ECNL forcing Brave & Union Partnership

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is player placement, it is all politics at Mclean and will hurt badly Brave players who are coming from a healthy environment.

Let's hope the selection process is merit based and not deep pockets getting their kids buried in the team since the coaches are in their pockets. If I were Brave, I will demand an independent coach to come assess the players at the tryouts and make the selection so its fair. The teams can make their Veo games available as part of the evaluation of each player. Unfortunately, this would not happen and there will still be weak links on the consolidated team (undersize, not fast and physical, technical skills lacking and always getting pushed off the ball).

The stronger players always have do more to compensate for this when they are in the game, like they are playing one or two players down. This creates a situation where the these stronger players are risking getting injured -- ACL, MCL tears. These coaches really need to clean this up.

Under Coach Kevin (Bethesda), this will never happen. The weak ones rarely plays and eventually are replaced.

In a new equal partnership and the new ECNL club it won’t be up to just McLean-Union.

hahaha, I would love to see you tell Nadir or Clyde you want an independent assessment. It's never been fair in these circumstances and it never will be whether you're talking about McLean or anywhere else. The incumbents on the Union teams have the upper hand until it is clear that an outside player is head and shoulders better. That's what sucks about this merger... if you're a mid-pack or lower BRAVE ECNL player, you're in a tough spot. As a parent, it's your job to know how this works and have a plan B at least. Demanding justice will get you nowhere.

Similarly, if you’re a mid-pack or lower Union player, you’re in a tough spot.
Union does not have the upper hand in the equal partnership and of course there will always be players that will be better.

If Union doesn’t have the upper hand, the people pushing this are complete morons. BRYC shouldn’t even be in the merger at this point. They ran their original ECNL program into the ground and didn’t even field boys ECNL-RL teams in the fall. All their girls RL teams had losing records with 2 winless teams. They should just get told to get lost. Vienna has only been at this for 2 years and BRAVE pretty much hollowed out their RL teams - their 6 boys RL teams combined for 4 wins. Vienna is in over their heads and giving BRAVE any control or coaching slots will just be club suicide.

Brave primarily is impacting the youngest groups, since prior to the formation, talent would leave the club for ECNL clubs (and form a domino effect). Much of that talent had already left for the oldest girls.

For the 2 age groups that have fed into Brave so far (2010 & 2011), Vienna’s ECRL girls are 11-3-2. They’re doing that while also feeding the vast majority of the Brave rosters (and the 10’ and 11’ Brave girls’ teams are strong).

Meanwhile, MYS has zero ECRL teams with winning records this year. Not a one, boys or girls. And SYC was making up the majority of the Union players for the same young ages where Vienna was doing it for Brave.

Why would McLean have leverage here and Vienna is in over their heads?

You had me until you said the Brave Girls 10s, in 6th place (6-6-2, GD 0) and 11s in 8th place (5-6-3, GD -10) are strong. That is not strong, nice try Vienna Dad!

The 10s are better than their record this year. Last year, they scored over 70 goals, gave up about 25, beat both Union and Charlotte SA, and went to San Diego. They beat VDA 4-0 a few weeks ago, and should hopefully finish with a stronger record.

We’ll have to see how the 11s do in the spring, but they have already played Charlotte SA twice.

They also lost their leading scorer this year to Arlington so there's that. Their only win vs. SA was in CASL where Charlotte had already made the finals and sat their starters. Good try Brave 2010 dad. Union trounced them 7-2 this season, don't think there's a bigger statement than that on who's the better team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is player placement, it is all politics at Mclean and will hurt badly Brave players who are coming from a healthy environment.

Let's hope the selection process is merit based and not deep pockets getting their kids buried in the team since the coaches are in their pockets. If I were Brave, I will demand an independent coach to come assess the players at the tryouts and make the selection so its fair. The teams can make their Veo games available as part of the evaluation of each player. Unfortunately, this would not happen and there will still be weak links on the consolidated team (undersize, not fast and physical, technical skills lacking and always getting pushed off the ball).

The stronger players always have do more to compensate for this when they are in the game, like they are playing one or two players down. This creates a situation where the these stronger players are risking getting injured -- ACL, MCL tears. These coaches really need to clean this up.

Under Coach Kevin (Bethesda), this will never happen. The weak ones rarely plays and eventually are replaced.

In a new equal partnership and the new ECNL club it won’t be up to just McLean-Union.

hahaha, I would love to see you tell Nadir or Clyde you want an independent assessment. It's never been fair in these circumstances and it never will be whether you're talking about McLean or anywhere else. The incumbents on the Union teams have the upper hand until it is clear that an outside player is head and shoulders better. That's what sucks about this merger... if you're a mid-pack or lower BRAVE ECNL player, you're in a tough spot. As a parent, it's your job to know how this works and have a plan B at least. Demanding justice will get you nowhere.

Similarly, if you’re a mid-pack or lower Union player, you’re in a tough spot.
Union does not have the upper hand in the equal partnership and of course there will always be players that will be better.

If Union doesn’t have the upper hand, the people pushing this are complete morons. BRYC shouldn’t even be in the merger at this point. They ran their original ECNL program into the ground and didn’t even field boys ECNL-RL teams in the fall. All their girls RL teams had losing records with 2 winless teams. They should just get told to get lost. Vienna has only been at this for 2 years and BRAVE pretty much hollowed out their RL teams - their 6 boys RL teams combined for 4 wins. Vienna is in over their heads and giving BRAVE any control or coaching slots will just be club suicide.

Brave primarily is impacting the youngest groups, since prior to the formation, talent would leave the club for ECNL clubs (and form a domino effect). Much of that talent had already left for the oldest girls.

For the 2 age groups that have fed into Brave so far (2010 & 2011), Vienna’s ECRL girls are 11-3-2. They’re doing that while also feeding the vast majority of the Brave rosters (and the 10’ and 11’ Brave girls’ teams are strong).

Meanwhile, MYS has zero ECRL teams with winning records this year. Not a one, boys or girls. And SYC was making up the majority of the Union players for the same young ages where Vienna was doing it for Brave.

Why would McLean have leverage here and Vienna is in over their heads?

Because ECNL starts at U13 and needs to work for high school age kids to get recruited to play D1 soccer. That’s the point and it’s very different than being a good youth club. VYS might have a good program for little kids but if the same coach stays with a team from U9 to U16, that’s wrong. It takes a different skill set and is definitely bad for all of their individual development. Our TD would NEVER allow this. McLean may not have as good a rec or early travel program but they develop older kids and put them in position to succeed.

Vienna doesn’t have the same coach staying with kids. The teams now coached by MV and LO were coached by VK at uLittle.

And remember, until 18 months ago, Vienna didn’t have an ECNL team. So they literally weren’t even competing with McLean at U13+ (for top teams).

Why would the fact that McLean coaches have been succeeding with SYC talent give them unequal leverage over Vienna bringing in a similar pool of talent? Could those McLean coaches have seen similar success without SYC the last 3 years? I guess we’ll never know.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Christ. I only have one more year of this sh*t. My oldest is off to college next year. I was really hoping to get through one more year of club soccer without having to drag a kid around to multiple tryouts...and buy another uniform for my youngest.

This isn't just these clubs. This is the entire youth club soccer scene and leagues folding and changing, etc. Youth soccer in the US is so ridiculous.

When we were in Spain-you just played for your neighborhood team. If you were beyond excellent--you might get scooped up by a scout.

This musical chairs crap is such a pain in the *ss. I am working in my attic right now and I can count 5 backpacks from different youth soccer clubs. 2 don't even exist anymore (and this is for kids still playing)!!

Me too! This is ridiculous. Youth Club and ECNL lack of seriousness. All this s** for what one or two kids who can excel at the national level? and US teams W or M are not doing great these days. Time to put the $ to something different, like a properly vacation trip or science or leadership symposium that my kids have missed due to soccer activity.

Wow, you think ECNL exists for the benefit of the national teams? There is no money in that, this is about feeding the college ranks. And if you think youth soccer is messed up, wait til you get a whiff of the college scene.

[Anonymous]

So count me as one person that didn't believe this merger was happening - but it is. A ton of the current girls BRAVE players were at the SYC ID sessions and accepted offers for next year. There concern being that if you are not a top 1 or 2 players on the BRAVE team you will sit the bench or not make the new BRAVE + Union team. Sounds like a lot of VALOR girls going over to SYC too.

So while I'm definitely a ENCL > GA person, this BRAVE situation has handed them a lot of girls at least for this first year. I still don't understand why ECNL would want to lose a team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Christ. I only have one more year of this sh*t. My oldest is off to college next year. I was really hoping to get through one more year of club soccer without having to drag a kid around to multiple tryouts...and buy another uniform for my youngest.

This isn't just these clubs. This is the entire youth club soccer scene and leagues folding and changing, etc. Youth soccer in the US is so ridiculous.

When we were in Spain-you just played for your neighborhood team. If you were beyond excellent--you might get scooped up by a scout.

This musical chairs crap is such a pain in the *ss. I am working in my attic right now and I can count 5 backpacks from different youth soccer clubs. 2 don't even exist anymore (and this is for kids still playing)!!

It’s all so f***d. Minefields and motherf**s everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So count me as one person that didn't believe this merger was happening - but it is. A ton of the current girls BRAVE players were at the SYC ID sessions and accepted offers for next year. There concern being that if you are not a top 1 or 2 players on the BRAVE team you will sit the bench or not make the new BRAVE + Union team. Sounds like a lot of VALOR girls going over to SYC too.

So while I'm definitely a ENCL > GA person, this BRAVE situation has handed them a lot of girls at least for this first year. I still don't understand why ECNL would want to lose a team.

SYC a good option if you want to move as a group. New Union Brave will have to take the best kids regardless of club affiliation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So count me as one person that didn't believe this merger was happening - but it is. A ton of the current girls BRAVE players were at the SYC ID sessions and accepted offers for next year. There concern being that if you are not a top 1 or 2 players on the BRAVE team you will sit the bench or not make the new BRAVE + Union team. Sounds like a lot of VALOR girls going over to SYC too.

So while I'm definitely a ENCL > GA person, this BRAVE situation has handed them a lot of girls at least for this first year. I still don't understand why ECNL would want to lose a team.

ECNL can’t accommodate more teams in the sh**ty hotels they have deals with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is player placement, it is all politics at Mclean and will hurt badly Brave players who are coming from a healthy environment.

Let's hope the selection process is merit based and not deep pockets getting their kids buried in the team since the coaches are in their pockets. If I were Brave, I will demand an independent coach to come assess the players at the tryouts and make the selection so its fair. The teams can make their Veo games available as part of the evaluation of each player. Unfortunately, this would not happen and there will still be weak links on the consolidated team (undersize, not fast and physical, technical skills lacking and always getting pushed off the ball).

The stronger players always have do more to compensate for this when they are in the game, like they are playing one or two players down. This creates a situation where the these stronger players are risking getting injured -- ACL, MCL tears. These coaches really need to clean this up.

Under Coach Kevin (Bethesda), this will never happen. The weak ones rarely plays and eventually are replaced.

In a new equal partnership and the new ECNL club it won’t be up to just McLean-Union.

hahaha, I would love to see you tell Nadir or Clyde you want an independent assessment. It's never been fair in these circumstances and it never will be whether you're talking about McLean or anywhere else. The incumbents on the Union teams have the upper hand until it is clear that an outside player is head and shoulders better. That's what sucks about this merger... if you're a mid-pack or lower BRAVE ECNL player, you're in a tough spot. As a parent, it's your job to know how this works and have a plan B at least. Demanding justice will get you nowhere.

Similarly, if you’re a mid-pack or lower Union player, you’re in a tough spot.
Union does not have the upper hand in the equal partnership and of course there will always be players that will be better.

If Union doesn’t have the upper hand, the people pushing this are complete morons. BRYC shouldn’t even be in the merger at this point. They ran their original ECNL program into the ground and didn’t even field boys ECNL-RL teams in the fall. All their girls RL teams had losing records with 2 winless teams. They should just get told to get lost. Vienna has only been at this for 2 years and BRAVE pretty much hollowed out their RL teams - their 6 boys RL teams combined for 4 wins. Vienna is in over their heads and giving BRAVE any control or coaching slots will just be club suicide.

Brave primarily is impacting the youngest groups, since prior to the formation, talent would leave the club for ECNL clubs (and form a domino effect). Much of that talent had already left for the oldest girls.

For the 2 age groups that have fed into Brave so far (2010 & 2011), Vienna’s ECRL girls are 11-3-2. They’re doing that while also feeding the vast majority of the Brave rosters (and the 10’ and 11’ Brave girls’ teams are strong).

Meanwhile, MYS has zero ECRL teams with winning records this year. Not a one, boys or girls. And SYC was making up the majority of the Union players for the same young ages where Vienna was doing it for Brave.

Why would McLean have leverage here and Vienna is in over their heads?

You had me until you said the Brave Girls 10s, in 6th place (6-6-2, GD 0) and 11s in 8th place (5-6-3, GD -10) are strong. That is not strong, nice try Vienna Dad!

The 10s are better than their record this year. Last year, they scored over 70 goals, gave up about 25, beat both Union and Charlotte SA, and went to San Diego. They beat VDA 4-0 a few weeks ago, and should hopefully finish with a stronger record.

We’ll have to see how the 11s do in the spring, but they have already played Charlotte SA twice.

They also lost their leading scorer this year to Arlington so there's that. Their only win vs. SA was in CASL where Charlotte had already made the finals and sat their starters. Good try Brave 2010 dad. Union trounced them 7-2 this season, don't think there's a bigger statement than that on who's the better team.

She was a 2011 (and an amazing kid from a great family) who left on good terms and had been playing Super Y with that (very strong) Arlington team for many years.

Brave had a goal incorrectly called back in that 7-2 Union game (linesman was a teenager and it wasn’t even close), but things definitely got out of control. IIRC, Brave led for much of the first half.

We’ll see in the rematch, but I agree that SYC team is (and always has been) excellent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The problem is player placement, it is all politics at Mclean and will hurt badly Brave players who are coming from a healthy environment.

Let's hope the selection process is merit based and not deep pockets getting their kids buried in the team since the coaches are in their pockets. If I were Brave, I will demand an independent coach to come assess the players at the tryouts and make the selection so its fair. The teams can make their Veo games available as part of the evaluation of each player. Unfortunately, this would not happen and there will still be weak links on the consolidated team (undersize, not fast and physical, technical skills lacking and always getting pushed off the ball).

The stronger players always have do more to compensate for this when they are in the game, like they are playing one or two players down. This creates a situation where the these stronger players are risking getting injured -- ACL, MCL tears. These coaches really need to clean this up.

Under Coach Kevin (Bethesda), this will never happen. The weak ones rarely plays and eventually are replaced.

In a new equal partnership and the new ECNL club it won’t be up to just McLean-Union.

hahaha, I would love to see you tell Nadir or Clyde you want an independent assessment. It's never been fair in these circumstances and it never will be whether you're talking about McLean or anywhere else. The incumbents on the Union teams have the upper hand until it is clear that an outside player is head and shoulders better. That's what sucks about this merger... if you're a mid-pack or lower BRAVE ECNL player, you're in a tough spot. As a parent, it's your job to know how this works and have a plan B at least. Demanding justice will get you nowhere.

Similarly, if you’re a mid-pack or lower Union player, you’re in a tough spot.
Union does not have the upper hand in the equal partnership and of course there will always be players that will be better.

If Union doesn’t have the upper hand, the people pushing this are complete morons. BRYC shouldn’t even be in the merger at this point. They ran their original ECNL program into the ground and didn’t even field boys ECNL-RL teams in the fall. All their girls RL teams had losing records with 2 winless teams. They should just get told to get lost. Vienna has only been at this for 2 years and BRAVE pretty much hollowed out their RL teams - their 6 boys RL teams combined for 4 wins. Vienna is in over their heads and giving BRAVE any control or coaching slots will just be club suicide.

Brave primarily is impacting the youngest groups, since prior to the formation, talent would leave the club for ECNL clubs (and form a domino effect). Much of that talent had already left for the oldest girls.

For the 2 age groups that have fed into Brave so far (2010 & 2011), Vienna’s ECRL girls are 11-3-2. They’re doing that while also feeding the vast majority of the Brave rosters (and the 10’ and 11’ Brave girls’ teams are strong).

Meanwhile, MYS has zero ECRL teams with winning records this year. Not a one, boys or girls. And SYC was making up the majority of the Union players for the same young ages where Vienna was doing it for Brave.

Why would McLean have leverage here and Vienna is in over their heads?

You had me until you said the Brave Girls 10s, in 6th place (6-6-2, GD 0) and 11s in 8th place (5-6-3, GD -10) are strong. That is not strong, nice try Vienna Dad!

The 10s are better than their record this year. Last year, they scored over 70 goals, gave up about 25, beat both Union and Charlotte SA, and went to San Diego. They beat VDA 4-0 a few weeks ago, and should hopefully finish with a stronger record.

We’ll have to see how the 11s do in the spring, but they have already played Charlotte SA twice.

VDA 10's going to be displaced by a lot of FCV players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So count me as one person that didn't believe this merger was happening - but it is. A ton of the current girls BRAVE players were at the SYC ID sessions and accepted offers for next year. There concern being that if you are not a top 1 or 2 players on the BRAVE team you will sit the bench or not make the new BRAVE + Union team. Sounds like a lot of VALOR girls going over to SYC too.

So while I'm definitely a ENCL > GA person, this BRAVE situation has handed them a lot of girls at least for this first year. I still don't understand why ECNL would want to lose a team.

SYC a good option if you want to move as a group. New Union Brave will have to take the best kids regardless of club affiliation

SYC is going to be the dark horse of the area.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So count me as one person that didn't believe this merger was happening - but it is. A ton of the current girls BRAVE players were at the SYC ID sessions and accepted offers for next year. There concern being that if you are not a top 1 or 2 players on the BRAVE team you will sit the bench or not make the new BRAVE + Union team. Sounds like a lot of VALOR girls going over to SYC too.

So while I'm definitely a ENCL > GA person, this BRAVE situation has handed them a lot of girls at least for this first year. I still don't understand why ECNL would want to lose a team.

SYC a good option if you want to move as a group. New Union Brave will have to take the best kids regardless of club affiliation

SYC is going to be the dark horse of the area.

I hope they do succeed. They clearly weren’t getting what they wanted out of Union, so if they can go it alone, more power to them. More quality options with quality coaches is good for the area talent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So count me as one person that didn't believe this merger was happening - but it is. A ton of the current girls BRAVE players were at the SYC ID sessions and accepted offers for next year. There concern being that if you are not a top 1 or 2 players on the BRAVE team you will sit the bench or not make the new BRAVE + Union team. Sounds like a lot of VALOR girls going over to SYC too.

So while I'm definitely a ENCL > GA person, this BRAVE situation has handed them a lot of girls at least for this first year. I still don't understand why ECNL would want to lose a team.

What if this is all fake? Are you going back to Brave or Union?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So count me as one person that didn't believe this merger was happening - but it is. A ton of the current girls BRAVE players were at the SYC ID sessions and accepted offers for next year. There concern being that if you are not a top 1 or 2 players on the BRAVE team you will sit the bench or not make the new BRAVE + Union team. Sounds like a lot of VALOR girls going over to SYC too.

So while I'm definitely a ENCL > GA person, this BRAVE situation has handed them a lot of girls at least for this first year. I still don't understand why ECNL would want to lose a team.

SYC a good option if you want to move as a group. New Union Brave will have to take the best kids regardless of club affiliation

SYC is going to be the dark horse of the area.

Dark horse implies overlooked, not talked about, or in the shadows. This is a McBrave thread and here's SYC dad again... so not a dark horse, more of a disruptor. We get that your boys program is world class but don't put the cart before the horse with your girls. Will the 3-4 Brave girls who chose not to bother with Union tryouts really be difference makers, what other club's players are coming out to SYC's IDs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So count me as one person that didn't believe this merger was happening - but it is. A ton of the current girls BRAVE players were at the SYC ID sessions and accepted offers for next year. There concern being that if you are not a top 1 or 2 players on the BRAVE team you will sit the bench or not make the new BRAVE + Union team. Sounds like a lot of VALOR girls going over to SYC too.

So while I'm definitely a ENCL > GA person, this BRAVE situation has handed them a lot of girls at least for this first year. I still don't understand why ECNL would want to lose a team.

Don’t be surprised if in one or two years they are the first GMLS next in the area.

SYC a good option if you want to move as a group. New Union Brave will have to take the best kids regardless of club affiliation

SYC is going to be the dark horse of the area.

I hope they do succeed. They clearly weren’t getting what they wanted out of Union, so if they can go it alone, more power to them. More quality options with quality coaches is good for the area talent.

[Anonymous]

No need to call anybody out but there were players from all sorts of clubs at SYC's ID.

Perhaps they are overlooked. Filling teams with players other clubs overlook.