Youth sports is like every other idiotic discourse in today's US, with preening would-be fixers thinking they can make little adjustments here and little adjustments there to produce a perfect systems without one shred of evidence that they have ever succeeded in the past. The incessant referains of X is broken, Y failed us, etc., as if perfection is the norm or should be expected or is independent of the people who make up society. It starts with individuals, including their talent and willingness to sustain effort or make better decisions, along with environments and factors that are largely beyond everybody's control. Show me the "state policies" at work that produce great players in Texas or California. Gimme an f'n break and dream on. Neither Texas nor California is doing anything in their state capacity to produce great soccer players. |
Okay buddy you got it. But the USYNT east v West scores from a few weeks ago say otherwise. |
There isn’t anything these states are doing differently. But the environment in those places has formed to make for better results. It’s organic and not something that can be recreated elsewhere. Some of the ingredients include population density and demographics, weather, money. But once these areas emerge as leaders it builds on itself, attracting more coaches, training centers, players, money, excitement. |
My kid plays at a club that right before she went to u13 they dumped the DOC and brought on an entirely new coaching staff. Teans went from can't win to can't lose almost overnight. It took about a year to filter out deadwood players but once this happened the word got around to parents and there's so many talented players trying out. I've seen it happen, poor players, parents, coaching, docs, and club leadership are why certain clubs lose all the time. But it can be turned around. |
Yes there is. Someone from Socal tried to explain it to you on this thread a couple of days ago and apparently you chose not to take their feedback. |
Originally from the DMV area and now a socal transplant -- socal soccer culture is just very strong because every kid is playing at an early age and competitive teams form fast. Other sports like basketball are not that dominant . This means successful results early but doesn't necessarily mean success in the long term... There's tons of politics and favoritism in socal soccer as there will always be when everybody thinks their kid is going to the the next big thing and also when parents are pouring tons of $$$ and time into it. Don't know what's going on in the dmv soccer scene nowadays but probably consolidating talent at a few major clubs would prob help a bit. |
What’s the website to the SoCal soccer parent forum? |
This is an interesting point. Interest in specific sports vary from region to region or state to state. CA definitely loves their individual competitor sports like tennis, golf, surfing which I guess has a lot to do with the weather as well. |
| Parents in socal also move their kids around early to "winning" or big clubs early with hopes of getting on ECNL teams later. Many don't mind driving in socal traffic 1-2 hours a day to get to the big ECNL clubs. That's why you find a lot of powerhouse teams at the U-littles and perhaps it also translates to success in the early ECNL years. |
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Slammers beat Surf today. Slammers versus Legends in the ecnl championship game.
Surf beat Union and Bethesda. Slammers beat VDA. DMV cannot hang with SoCal. |
I grew up in NoVa and lived there most of my life before relocating to the Philly area 5 years ago. Penn Fusion is definitely a destination club, but still plenty of other big clubs in the area that are successful. They're also relatively new only forming the current structure in 2009 so I agree one or two clubs in the DMV should have been able to develop into the premier club with the appropriate leadership. I hate to say it, but in the DMV you could be driving an hour+ and still only be 10-15 miles away so it definitely dilutes the talent. There's no quick fix for how the region is currently situated. |
https://socalsoccer.com/ |
It’s almost backwards in the DMV. There were two premier/destination clubs but the addition of Loudoun hurt FCV and the more recent addition of Arlington hurt McLean. |
| How did Bethesda and Arlington do in the consolation games? |
| Both won. Bethesda 2-1 and Arlington 2-0 |