Riverbend FC

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So if Loudoun GA is the second team to NVA. Will Riverband become the preferred Aspire team and Loudoun Aspire is a fourth team maybe vice versa?

Loudoun GA is not the second team to NVA when it comes to GA. In GA they are separate entities. Which means NVA can't pull players from Loudoun to play in league games to make up for injuries, sickness, etc. Loudoun has a GA and Aspire. NVA only has a GA team, next year NVA will both, GA and Aspire.

But within the club's hierarchy, NVA is 1 and Loudoun is 2

You guys aren’t getting this and are being too literal. The kids have to come from somewhere. If you thinking about it, NVA is Loudoun first team, Loudoun ga are second team players etc. This is the reason NVA is higher on probably all tables. Same happens with aspire teams. You get it?

You do realize that the person you responded to explained the dynamics perfectly correct right??

So then you are saying riverband will have the third team players and loudoun aspire is the fourth team?

Clearly.

Not going to work that way. They’ll be pulling from a pool of players in Fairfax primarily.

Fairfax City is far away and Fairfax County is very big.

over a million people in Fairfax County. If they have the coaching they will do just fine in that market.

It's comments like this that makes me wonder what investors were told. And therefore what families are being led to believe about.

To receive the kind of investment from PE they have it took a lot more than being “told”. Clearly investors felt like it was a good opportunity based on the market and the competition.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:So if Loudoun GA is the second team to NVA. Will Riverband become the preferred Aspire team and Loudoun Aspire is a fourth team maybe vice versa?

Loudoun GA is not the second team to NVA when it comes to GA. In GA they are separate entities. Which means NVA can't pull players from Loudoun to play in league games to make up for injuries, sickness, etc. Loudoun has a GA and Aspire. NVA only has a GA team, next year NVA will both, GA and Aspire.

But within the club's hierarchy, NVA is 1 and Loudoun is 2

You guys aren’t getting this and are being too literal. The kids have to come from somewhere. If you thinking about it, NVA is Loudoun first team, Loudoun ga are second team players etc. This is the reason NVA is higher on probably all tables. Same happens with aspire teams. You get it?

You do realize that the person you responded to explained the dynamics perfectly correct right??

So then you are saying riverband will have the third team players and loudoun aspire is the fourth team?

Clearly.

Not going to work that way. They’ll be pulling from a pool of players in Fairfax primarily.

Fairfax City is far away and Fairfax County is very big.

over a million people in Fairfax County. If they have the coaching they will do just fine in that market.

It's comments like this that makes me wonder what investors were told. And therefore what families are being led to believe about.

To receive the kind of investment from PE they have it took a lot more than being “told”. Clearly investors felt like it was a good opportunity based on the market and the competition.

People there is no PE here. There is no ROI. This is a personally funded or backed vanity project.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So if Loudoun GA is the second team to NVA. Will Riverband become the preferred Aspire team and Loudoun Aspire is a fourth team maybe vice versa?

Loudoun GA is not the second team to NVA when it comes to GA. In GA they are separate entities. Which means NVA can't pull players from Loudoun to play in league games to make up for injuries, sickness, etc. Loudoun has a GA and Aspire. NVA only has a GA team, next year NVA will both, GA and Aspire.

But within the club's hierarchy, NVA is 1 and Loudoun is 2

You guys aren’t getting this and are being too literal. The kids have to come from somewhere. If you thinking about it, NVA is Loudoun first team, Loudoun ga are second team players etc. This is the reason NVA is higher on probably all tables. Same happens with aspire teams. You get it?

You do realize that the person you responded to explained the dynamics perfectly correct right??

So then you are saying riverband will have the third team players and loudoun aspire is the fourth team?

Clearly.

Not going to work that way. They’ll be pulling from a pool of players in Fairfax primarily.

Fairfax City is far away and Fairfax County is very big.

over a million people in Fairfax County. If they have the coaching they will do just fine in that market.

It's comments like this that makes me wonder what investors were told. And therefore what families are being led to believe about.

Someone please name a successful start up soccer club in the DMV in the past 15 years. Alliances/mergers don’t count. I think VRSC is maybe the only one and the term successful is being used petty loosely here.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't see the point to this whole complicated fake "pathway" to NVA for just the one RBFC team that exists.

From a strategic standpoint, NVA launching an Aspire team in Fairfax with Riverbend makes a lot of sense.

Geography matters more than people admit. Most families prefer a 10–25 minute drive to training. Once you push past 30 minutes multiple nights a week, the pool shrinks fast, especially for multi-kid households. Loudoun and VRSC naturally pull from western Fairfax and Loudoun because of proximity. By placing Aspire’s home base in Fairfax County, NVA opens access to a completely different player base that likely wouldn’t consider driving west consistently.

Fairfax County has over 1.1 million residents and produces one of the deepest youth soccer pools in the region. Yet the top-tier pathway options locally are limited. Great Falls Reston (GFR) offers ECNL-RL, NCSL, and EDP. Vienna competes in the RL. McLean has Aspire, but roster spots are finite and internal competition is tight. For players in central and eastern Fairfax, Aspire in Fairfax becomes a strong, convenient alternative without requiring a Loudoun commute.

From a league positioning standpoint, Aspire generally sits above ECNL-RL in the player development hierarchy, which makes it attractive to families seeking a higher competitive ceiling without jumping immediately to full ECNL travel demands. That naturally creates interest from players currently in RL who feel capped.

It’s also smart portfolio management. Instead of concentrating Aspire talent pools in Loudoun and competing for the same households as VRSC, Fairfax expands the footprint and reduces direct cannibalization. Different geography, different recruiting lanes.

Fairfax is a massive soccer ecosystem with strong rec foundations and competitive club pipelines. Putting Aspire there taps into a dense player base that hasn’t had as many elite pathway options within immediate reach.

Someone really drank the koolaid on Aspire…

Is there even one person out there who actually believes this is true? NCSL teams beat Aspire. There are probably rec teams better than Aspire.

And some Aspire teams beat ECNL teams too, I can play that game too.

Really? Name one Northern Va Aspire team that beat an NL team? When? Where?

It’s not even clear when they would have had the chance.

An Aspire team smoked VDA 6-2 a few months ago in a tournament.

it was a NY team.. who was 2 in state. NVA girls smoked that team 6-0

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the point to this whole complicated fake "pathway" to NVA for just the one RBFC team that exists.

From a strategic standpoint, NVA launching an Aspire team in Fairfax with Riverbend makes a lot of sense.

Geography matters more than people admit. Most families prefer a 10–25 minute drive to training. Once you push past 30 minutes multiple nights a week, the pool shrinks fast, especially for multi-kid households. Loudoun and VRSC naturally pull from western Fairfax and Loudoun because of proximity. By placing Aspire’s home base in Fairfax County, NVA opens access to a completely different player base that likely wouldn’t consider driving west consistently.

Fairfax County has over 1.1 million residents and produces one of the deepest youth soccer pools in the region. Yet the top-tier pathway options locally are limited. Great Falls Reston (GFR) offers ECNL-RL, NCSL, and EDP. Vienna competes in the RL. McLean has Aspire, but roster spots are finite and internal competition is tight. For players in central and eastern Fairfax, Aspire in Fairfax becomes a strong, convenient alternative without requiring a Loudoun commute.

From a league positioning standpoint, Aspire generally sits above ECNL-RL in the player development hierarchy, which makes it attractive to families seeking a higher competitive ceiling without jumping immediately to full ECNL travel demands. That naturally creates interest from players currently in RL who feel capped.

It’s also smart portfolio management. Instead of concentrating Aspire talent pools in Loudoun and competing for the same households as VRSC, Fairfax expands the footprint and reduces direct cannibalization. Different geography, different recruiting lanes.

Fairfax is a massive soccer ecosystem with strong rec foundations and competitive club pipelines. Putting Aspire there taps into a dense player base that hasn’t had as many elite pathway options within immediate reach.

This is delusional. The local Aspire teams are made up mostly of ex-NCSL players when the respective clubs went GA. No one is fighting for roster spots on Aspire teams. No rational actor thinks Aspire is better than RL. GA is barely better than RL.

Please explain these rankings then

I agree that most people think that but that is based on how strong RL used to be. Currently if you average the rankings for all teams in mid Atlantic’s south GA, VA RL and Mid Atlantic South Aspire you will see a different story. For instance for 2011 you get

GA - 331
Aspire - 772
RL - 926

RL has a few really good teams but also numerous teams ranked 1000+.

I’m not interested in debating dubious rankings from an unidentified source. All I know is my DD plays on an RL team. In bigger tournaments we’ve played other RL teams, GA teams, and an occasional NL team. There’s never been an Aspire team within five bracket levels of her team. If you doubt that, look at the Jefferson Cup brackets and look for Aspire teams.

Maybe Aspire would be competitive with the bottom of the RL table. Even the bottom of the table GA teams would not be competitive at the top of the RL table, much less Aspire teams.

I think you have an overly aspirational view if Aspire.

So on one side of the debate we have a rankings app that is used by many, continues to be tweaked and constantly re ranks teams based on results. On your side of the debate we have your “eye test”.

You can’t cherry pick the top few RL teams and then say the entire RL league is better. Those top RL teams are good. No doubt. But the league as a whole has way more weak teams than strong.

For 2011, the lowest ranked Aspire team is Alexandria at 1265. There are six RL teams (DCSC, LMVSC, VIVA, BRYC, Herndon and SOCA) that are ranked lower than that.

The problem with your argument is not just that it relies on unreliable rankings but that it primarily turns on the least meaningful part of those rankings. It is at the top of the rankings where they have the most value, even if they are dubious even there.

I might be willing to accept that there is some real, discernable difference between the team on the rankings app ranked 5 in the USA vs the team ranked 25, or between the team ranked 25 and the team ranked 50, or 50 v 100, or 100 v 250, etc. Do I think it's very meaningful? No. In the year I'm most familiar with, 2014G, Richmond Orange 1 has been ranked as high as something like 38 and as low as something like 86 and is currently ranked 72. Do I think these shifts mean anything? No, I just think it means that team is roughly competitive with the teams ranked 35 to 80.

But when we are talking about the bottom ranges of the rankings, they don't convey any meaningful information because there is so little information for cross-comparisons and so many very similar teams. So for the range from 1500 to 2500, in my view, that's all one undifferentiated mass separated only by noise. But these are the numbers you are trying to make your case from. If Alexandria 2011 played those six RL teams, maybe it's 3-3, maybe 4-2, 2-4, could be 6-0, 1-5. The rankings don't tell you that much, esp. because even individual games in soccer can be very variable and influenced by random factors.

Not an argument. Just added up the rankings and took the average. Then provided the data.
But I definitely know the team ranked 1500 is much better than the team ranked 2500.

Average rankings is a terrible way to compare leagues, as a league with a bunch of good teams and a few atrocious teams will look worse than a league full of mediocre teams. That proves itself just by looking at the 2011 rankings. 2011 VA RL has 3/19 in the top 250 nationally (above 7 of the 12 GA teams in MAS!!!) and Aspire MAS has 0. 2011 VA RL has 8/19 teams in the top 500. Aspire MAS has 2/9. Do both leagues have crappy teams below that? Of course. RL being way bigger has a few more of them, which drags the average down (although VRSC at 806, McLean at 1049, Loudoun at 1236, and Alexandria at 1260 are trying their best to bring the Aspire average down!). But in RL you are likely to play half your games against top 500 teams while in Aspire you might get one of those a year. Seems pretty clear to me which is the (way) better league.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the point to this whole complicated fake "pathway" to NVA for just the one RBFC team that exists.

From a strategic standpoint, NVA launching an Aspire team in Fairfax with Riverbend makes a lot of sense.

Geography matters more than people admit. Most families prefer a 10–25 minute drive to training. Once you push past 30 minutes multiple nights a week, the pool shrinks fast, especially for multi-kid households. Loudoun and VRSC naturally pull from western Fairfax and Loudoun because of proximity. By placing Aspire’s home base in Fairfax County, NVA opens access to a completely different player base that likely wouldn’t consider driving west consistently.

Fairfax County has over 1.1 million residents and produces one of the deepest youth soccer pools in the region. Yet the top-tier pathway options locally are limited. Great Falls Reston (GFR) offers ECNL-RL, NCSL, and EDP. Vienna competes in the RL. McLean has Aspire, but roster spots are finite and internal competition is tight. For players in central and eastern Fairfax, Aspire in Fairfax becomes a strong, convenient alternative without requiring a Loudoun commute.

From a league positioning standpoint, Aspire generally sits above ECNL-RL in the player development hierarchy, which makes it attractive to families seeking a higher competitive ceiling without jumping immediately to full ECNL travel demands. That naturally creates interest from players currently in RL who feel capped.

It’s also smart portfolio management. Instead of concentrating Aspire talent pools in Loudoun and competing for the same households as VRSC, Fairfax expands the footprint and reduces direct cannibalization. Different geography, different recruiting lanes.

Fairfax is a massive soccer ecosystem with strong rec foundations and competitive club pipelines. Putting Aspire there taps into a dense player base that hasn’t had as many elite pathway options within immediate reach.

Someone really drank the koolaid on Aspire…

Is there even one person out there who actually believes this is true? NCSL teams beat Aspire. There are probably rec teams better than Aspire.

And some Aspire teams beat ECNL teams too, I can play that game too.

Really? Name one Northern Va Aspire team that beat an NL team? When? Where?

It’s not even clear when they would have had the chance.

An Aspire team smoked VDA 6-2 a few months ago in a tournament.

it was a NY team.. who was 2 in state. NVA girls smoked that team 6-0

Everybody getting smoked!

[Anonymous]

Rumor has it BP is looking to move here. He's topped out at VSA/VDA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rumor has it BP is looking to move here. He's topped out at VSA/VDA.

Rumor has it Pep is coming too! He wants to get back to the grass roots and coach some elite aspire teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rumor has it BP is looking to move here. He's topped out at VSA/VDA.

what a score for riverbend! sign me up!!!

[Anonymous]

looks like they're promising a pathway and college and professional opportunities! sounds amazing!

[Anonymous]

They gave my DD NIL money

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the point to this whole complicated fake "pathway" to NVA for just the one RBFC team that exists.

From a strategic standpoint, NVA launching an Aspire team in Fairfax with Riverbend makes a lot of sense.

Geography matters more than people admit. Most families prefer a 10–25 minute drive to training. Once you push past 30 minutes multiple nights a week, the pool shrinks fast, especially for multi-kid households. Loudoun and VRSC naturally pull from western Fairfax and Loudoun because of proximity. By placing Aspire’s home base in Fairfax County, NVA opens access to a completely different player base that likely wouldn’t consider driving west consistently.

Fairfax County has over 1.1 million residents and produces one of the deepest youth soccer pools in the region. Yet the top-tier pathway options locally are limited. Great Falls Reston (GFR) offers ECNL-RL, NCSL, and EDP. Vienna competes in the RL. McLean has Aspire, but roster spots are finite and internal competition is tight. For players in central and eastern Fairfax, Aspire in Fairfax becomes a strong, convenient alternative without requiring a Loudoun commute.

From a league positioning standpoint, Aspire generally sits above ECNL-RL in the player development hierarchy, which makes it attractive to families seeking a higher competitive ceiling without jumping immediately to full ECNL travel demands. That naturally creates interest from players currently in RL who feel capped.

It’s also smart portfolio management. Instead of concentrating Aspire talent pools in Loudoun and competing for the same households as VRSC, Fairfax expands the footprint and reduces direct cannibalization. Different geography, different recruiting lanes.

Fairfax is a massive soccer ecosystem with strong rec foundations and competitive club pipelines. Putting Aspire there taps into a dense player base that hasn’t had as many elite pathway options within immediate reach.

This is delusional. The local Aspire teams are made up mostly of ex-NCSL players when the respective clubs went GA. No one is fighting for roster spots on Aspire teams. No rational actor thinks Aspire is better than RL. GA is barely better than RL.

Please explain these rankings then

I agree that most people think that but that is based on how strong RL used to be. Currently if you average the rankings for all teams in mid Atlantic’s south GA, VA RL and Mid Atlantic South Aspire you will see a different story. For instance for 2011 you get

GA - 331
Aspire - 772
RL - 926

RL has a few really good teams but also numerous teams ranked 1000+.

I’m not interested in debating dubious rankings from an unidentified source. All I know is my DD plays on an RL team. In bigger tournaments we’ve played other RL teams, GA teams, and an occasional NL team. There’s never been an Aspire team within five bracket levels of her team. If you doubt that, look at the Jefferson Cup brackets and look for Aspire teams.

Maybe Aspire would be competitive with the bottom of the RL table. Even the bottom of the table GA teams would not be competitive at the top of the RL table, much less Aspire teams.

I think you have an overly aspirational view if Aspire.

So on one side of the debate we have a rankings app that is used by many, continues to be tweaked and constantly re ranks teams based on results. On your side of the debate we have your “eye test”.

You can’t cherry pick the top few RL teams and then say the entire RL league is better. Those top RL teams are good. No doubt. But the league as a whole has way more weak teams than strong.

For 2011, the lowest ranked Aspire team is Alexandria at 1265. There are six RL teams (DCSC, LMVSC, VIVA, BRYC, Herndon and SOCA) that are ranked lower than that.

The problem with your argument is not just that it relies on unreliable rankings but that it primarily turns on the least meaningful part of those rankings. It is at the top of the rankings where they have the most value, even if they are dubious even there.

I might be willing to accept that there is some real, discernable difference between the team on the rankings app ranked 5 in the USA vs the team ranked 25, or between the team ranked 25 and the team ranked 50, or 50 v 100, or 100 v 250, etc. Do I think it's very meaningful? No. In the year I'm most familiar with, 2014G, Richmond Orange 1 has been ranked as high as something like 38 and as low as something like 86 and is currently ranked 72. Do I think these shifts mean anything? No, I just think it means that team is roughly competitive with the teams ranked 35 to 80.

But when we are talking about the bottom ranges of the rankings, they don't convey any meaningful information because there is so little information for cross-comparisons and so many very similar teams. So for the range from 1500 to 2500, in my view, that's all one undifferentiated mass separated only by noise. But these are the numbers you are trying to make your case from. If Alexandria 2011 played those six RL teams, maybe it's 3-3, maybe 4-2, 2-4, could be 6-0, 1-5. The rankings don't tell you that much, esp. because even individual games in soccer can be very variable and influenced by random factors.

Not an argument. Just added up the rankings and took the average. Then provided the data.
But I definitely know the team ranked 1500 is much better than the team ranked 2500.

Average rankings is a terrible way to compare leagues, as a league with a bunch of good teams and a few atrocious teams will look worse than a league full of mediocre teams. That proves itself just by looking at the 2011 rankings. 2011 VA RL has 3/19 in the top 250 nationally (above 7 of the 12 GA teams in MAS!!!) and Aspire MAS has 0. 2011 VA RL has 8/19 teams in the top 500. Aspire MAS has 2/9. Do both leagues have crappy teams below that? Of course. RL being way bigger has a few more of them, which drags the average down (although VRSC at 806, McLean at 1049, Loudoun at 1236, and Alexandria at 1260 are trying their best to bring the Aspire average down!). But in RL you are likely to play half your games against top 500 teams while in Aspire you might get one of those a year. Seems pretty clear to me which is the (way) better league.

RL also has 5 teams above 1600. For reference Valor Gold is 1600 and they came in last in NCSL D1.
At best RL and Aspire are equivalent. RL you play a few good, most medium and some really bad. Aspire is a lot of medium.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the point to this whole complicated fake "pathway" to NVA for just the one RBFC team that exists.

From a strategic standpoint, NVA launching an Aspire team in Fairfax with Riverbend makes a lot of sense.

Geography matters more than people admit. Most families prefer a 10–25 minute drive to training. Once you push past 30 minutes multiple nights a week, the pool shrinks fast, especially for multi-kid households. Loudoun and VRSC naturally pull from western Fairfax and Loudoun because of proximity. By placing Aspire’s home base in Fairfax County, NVA opens access to a completely different player base that likely wouldn’t consider driving west consistently.

Fairfax County has over 1.1 million residents and produces one of the deepest youth soccer pools in the region. Yet the top-tier pathway options locally are limited. Great Falls Reston (GFR) offers ECNL-RL, NCSL, and EDP. Vienna competes in the RL. McLean has Aspire, but roster spots are finite and internal competition is tight. For players in central and eastern Fairfax, Aspire in Fairfax becomes a strong, convenient alternative without requiring a Loudoun commute.

From a league positioning standpoint, Aspire generally sits above ECNL-RL in the player development hierarchy, which makes it attractive to families seeking a higher competitive ceiling without jumping immediately to full ECNL travel demands. That naturally creates interest from players currently in RL who feel capped.

It’s also smart portfolio management. Instead of concentrating Aspire talent pools in Loudoun and competing for the same households as VRSC, Fairfax expands the footprint and reduces direct cannibalization. Different geography, different recruiting lanes.

Fairfax is a massive soccer ecosystem with strong rec foundations and competitive club pipelines. Putting Aspire there taps into a dense player base that hasn’t had as many elite pathway options within immediate reach.

This is delusional. The local Aspire teams are made up mostly of ex-NCSL players when the respective clubs went GA. No one is fighting for roster spots on Aspire teams. No rational actor thinks Aspire is better than RL. GA is barely better than RL.

Please explain these rankings then

I agree that most people think that but that is based on how strong RL used to be. Currently if you average the rankings for all teams in mid Atlantic’s south GA, VA RL and Mid Atlantic South Aspire you will see a different story. For instance for 2011 you get

GA - 331
Aspire - 772
RL - 926

RL has a few really good teams but also numerous teams ranked 1000+.

I’m not interested in debating dubious rankings from an unidentified source. All I know is my DD plays on an RL team. In bigger tournaments we’ve played other RL teams, GA teams, and an occasional NL team. There’s never been an Aspire team within five bracket levels of her team. If you doubt that, look at the Jefferson Cup brackets and look for Aspire teams.

Maybe Aspire would be competitive with the bottom of the RL table. Even the bottom of the table GA teams would not be competitive at the top of the RL table, much less Aspire teams.

I think you have an overly aspirational view if Aspire.

So on one side of the debate we have a rankings app that is used by many, continues to be tweaked and constantly re ranks teams based on results. On your side of the debate we have your “eye test”.

You can’t cherry pick the top few RL teams and then say the entire RL league is better. Those top RL teams are good. No doubt. But the league as a whole has way more weak teams than strong.

For 2011, the lowest ranked Aspire team is Alexandria at 1265. There are six RL teams (DCSC, LMVSC, VIVA, BRYC, Herndon and SOCA) that are ranked lower than that.

The problem with your argument is not just that it relies on unreliable rankings but that it primarily turns on the least meaningful part of those rankings. It is at the top of the rankings where they have the most value, even if they are dubious even there.

I might be willing to accept that there is some real, discernable difference between the team on the rankings app ranked 5 in the USA vs the team ranked 25, or between the team ranked 25 and the team ranked 50, or 50 v 100, or 100 v 250, etc. Do I think it's very meaningful? No. In the year I'm most familiar with, 2014G, Richmond Orange 1 has been ranked as high as something like 38 and as low as something like 86 and is currently ranked 72. Do I think these shifts mean anything? No, I just think it means that team is roughly competitive with the teams ranked 35 to 80.

But when we are talking about the bottom ranges of the rankings, they don't convey any meaningful information because there is so little information for cross-comparisons and so many very similar teams. So for the range from 1500 to 2500, in my view, that's all one undifferentiated mass separated only by noise. But these are the numbers you are trying to make your case from. If Alexandria 2011 played those six RL teams, maybe it's 3-3, maybe 4-2, 2-4, could be 6-0, 1-5. The rankings don't tell you that much, esp. because even individual games in soccer can be very variable and influenced by random factors.

Not an argument. Just added up the rankings and took the average. Then provided the data.
But I definitely know the team ranked 1500 is much better than the team ranked 2500.

Average rankings is a terrible way to compare leagues, as a league with a bunch of good teams and a few atrocious teams will look worse than a league full of mediocre teams. That proves itself just by looking at the 2011 rankings. 2011 VA RL has 3/19 in the top 250 nationally (above 7 of the 12 GA teams in MAS!!!) and Aspire MAS has 0. 2011 VA RL has 8/19 teams in the top 500. Aspire MAS has 2/9. Do both leagues have crappy teams below that? Of course. RL being way bigger has a few more of them, which drags the average down (although VRSC at 806, McLean at 1049, Loudoun at 1236, and Alexandria at 1260 are trying their best to bring the Aspire average down!). But in RL you are likely to play half your games against top 500 teams while in Aspire you might get one of those a year. Seems pretty clear to me which is the (way) better league.

RL also has 5 teams above 1600. For reference Valor Gold is 1600 and they came in last in NCSL D1.
At best RL and Aspire are equivalent. RL you play a few good, most medium and some really bad. Aspire is a lot of medium.

Valor gold is not RL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't see the point to this whole complicated fake "pathway" to NVA for just the one RBFC team that exists.

From a strategic standpoint, NVA launching an Aspire team in Fairfax with Riverbend makes a lot of sense.

Geography matters more than people admit. Most families prefer a 10–25 minute drive to training. Once you push past 30 minutes multiple nights a week, the pool shrinks fast, especially for multi-kid households. Loudoun and VRSC naturally pull from western Fairfax and Loudoun because of proximity. By placing Aspire’s home base in Fairfax County, NVA opens access to a completely different player base that likely wouldn’t consider driving west consistently.

Fairfax County has over 1.1 million residents and produces one of the deepest youth soccer pools in the region. Yet the top-tier pathway options locally are limited. Great Falls Reston (GFR) offers ECNL-RL, NCSL, and EDP. Vienna competes in the RL. McLean has Aspire, but roster spots are finite and internal competition is tight. For players in central and eastern Fairfax, Aspire in Fairfax becomes a strong, convenient alternative without requiring a Loudoun commute.

From a league positioning standpoint, Aspire generally sits above ECNL-RL in the player development hierarchy, which makes it attractive to families seeking a higher competitive ceiling without jumping immediately to full ECNL travel demands. That naturally creates interest from players currently in RL who feel capped.

It’s also smart portfolio management. Instead of concentrating Aspire talent pools in Loudoun and competing for the same households as VRSC, Fairfax expands the footprint and reduces direct cannibalization. Different geography, different recruiting lanes.

Fairfax is a massive soccer ecosystem with strong rec foundations and competitive club pipelines. Putting Aspire there taps into a dense player base that hasn’t had as many elite pathway options within immediate reach.

This is delusional. The local Aspire teams are made up mostly of ex-NCSL players when the respective clubs went GA. No one is fighting for roster spots on Aspire teams. No rational actor thinks Aspire is better than RL. GA is barely better than RL.

Please explain these rankings then

I agree that most people think that but that is based on how strong RL used to be. Currently if you average the rankings for all teams in mid Atlantic’s south GA, VA RL and Mid Atlantic South Aspire you will see a different story. For instance for 2011 you get

GA - 331
Aspire - 772
RL - 926

RL has a few really good teams but also numerous teams ranked 1000+.

I’m not interested in debating dubious rankings from an unidentified source. All I know is my DD plays on an RL team. In bigger tournaments we’ve played other RL teams, GA teams, and an occasional NL team. There’s never been an Aspire team within five bracket levels of her team. If you doubt that, look at the Jefferson Cup brackets and look for Aspire teams.

Maybe Aspire would be competitive with the bottom of the RL table. Even the bottom of the table GA teams would not be competitive at the top of the RL table, much less Aspire teams.

I think you have an overly aspirational view if Aspire.

So on one side of the debate we have a rankings app that is used by many, continues to be tweaked and constantly re ranks teams based on results. On your side of the debate we have your “eye test”.

You can’t cherry pick the top few RL teams and then say the entire RL league is better. Those top RL teams are good. No doubt. But the league as a whole has way more weak teams than strong.

For 2011, the lowest ranked Aspire team is Alexandria at 1265. There are six RL teams (DCSC, LMVSC, VIVA, BRYC, Herndon and SOCA) that are ranked lower than that.

The problem with your argument is not just that it relies on unreliable rankings but that it primarily turns on the least meaningful part of those rankings. It is at the top of the rankings where they have the most value, even if they are dubious even there.

I might be willing to accept that there is some real, discernable difference between the team on the rankings app ranked 5 in the USA vs the team ranked 25, or between the team ranked 25 and the team ranked 50, or 50 v 100, or 100 v 250, etc. Do I think it's very meaningful? No. In the year I'm most familiar with, 2014G, Richmond Orange 1 has been ranked as high as something like 38 and as low as something like 86 and is currently ranked 72. Do I think these shifts mean anything? No, I just think it means that team is roughly competitive with the teams ranked 35 to 80.

But when we are talking about the bottom ranges of the rankings, they don't convey any meaningful information because there is so little information for cross-comparisons and so many very similar teams. So for the range from 1500 to 2500, in my view, that's all one undifferentiated mass separated only by noise. But these are the numbers you are trying to make your case from. If Alexandria 2011 played those six RL teams, maybe it's 3-3, maybe 4-2, 2-4, could be 6-0, 1-5. The rankings don't tell you that much, esp. because even individual games in soccer can be very variable and influenced by random factors.

Not an argument. Just added up the rankings and took the average. Then provided the data.
But I definitely know the team ranked 1500 is much better than the team ranked 2500.

Average rankings is a terrible way to compare leagues, as a league with a bunch of good teams and a few atrocious teams will look worse than a league full of mediocre teams. That proves itself just by looking at the 2011 rankings. 2011 VA RL has 3/19 in the top 250 nationally (above 7 of the 12 GA teams in MAS!!!) and Aspire MAS has 0. 2011 VA RL has 8/19 teams in the top 500. Aspire MAS has 2/9. Do both leagues have crappy teams below that? Of course. RL being way bigger has a few more of them, which drags the average down (although VRSC at 806, McLean at 1049, Loudoun at 1236, and Alexandria at 1260 are trying their best to bring the Aspire average down!). But in RL you are likely to play half your games against top 500 teams while in Aspire you might get one of those a year. Seems pretty clear to me which is the (way) better league.

RL also has 5 teams above 1600. For reference Valor Gold is 1600 and they came in last in NCSL D1.
At best RL and Aspire are equivalent. RL you play a few good, most medium and some really bad. Aspire is a lot of medium.

If that’s what they told you to convince you to sign up, god bless you.

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Anonymous wrote:I don't see the point to this whole complicated fake "pathway" to NVA for just the one RBFC team that exists.

From a strategic standpoint, NVA launching an Aspire team in Fairfax with Riverbend makes a lot of sense.

Geography matters more than people admit. Most families prefer a 10–25 minute drive to training. Once you push past 30 minutes multiple nights a week, the pool shrinks fast, especially for multi-kid households. Loudoun and VRSC naturally pull from western Fairfax and Loudoun because of proximity. By placing Aspire’s home base in Fairfax County, NVA opens access to a completely different player base that likely wouldn’t consider driving west consistently.

Fairfax County has over 1.1 million residents and produces one of the deepest youth soccer pools in the region. Yet the top-tier pathway options locally are limited. Great Falls Reston (GFR) offers ECNL-RL, NCSL, and EDP. Vienna competes in the RL. McLean has Aspire, but roster spots are finite and internal competition is tight. For players in central and eastern Fairfax, Aspire in Fairfax becomes a strong, convenient alternative without requiring a Loudoun commute.

From a league positioning standpoint, Aspire generally sits above ECNL-RL in the player development hierarchy, which makes it attractive to families seeking a higher competitive ceiling without jumping immediately to full ECNL travel demands. That naturally creates interest from players currently in RL who feel capped.

It’s also smart portfolio management. Instead of concentrating Aspire talent pools in Loudoun and competing for the same households as VRSC, Fairfax expands the footprint and reduces direct cannibalization. Different geography, different recruiting lanes.

Fairfax is a massive soccer ecosystem with strong rec foundations and competitive club pipelines. Putting Aspire there taps into a dense player base that hasn’t had as many elite pathway options within immediate reach.

This is delusional. The local Aspire teams are made up mostly of ex-NCSL players when the respective clubs went GA. No one is fighting for roster spots on Aspire teams. No rational actor thinks Aspire is better than RL. GA is barely better than RL.

Please explain these rankings then

I agree that most people think that but that is based on how strong RL used to be. Currently if you average the rankings for all teams in mid Atlantic’s south GA, VA RL and Mid Atlantic South Aspire you will see a different story. For instance for 2011 you get

GA - 331
Aspire - 772
RL - 926

RL has a few really good teams but also numerous teams ranked 1000+.

I’m not interested in debating dubious rankings from an unidentified source. All I know is my DD plays on an RL team. In bigger tournaments we’ve played other RL teams, GA teams, and an occasional NL team. There’s never been an Aspire team within five bracket levels of her team. If you doubt that, look at the Jefferson Cup brackets and look for Aspire teams.

Maybe Aspire would be competitive with the bottom of the RL table. Even the bottom of the table GA teams would not be competitive at the top of the RL table, much less Aspire teams.

I think you have an overly aspirational view if Aspire.

So on one side of the debate we have a rankings app that is used by many, continues to be tweaked and constantly re ranks teams based on results. On your side of the debate we have your “eye test”.

You can’t cherry pick the top few RL teams and then say the entire RL league is better. Those top RL teams are good. No doubt. But the league as a whole has way more weak teams than strong.

For 2011, the lowest ranked Aspire team is Alexandria at 1265. There are six RL teams (DCSC, LMVSC, VIVA, BRYC, Herndon and SOCA) that are ranked lower than that.

The problem with your argument is not just that it relies on unreliable rankings but that it primarily turns on the least meaningful part of those rankings. It is at the top of the rankings where they have the most value, even if they are dubious even there.

I might be willing to accept that there is some real, discernable difference between the team on the rankings app ranked 5 in the USA vs the team ranked 25, or between the team ranked 25 and the team ranked 50, or 50 v 100, or 100 v 250, etc. Do I think it's very meaningful? No. In the year I'm most familiar with, 2014G, Richmond Orange 1 has been ranked as high as something like 38 and as low as something like 86 and is currently ranked 72. Do I think these shifts mean anything? No, I just think it means that team is roughly competitive with the teams ranked 35 to 80.

But when we are talking about the bottom ranges of the rankings, they don't convey any meaningful information because there is so little information for cross-comparisons and so many very similar teams. So for the range from 1500 to 2500, in my view, that's all one undifferentiated mass separated only by noise. But these are the numbers you are trying to make your case from. If Alexandria 2011 played those six RL teams, maybe it's 3-3, maybe 4-2, 2-4, could be 6-0, 1-5. The rankings don't tell you that much, esp. because even individual games in soccer can be very variable and influenced by random factors.

Not an argument. Just added up the rankings and took the average. Then provided the data.
But I definitely know the team ranked 1500 is much better than the team ranked 2500.

Average rankings is a terrible way to compare leagues, as a league with a bunch of good teams and a few atrocious teams will look worse than a league full of mediocre teams. That proves itself just by looking at the 2011 rankings. 2011 VA RL has 3/19 in the top 250 nationally (above 7 of the 12 GA teams in MAS!!!) and Aspire MAS has 0. 2011 VA RL has 8/19 teams in the top 500. Aspire MAS has 2/9. Do both leagues have crappy teams below that? Of course. RL being way bigger has a few more of them, which drags the average down (although VRSC at 806, McLean at 1049, Loudoun at 1236, and Alexandria at 1260 are trying their best to bring the Aspire average down!). But in RL you are likely to play half your games against top 500 teams while in Aspire you might get one of those a year. Seems pretty clear to me which is the (way) better league.

RL also has 5 teams above 1600. For reference Valor Gold is 1600 and they came in last in NCSL D1.
At best RL and Aspire are equivalent. RL you play a few good, most medium and some really bad. Aspire is a lot of medium.

That is completely disproven by the facts in the PP.