Travel Soccer teams around NOVA let's discuss Part II

[Anonymous]

Looking at a few clubs for next year. How do SYC and LMVSC do in CCL at the u9-10 age groups (boys)? Just curious. I plan to try to watch a few games, but thought I would ask here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Looking at a few clubs for next year. How do SYC and LMVSC do in CCL at the u9-10 age groups (boys)? Just curious. I plan to try to watch a few games, but thought I would ask here.

From my perspective, at that age it is more about the training/coaches that you get at these ages. You really need to make sure you find a coach that is going to get the best out of your child. We made the switch from a different club to LMVSC because we felt our child was getting lost in the 30 child plus size training sessions. The league to me didnt matter during tryouts (proximity and training at the top of the list). The boys coach at u9/u10 at LMCVSC is hand down awesome. Stern when he needs to be without screaming his head off and fun at the same time. We couldnt be happier. While I want our team to win its more about finding a place to fit in. Unlike some previous posters I found the competition at CCL to be about even. Yes there are some blow outs and also some close games. You will find that elsewhere. Most importantly make sure your child is having fun and learning new skills. Not sure about SYC..I believe this is their first year in CCL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Looking at a few clubs for next year. How do SYC and LMVSC do in CCL at the u9-10 age groups (boys)? Just curious. I plan to try to watch a few games, but thought I would ask here.

From my perspective, at that age it is more about the training/coaches that you get at these ages. You really need to make sure you find a coach that is going to get the best out of your child. We made the switch from a different club to LMVSC because we felt our child was getting lost in the 30 child plus size training sessions. The league to me didnt matter during tryouts (proximity and training at the top of the list). The boys coach at u9/u10 at LMCVSC is hand down awesome. Stern when he needs to be without screaming his head off and fun at the same time. We couldnt be happier. While I want our team to win its more about finding a place to fit in. Unlike some previous posters I found the competition at CCL to be about even. Yes there are some blow outs and also some close games. You will find that elsewhere. Most importantly make sure your child is having fun and learning new skills. Not sure about SYC..I believe this is their first year in CCL.

SYC is great club. We've played their boys in U9-U11 and were impressed. Disagree about 'most leagues' having blowouts. Once you are ranked in NCSL, games are competitive. Our scores all season are very close. Even games that are 4-0 are close games. Nothing worse in my mind than driving an hour for no competition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

Most ignorant statement of all ignorant statements. Congrats

I don't understand why you would congratulate someone for being ignorant. Seems dumb. If you think there aren't good teams in ODSL, you're wrong. Also, the best U-Little teams I've ever seen aren't travel teams at all but house teams from Woodbridge.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

Most ignorant statement of all ignorant statements. Congrats

I don't understand why you would congratulate someone for being ignorant. Seems dumb. If you think there aren't good teams in ODSL, you're wrong. Also, the best U-Little teams I've ever seen aren't travel teams at all but house teams from Woodbridge.

Then you need to get out more because you have no clue what you're talking about. Truly...you dont

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

YES! Think of DFC Scorpions, RMFC teams(not all), like Gremio, VISTA teams. Manassas Soccer Club is up and coming and very strong, the owner just doesn't have enough field space and the parents don't want to travel too far so he currently stays out of NCSL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

What makes you think we're poor you ass-wipe!

I moved to an independent club with my son because I was sick of the 1hr long training sessions from E-licensed coaches following a curriculum some TD thought up a few years and as they were phoning it in to their 2nd training session since they had taken up 3 teams to make some money on the side they weren't providing any instruction at all or correcting the boys when they say the drills being executed incorrectly. The current team were on has 3 practices a week by a coach, whose son is on the team(why else would he do it), we have 2 hour practice sessions that start after he gets home from work which is usually by 6pm. If you get there late, no worries as he sometimes has work issues and other parents start the kids on the warm-ups. The trainer changes the drills and what we work depending on how the team is doing in the games, we don't have a season and practice during December/January/February and the team as a whole registers in the indoor leagues as well. Even though I am paying less at this point than pretty much all of the clubs around the area would charge for 10-months of soccer, DS team as a whole is getting way more in training time vs games. We are NOT required to show up in our training kits at 4:45pm for practice or have a fancy logo on our shirts or have some kind of misplaced ego because were on the "RED" or "BLUE" team or play in CCL1 or whatever stupid shiny piece the soccer clubs have come up with to separate money from their parents. I guarantee you, soccer basis, my son's experience is better than your son's experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:the really good kids don't play for their high schools- they keep playing for the good clubs.

I assumed that this was the case. And further that clubs might not even allow kids to do high school soccer. I figured that the level of high school soccer would generally be beneath that of the travel clubs. Am I totally off here?

if they are playing for one of the clubs- the contract says they can't play for their high school soocer team (they can play other high school sports). I am sure there are some really competitive high school teams but they do not have players who are on a travel team.

This is simply not true. All high school players at the three schools near me in Fairfax County are travel players.

That doesn't mean all travel players play in high school. If you're in Development Academy, you're not allowed to play high school, and some other clubs discourage their best players from playing. But there enough mid-to-high-level travel players on high school teams that it's nearly impossible to make a high school team if you're playing low-level travel or rec league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

What makes you think we're poor you ass-wipe!

I moved to an independent club with my son because I was sick of the 1hr long training sessions from E-licensed coaches following a curriculum some TD thought up a few years and as they were phoning it in to their 2nd training session since they had taken up 3 teams to make some money on the side they weren't providing any instruction at all or correcting the boys when they say the drills being executed incorrectly. The current team were on has 3 practices a week by a coach, whose son is on the team(why else would he do it), we have 2 hour practice sessions that start after he gets home from work which is usually by 6pm. If you get there late, no worries as he sometimes has work issues and other parents start the kids on the warm-ups. The trainer changes the drills and what we work depending on how the team is doing in the games, we don't have a season and practice during December/January/February and the team as a whole registers in the indoor leagues as well. Even though I am paying less at this point than pretty much all of the clubs around the area would charge for 10-months of soccer, DS team as a whole is getting way more in training time vs games. We are NOT required to show up in our training kits at 4:45pm for practice or have a fancy logo on our shirts or have some kind of misplaced ego because were on the "RED" or "BLUE" team or play in CCL1 or whatever stupid shiny piece the soccer clubs have come up with to separate money from their parents. I guarantee you, soccer basis, my son's experience is better than your son's experience.

Let's rephrase the statement: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams, many predominantly Hispanic and some parent-coached, who aren't in NCSL for whatever reason (sometimes field issues, sometimes by choice). Dynamite, VISTA and a few others have some teams that routinely go into tournaments and clobber high-level NCSL teams. IFC actually has entered the occasional team in EDP.

It's a pity we don't have a single competition that would bring together the good teams from CCL (maybe half of them), VPL (maybe a third of them), ECNL (all 1 of them on the boys side), EDP (most of D1 and some of D2), NCSL (most of D1, some of D2) and ODSL (a couple of teams from D1). That would be a great, competitive league or tournament. Alas, none of these folks want to play nicely with each other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

What makes you think we're poor you ass-wipe!

I moved to an independent club with my son because I was sick of the 1hr long training sessions from E-licensed coaches following a curriculum some TD thought up a few years and as they were phoning it in to their 2nd training session since they had taken up 3 teams to make some money on the side they weren't providing any instruction at all or correcting the boys when they say the drills being executed incorrectly. The current team were on has 3 practices a week by a coach, whose son is on the team(why else would he do it), we have 2 hour practice sessions that start after he gets home from work which is usually by 6pm. If you get there late, no worries as he sometimes has work issues and other parents start the kids on the warm-ups. The trainer changes the drills and what we work depending on how the team is doing in the games, we don't have a season and practice during December/January/February and the team as a whole registers in the indoor leagues as well. Even though I am paying less at this point than pretty much all of the clubs around the area would charge for 10-months of soccer, DS team as a whole is getting way more in training time vs games. We are NOT required to show up in our training kits at 4:45pm for practice or have a fancy logo on our shirts or have some kind of misplaced ego because were on the "RED" or "BLUE" team or play in CCL1 or whatever stupid shiny piece the soccer clubs have come up with to separate money from their parents. I guarantee you, soccer basis, my son's experience is better than your son's experience.

dayyyyum

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

What makes you think we're poor you ass-wipe!

I moved to an independent club with my son because I was sick of the 1hr long training sessions from E-licensed coaches following a curriculum some TD thought up a few years and as they were phoning it in to their 2nd training session since they had taken up 3 teams to make some money on the side they weren't providing any instruction at all or correcting the boys when they say the drills being executed incorrectly. The current team were on has 3 practices a week by a coach, whose son is on the team(why else would he do it), we have 2 hour practice sessions that start after he gets home from work which is usually by 6pm. If you get there late, no worries as he sometimes has work issues and other parents start the kids on the warm-ups. The trainer changes the drills and what we work depending on how the team is doing in the games, we don't have a season and practice during December/January/February and the team as a whole registers in the indoor leagues as well. Even though I am paying less at this point than pretty much all of the clubs around the area would charge for 10-months of soccer, DS team as a whole is getting way more in training time vs games. We are NOT required to show up in our training kits at 4:45pm for practice or have a fancy logo on our shirts or have some kind of misplaced ego because were on the "RED" or "BLUE" team or play in CCL1 or whatever stupid shiny piece the soccer clubs have come up with to separate money from their parents. I guarantee you, soccer basis, my son's experience is better than your son's experience.

The first sentence is embarrassingly incomprehensible, but I got the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

What makes you think we're poor you ass-wipe!

I moved to an independent club with my son because I was sick of the 1hr long training sessions from E-licensed coaches following a curriculum some TD thought up a few years and as they were phoning it in to their 2nd training session since they had taken up 3 teams to make some money on the side they weren't providing any instruction at all or correcting the boys when they say the drills being executed incorrectly. The current team were on has 3 practices a week by a coach, whose son is on the team(why else would he do it), we have 2 hour practice sessions that start after he gets home from work which is usually by 6pm. If you get there late, no worries as he sometimes has work issues and other parents start the kids on the warm-ups. The trainer changes the drills and what we work depending on how the team is doing in the games, we don't have a season and practice during December/January/February and the team as a whole registers in the indoor leagues as well. Even though I am paying less at this point than pretty much all of the clubs around the area would charge for 10-months of soccer, DS team as a whole is getting way more in training time vs games. We are NOT required to show up in our training kits at 4:45pm for practice or have a fancy logo on our shirts or have some kind of misplaced ego because were on the "RED" or "BLUE" team or play in CCL1 or whatever stupid shiny piece the soccer clubs have come up with to separate money from their parents. I guarantee you, soccer basis, my son's experience is better than your son's experience.

Let's rephrase the statement: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams, many predominantly Hispanic and some parent-coached, who aren't in NCSL for whatever reason (sometimes field issues, sometimes by choice). Dynamite, VISTA and a few others have some teams that routinely go into tournaments and clobber high-level NCSL teams. IFC actually has entered the occasional team in EDP.

It's a pity we don't have a single competition that would bring together the good teams from CCL (maybe half of them), VPL (maybe a third of them), ECNL (all 1 of them on the boys side), EDP (most of D1 and some of D2), NCSL (most of D1, some of D2) and ODSL (a couple of teams from D1). That would be a great, competitive league or tournament. Alas, none of these folks want to play nicely with each other.

There is, and it is modeled after the Champions League in Europe. It's called the State Cup, pretty much any team can register. It would be perfect for the top teams in all of the leagues to be invited for smaller price than is currently being charged, and have guaranteed 2 games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

What makes you think we're poor you ass-wipe!

I moved to an independent club with my son because I was sick of the 1hr long training sessions from E-licensed coaches following a curriculum some TD thought up a few years and as they were phoning it in to their 2nd training session since they had taken up 3 teams to make some money on the side they weren't providing any instruction at all or correcting the boys when they say the drills being executed incorrectly. The current team were on has 3 practices a week by a coach, whose son is on the team(why else would he do it), we have 2 hour practice sessions that start after he gets home from work which is usually by 6pm. If you get there late, no worries as he sometimes has work issues and other parents start the kids on the warm-ups. The trainer changes the drills and what we work depending on how the team is doing in the games, we don't have a season and practice during December/January/February and the team as a whole registers in the indoor leagues as well. Even though I am paying less at this point than pretty much all of the clubs around the area would charge for 10-months of soccer, DS team as a whole is getting way more in training time vs games. We are NOT required to show up in our training kits at 4:45pm for practice or have a fancy logo on our shirts or have some kind of misplaced ego because were on the "RED" or "BLUE" team or play in CCL1 or whatever stupid shiny piece the soccer clubs have come up with to separate money from their parents. I guarantee you, soccer basis, my son's experience is better than your son's experience.

I love you. I did the similar thing with my kids. We left one of the big clubs because it was a factory. Coaches had too many teams and the training wasn't as good. They barely could remember their names.

In the young years, it's all about individual development. I don't care about Clubs. I feel bad for people that didn't come from a soccer background because they get fooled by all the pomp and circumstance and talk of State Cup and Acadamies, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^^^
This is pretty funny. I stopped reading after "great random teams in NCSL or ODSL". There are zero great teams in ODSL.

I don't know about great, but don't overlook the ODSL teams that can't meet NCSL requirements (and thus can't join NCSL) yet have talented rosters. In most cases it's a team that a parent coaches because his son or daughter just happens to be that age, and the players are skilled because they've grown up with the game in family settings. Great? Probably not, but they'll can certainly blow teams out.

Agree to an extent. Let's say it more clearly: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams of poor Hispanic kids being coached by their crazy dads. Greatness isn't out of reach.

What makes you think we're poor you ass-wipe!

I moved to an independent club with my son because I was sick of the 1hr long training sessions from E-licensed coaches following a curriculum some TD thought up a few years and as they were phoning it in to their 2nd training session since they had taken up 3 teams to make some money on the side they weren't providing any instruction at all or correcting the boys when they say the drills being executed incorrectly. The current team were on has 3 practices a week by a coach, whose son is on the team(why else would he do it), we have 2 hour practice sessions that start after he gets home from work which is usually by 6pm. If you get there late, no worries as he sometimes has work issues and other parents start the kids on the warm-ups. The trainer changes the drills and what we work depending on how the team is doing in the games, we don't have a season and practice during December/January/February and the team as a whole registers in the indoor leagues as well. Even though I am paying less at this point than pretty much all of the clubs around the area would charge for 10-months of soccer, DS team as a whole is getting way more in training time vs games. We are NOT required to show up in our training kits at 4:45pm for practice or have a fancy logo on our shirts or have some kind of misplaced ego because were on the "RED" or "BLUE" team or play in CCL1 or whatever stupid shiny piece the soccer clubs have come up with to separate money from their parents. I guarantee you, soccer basis, my son's experience is better than your son's experience.

I love you. I did the similar thing with my kids. We left one of the big clubs because it was a factory. Coaches had too many teams and the training wasn't as good. They barely could remember their names.

In the young years, it's all about individual development. I don't care about Clubs. I feel bad for people that didn't come from a soccer background because they get fooled by all the pomp and circumstance and talk of State Cup and Acadamies, etc.

What's your experience been like? Have you talked to other parents that stayed at the club you were with? Does their view of their experience at the same time you were there different from yours? Do share.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Let's rephrase the statement: ODSL has some ass-kicking teams, many predominantly Hispanic and some parent-coached, who aren't in NCSL for whatever reason (sometimes field issues, sometimes by choice). Dynamite, VISTA and a few others have some teams that routinely go into tournaments and clobber high-level NCSL teams. IFC actually has entered the occasional team in EDP.

It's a pity we don't have a single competition that would bring together the good teams from CCL (maybe half of them), VPL (maybe a third of them), ECNL (all 1 of them on the boys side), EDP (most of D1 and some of D2), NCSL (most of D1, some of D2) and ODSL (a couple of teams from D1). That would be a great, competitive league or tournament. Alas, none of these folks want to play nicely with each other.

There is, and it is modeled after the Champions League in Europe. It's called the State Cup, pretty much any team can register. It would be perfect for the top teams in all of the leagues to be invited for smaller price than is currently being charged, and have guaranteed 2 games.

Except that ECNL and DA teams do not play in any State Cup, and the advent of the NPL State Cup this year means that VPL teams will play in the NPL state cup, CCL and NCSL and (maybe) ODSL teams will play in the VYSA State Cup, and there is still no way for all the different teams in all the different leagues to play each other. Also, VYSA State Cup being single elimination makes it less meaningful regardless.