern CCL team? The club has one the Overall Girls side for the past two years with top A teams from BRYC, Loudoun and Arlington. I acknowledge that Maryland United and McLean don't field their A teams in the U13 and above age brackets but have met those ECNL teams in previous tournaments and the games have been very competitive. SOCA, and VA Legacy might not field teams that are very competitive but have several age groups that are near the tops of their division. Beach FC has never failed to field a team in an age bracket so that would be a false statement.

Things I've said all along

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, for Super Y, find the best combination of convenience, decent coaching and friends. Don't worry about the competitive level.

Interesting that Vienna started a Super Y team for this summer. They are having tryouts but have not released who will be coaching. This was their statement on coaching. Anyone know who they are referring to?

VYS coaches have years of experience coaching in Super Y and have coached multiple teams that qualified for Super Y Finals, including winning a National Championship.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1K5EjybrDKksNa4jjGRrSXd7kCynJRUvPK_e6heXdyNk/mobilepresent?slide=id.p4

Washington spirit girls Da presentation link above

Jim Gabarra is TD for VA
No head coaches named yet
Practice locations not named yet
But...
The flow chart clearly shows the VA team will be a Va-Md combo....I'm assuming Nova and Southern Md......and then they will have WS Baltimore.

WS VA games played in Boyd's Md simultaneous with WS Md team.

big change from fairfax that is in map + directory for WS-VA;

at least being honest on reston "hail mary" . . . compared to WS MD slide deck, doesn't mention reston anywhere, not even in franchise name

...merger in boyds is ahppening sooner then pp said..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, for Super Y, find the best combination of convenience, decent coaching and friends. Don't worry about the competitive level.

Interesting that Vienna started a Super Y team for this summer. They are having tryouts but have not released who will be coaching. This was their statement on coaching. Anyone know who they are referring to?

VYS coaches have years of experience coaching in Super Y and have coached multiple teams that qualified for Super Y Finals, including winning a National Championship.

It is just in their name alone now. The Spirit VA teams of the past I believe were mostly Vienna based anyways, likely with Vienna coaches. I could be wrong about that but...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1K5EjybrDKksNa4jjGRrSXd7kCynJRUvPK_e6heXdyNk/mobilepresent?slide=id.p4

Washington spirit girls Da presentation link above

Jim Gabarra is TD for VA
No head coaches named yet
Practice locations not named yet
But...
The flow chart clearly shows the VA team will be a Va-Md combo....I'm assuming Nova and Southern Md......and then they will have WS Baltimore.

WS VA games played in Boyd's Md simultaneous with WS Md team.

big change from fairfax that is in map + directory for WS-VA;

at least being honest on reston "hail mary" . . . compared to WS MD slide deck, doesn't mention reston anywhere, not even in franchise name

...merger in boyds is ahppening sooner then pp said..

VDA rotates the practice schedule location wise between the three member clubs so perhaps Spirit will do the same here?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^^ ignore system coaches clubs leagues
ccl is certainly not a well-structured TRAVEL league if it puts my 6th grader in a car driving that far

skip everyone of those games and go spend time playing soccer with a friend over a tennis net or against a wall

Again, you put your kid in the car not CCL. You placed league status above what is best for your kid and family.

Most clubs have multiple leagues for a single age group-ours has 3. Many places won't even tell you until after you accept the offer which team/league you'll be on/in.

Ditto. Same experience. We had a choice between two convenient nearby clubs. Both A teams. One in NCSL and one in CCL.

We chose the CCL team because the coach was an amazing coach, female for my DD, and the training plan more advanced. There was a big sacrifice of course as we knew we would have to play in CCL, which is poorly organized and has unnecessary travel distances.

At U9 and 10, it has a bad structure, where you play the same 7 clubs over and over, many of which have shaky teams. Playing the same bad teams over and over was not enjoyable.

At U11 and U12, it got even worse, with travel to Richmond, VA Beach, Williamsburg, Roanoke, etc. to play some real weak teams at times. We all hated those drives, as did almost every parent on the team, but chose not to switch clubs because of the amazing coach we had, as we all know how important the coaching choice is, and we all know the advice that leagues should not matter.

But unfortunately they do to some extent . . . when we scrimmaged Great Falls, Alexandria, Bethesda, etc. locally and realized all the good teams in this area, we realized the scam that CCL is.

My advice is to find the best coach you can on a team that does not play in CCL. Apparently, CCL knows it has an UNreasonable travel problem and is addressing it.

It is true there is a crazed poster on here that beats a dead horse and tries to sell CCL as a well designed, well organized, league for U9 to U-12. He or she must work for CCL and this is their job to build it up on DCUM! LOL.

Trust us. It is not. Trust the many posts that have explained how the long travel for 5th and 6th graders is just insane. I forgot to mention that at U11, many of these weaker southern CCL clubs can't even field teams, so you end up with a season where you maybe play 6 games total in Fall, and about the same in Spring. NCSL seems to have a structure that works and avoids this, but our coach said she had know choice under club rules but to play in CCL. She didn't like it either, so that tells you a lot!

So I get your situation, but the poster who labels himself as the CCL Guy thinks we pick CCL to impress friends and should move to a different coach and team if we don't like the travel in CCL travel soccer. He is full of contradictions to his own advice, and has an agenda to defend CCL.

Or, he may just be a pure troll after all. Got a good laugh out of that . . .

I am a champion of CCL because I say it is a good U Little league but not as good above U13? Wow, that is a real ringing endorsement.

The dead horse that keeps getting beat is the issue over travel at the younger ages. Again, there are leagues with good coaches and teams in good clubs not in CCL that are options if the current travel structure of CCL does not work for you. We get it, you don't like driving far away for games. You are not wrong for feeling that way but don't act like you do not have a choice or say in the matter. Who accepts a position for their kid, pays a deposit and does not know what team the kid is even on? Nobody, that's who.

"Oh they made me play in CCL. I didn't know what team my kid was on when I forked over $200-$300 to hold my kids spot. Nowhere on the clubs website was there any mention of the leagues that the club plays in. How was I possibly to know anything before I even voluntarily took my kid to a tryout? Waaaaaaa"

That is just plain lazy on your part.

Nothing is perfect

Wow, get a grip. None of that applies to the PP.

[Anonymous]

To go back and answer the ODSL question -- yes, it's still "travel light" in a sense, but I worry that it's dying. The more clubs put their top teams in "elite" leagues (CCL, EDP, VPL, etc.) the more of a domino effect you'll see in which clubs' B, C and D teams all move into NCSL and leave precious little for ODSL.

So ODSL has become a few clubs' absolute lowest teams, plus a handful of clubs (Cougars, Dynamite) that aren't in NCSL and simply annihilate the competition.

It's a real shame, because THIS is the level of travel most of our little darlings should be in. If you want the travel experience but don't have delusions that your kid is getting a D1 scholarship -- or if your kid is young and may still develop into an "elite" player -- this is the level for you.

I guess NCSL's lower divisions will fill that void now. NCSL D1 still has a few "elite" players, but I wonder how much longer that'll last.

Personally, I'd like to see some sort of ODSL/SFL merger. SFL is already "travel light" -- teams travel, generally practice twice a week, etc. They just usually have parent coaches and rec-league fees.

Combine ODSL and SFL, and you'd have scores of teams per age group. No need to drive to Clarke County because you only have six teams in your age group.

But that would make too much sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agreed, for Super Y, find the best combination of convenience, decent coaching and friends. Don't worry about the competitive level.

Interesting that Vienna started a Super Y team for this summer. They are having tryouts but have not released who will be coaching. This was their statement on coaching. Anyone know who they are referring to?

VYS coaches have years of experience coaching in Super Y and have coached multiple teams that qualified for Super Y Finals, including winning a National Championship.

It is just in their name alone now. The Spirit VA teams of the past I believe were mostly Vienna based anyways, likely with Vienna coaches. I could be wrong about that but...

Correct. The Spirit's VA Super-Y operations had a lot of Vienna coaches and players. Some sort of official partnership involved. Not sure if that still exists, given the utter chaos that is the Spirit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ditto. Same experience. We had a choice between two convenient nearby clubs. Both A teams. One in NCSL and one in CCL.

We chose the CCL team because the coach was an amazing coach, female for my DD, and the training plan more advanced. There was a big sacrifice of course as we knew we would have to play in CCL, which is poorly organized and has unnecessary travel distances.

At U9 and 10, it has a bad structure, where you play the same 7 clubs over and over, many of which have shaky teams. Playing the same bad teams over and over was not enjoyable.

At U11 and U12, it got even worse, with travel to Richmond, VA Beach, Williamsburg, Roanoke, etc. to play some real weak teams at times. We all hated those drives, as did almost every parent on the team, but chose not to switch clubs because of the amazing coach we had, as we all know how important the coaching choice is, and we all know the advice that leagues should not matter.

But unfortunately they do to some extent . . . when we scrimmaged Great Falls, Alexandria, Bethesda, etc. locally and realized all the good teams in this area, we realized the scam that CCL is.

My advice is to find the best coach you can on a team that does not play in CCL. Apparently, CCL knows it has an UNreasonable travel problem and is addressing it.

It is true there is a crazed poster on here that beats a dead horse and tries to sell CCL as a well designed, well organized, league for U9 to U-12. He or she must work for CCL and this is their job to build it up on DCUM! LOL.

Trust us. It is not. Trust the many posts that have explained how the long travel for 5th and 6th graders is just insane. I forgot to mention that at U11, many of these weaker southern CCL clubs can't even field teams, so you end up with a season where you maybe play 6 games total in Fall, and about the same in Spring. NCSL seems to have a structure that works and avoids this, but our coach said she had know choice under club rules but to play in CCL. She didn't like it either, so that tells you a lot!

So I get your situation, but the poster who labels himself as the CCL Guy thinks we pick CCL to impress friends and should move to a different coach and team if we don't like the travel in CCL travel soccer. He is full of contradictions to his own advice, and has an agenda to defend CCL.

Or, he may just be a pure troll after all. Got a good laugh out of that . . .

How can Beach FC be linked to a weak Southern CCL team? The club has one the Overall Girls side for the past two years with top A teams from BRYC, Loudoun and Arlington. I acknowledge that Maryland United and McLean don't field their A teams in the U13 and above age brackets but have met those ECNL teams in previous tournaments and the games have been very competitive. SOCA, and VA Legacy might not field teams that are very competitive but have several age groups that are near the tops of their division. Beach FC has never failed to field a team in an age bracket so that would be a false statement.

Virginia Legacy, Roanoke Star, SOCA, Richmond United at times....

(No one disputing Beach FC.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ditto. Same experience. We had a choice between two convenient nearby clubs. Both A teams. One in NCSL and one in CCL.

We chose the CCL team because the coach was an amazing coach, female for my DD, and the training plan more advanced. There was a big sacrifice of course as we knew we would have to play in CCL, which is poorly organized and has unnecessary travel distances.

At U9 and 10, it has a bad structure, where you play the same 7 clubs over and over, many of which have shaky teams. Playing the same bad teams over and over was not enjoyable.

At U11 and U12, it got even worse, with travel to Richmond, VA Beach, Williamsburg, Roanoke, etc. to play some real weak teams at times. We all hated those drives, as did almost every parent on the team, but chose not to switch clubs because of the amazing coach we had, as we all know how important the coaching choice is, and we all know the advice that leagues should not matter.

But unfortunately they do to some extent . . . when we scrimmaged Great Falls, Alexandria, Bethesda, etc. locally and realized all the good teams in this area, we realized the scam that CCL is.

My advice is to find the best coach you can on a team that does not play in CCL. Apparently, CCL knows it has an UNreasonable travel problem and is addressing it.

It is true there is a crazed poster on here that beats a dead horse and tries to sell CCL as a well designed, well organized, league for U9 to U-12. He or she must work for CCL and this is their job to build it up on DCUM! LOL.

Trust us. It is not. Trust the many posts that have explained how the long travel for 5th and 6th graders is just insane. I forgot to mention that at U11, many of these weaker southern CCL clubs can't even field teams, so you end up with a season where you maybe play 6 games total in Fall, and about the same in Spring. NCSL seems to have a structure that works and avoids this, but our coach said she had know choice under club rules but to play in CCL. She didn't like it either, so that tells you a lot!

So I get your situation, but the poster who labels himself as the CCL Guy thinks we pick CCL to impress friends and should move to a different coach and team if we don't like the travel in CCL travel soccer. He is full of contradictions to his own advice, and has an agenda to defend CCL.

Or, he may just be a pure troll after all. Got a good laugh out of that . . .

How can Beach FC be linked to a weak Southern CCL team? The club has one the Overall Girls side for the past two years with top A teams from BRYC, Loudoun and Arlington. I acknowledge that Maryland United and McLean don't field their A teams in the U13 and above age brackets but have met those ECNL teams in previous tournaments and the games have been very competitive. SOCA, and VA Legacy might not field teams that are very competitive but have several age groups that are near the tops of their division. Beach FC has never failed to field a team in an age bracket so that would be a false statement.

Virginia Legacy, Roanoke Star, SOCA, Richmond United at times....

(No one disputing Beach FC.)

u mean fc richmond

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To go back and answer the ODSL question -- yes, it's still "travel light" in a sense, but I worry that it's dying. The more clubs put their top teams in "elite" leagues (CCL, EDP, VPL, etc.) the more of a domino effect you'll see in which clubs' B, C and D teams all move into NCSL and leave precious little for ODSL.

So ODSL has become a few clubs' absolute lowest teams, plus a handful of clubs (Cougars, Dynamite) that aren't in NCSL and simply annihilate the competition.

It's a real shame, because THIS is the level of travel most of our little darlings should be in. If you want the travel experience but don't have delusions that your kid is getting a D1 scholarship -- or if your kid is young and may still develop into an "elite" player -- this is the level for you.

I guess NCSL's lower divisions will fill that void now. NCSL D1 still has a few "elite" players, but I wonder how much longer that'll last.

Personally, I'd like to see some sort of ODSL/SFL merger. SFL is already "travel light" -- teams travel, generally practice twice a week, etc. They just usually have parent coaches and rec-league fees.

Combine ODSL and SFL, and you'd have scores of teams per age group. No need to drive to Clarke County because you only have six teams in your age group.

But that would make too much sense.

The problem is with so many leagues above ODSL there really are not many clubs that have teams left over to put into ODSL after NPL, VPL, CCL, CCL II, NCSL have all taken their piece of the pie. Your club either needs to have a 5th team or is a really small mom and pop shop that has a very small talent pool and just a team or two across the age groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To go back and answer the ODSL question -- yes, it's still "travel light" in a sense, but I worry that it's dying. The more clubs put their top teams in "elite" leagues (CCL, EDP, VPL, etc.) the more of a domino effect you'll see in which clubs' B, C and D teams all move into NCSL and leave precious little for ODSL.

So ODSL has become a few clubs' absolute lowest teams, plus a handful of clubs (Cougars, Dynamite) that aren't in NCSL and simply annihilate the competition.

It's a real shame, because THIS is the level of travel most of our little darlings should be in. If you want the travel experience but don't have delusions that your kid is getting a D1 scholarship -- or if your kid is young and may still develop into an "elite" player -- this is the level for you.

I guess NCSL's lower divisions will fill that void now. NCSL D1 still has a few "elite" players, but I wonder how much longer that'll last.

Personally, I'd like to see some sort of ODSL/SFL merger. SFL is already "travel light" -- teams travel, generally practice twice a week, etc. They just usually have parent coaches and rec-league fees.

Combine ODSL and SFL, and you'd have scores of teams per age group. No need to drive to Clarke County because you only have six teams in your age group.

But that would make too much sense.

The problem is with so many leagues above ODSL there really are not many clubs that have teams left over to put into ODSL after NPL, VPL, CCL, CCL II, NCSL have all taken their piece of the pie. Your club either needs to have a 5th team or is a really small mom and pop shop that has a very small talent pool and just a team or two across the age groups.

Agree with both here but think that merger with NCSL would be best versus SFL. The overall play in ODSL is currently at the level of middle to bottom divisions in NCSL which is why I say that makes more sense and they already travel to places like W VA and MD versus SFL which does not travel as far. There is some talent in ODSL that would do very well in higher divisions of NCSL but there aren't that many. Some good coaches as well that are doing a good job of developing some good players and building decent teams.