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soccermum79 wrote:Does anyone have experience on the boys side with either of these clubs? Looking for solid coaching, technical development, and good atmosphere for U13 age group. If you are part of either of these clubs please tell me your experience (pros/cons, etc). Our current coach just isn't cutting it for our son and he will be with the boys for a few more years.
Where is your son currently?
Agree with everyone that your kid got hosed here. Hopefully this type of conduct is isolated to the purple coach and not the entire club. If you seek and don't receive a formal apology from the TD it should tell you all you need to know.
RantingSoccerDad wrote:Yeah, it's on the site now.
Not a huge field, and I know another preseason tournament was canceled.
Which one?
Ihatedumbsoccerparents wrote:I want my DD to win a high school state championship for the memories, club soccer is just for training and college recruiting to me..there is a different feel watching my DD play for her high school than it is when I watch a club game....albeit club games are always more skilled...but something about having fans and hearing kids cheer for each other....I vote high school soccer - MD
Great question and while I think your premise discounts the memories that can be made at the club level, I don't think there's a "right" answer here. 50/50 for me.
soccermum79 wrote:Lasso_FC_Girls wrote:L0ud0unParent wrote:Lasso_FC_Girls wrote:4 year old? Which ever club beats ball skills to death until they go to 9v9. I honestly don’t know what club that is though. Probably not the clubs that care about winning at early ages. Definitely not Loudoun though.
Why not Loudoun? Just curious.
At that young of an age, a smaller atmosphere is usually better so the coach/trainer interact more with the player. My DD is now 13, plays in ECNL and is excelling. She started in our area's town club at ages 4 to 9. Was trained in ball skills only till age 7 and then the coach added in some IQ work through age 9. Game results were ignored. While that can be painful for a parent, it was certainly the best approach looking back now. I should also say the only reason to move your player to a larger and more competitive is if they are excelling so much that they are not being challenged by those around them.
Worry less about the club at early ages and more about the coach/trainer. Most will be parents at the young ages anyway. If you think Loudoun will train heavily on skills at a young age, than Loudoun is fine, however, Loudoun is not known for a technical style of play at later ages. At U9 though U13, it's more like put our fastest and strongest players up top, kick it long and hope the forwards get there.
THIS is 1000% true! The parent volunteer coaches are fine for U-Little. U8 Academy is excellent, U9 depends on the coach and what skills they reinforce, after that its a draw depending on your coach. Would not recommend Loudoun for any technical or skilled player, ECNL or not. There are much better clubs around, even smaller ones, who have excellent conditioning and training programs for U9 and older.
Good luck!
OP: obviously you should shop around to find the best fit for your child, but the narrative here that Loudoun does not produce "technical or skilled players" is curious, at best. There is a reason that Loudoun has ECNL and that their 3rd or 4th teams compete against the top teams from "much better clubs."
I know the question was about leagues, not clubs, but DCU has a program in place with several local clubs feeds players into their academy system.
https://www.dcunited.com/club/pathway2pro#:~:text=This%20exciting%20partnership%20with%20D.C.,in%20their%20own%20community%20club.
https://www.dcunited.com/club/pathway2pro#:~:text=This%20exciting%20partnership%20with%20D.C.,in%20their%20own%20community%20club.
SoccerSkeptic wrote:Well, there goes Señor Anonymous' rumor that CCL and ECNL RL are merging. A few teams did abandon ship to go over to ECNL RL, but no merger. Looks like this league will be a step below ECNL RL. At least Viva la Revolution has found a league. Good for them.
My understanding is that there was some real smoke to that fire, but it fell apart for whatever reason. Egos, probably. It also wasn't clear where it fell on the continuum between merger and acquisition.
If anyone is at "fault" it is likely the player/parents who surely are aware of the MLS NEXT's no high school rule. Is it the club's responsibility to police player behavior outside of the club? I don't know. Making the families aware of the rule and, if they hear it's not being followed, asking them to knock it off sounds like enough to me.
That said, SYC chose to enter a league that did not allow high school play. Don't choose to play in a league, or for a club, with silly rules and you don't have to worry about silly rules being followed.
That said, SYC chose to enter a league that did not allow high school play. Don't choose to play in a league, or for a club, with silly rules and you don't have to worry about silly rules being followed.
SoccerSkeptic wrote:Agree with previous posters. Adding a third club is good in theory for VDA, but I don't see many Herndon families commuting an hour or two with traffic 4 days a week to haymarket or woodbridge. VDA tried something similar with Vienna a few years ago and that didn't last long because of the distance and that was when they were special and had the full DA. There are several other ECNL/MLSnext clubs that are closer for Herndon families. Plus, didn't Herndon lose a lot of their top kids and coaches due to the total futbol split?
yep. empty press release that will result in little or no player movement. notice they didn't even bother to change the vda logo to include herndon alongside vsa and pwsi.
soccerNOVA wrote:DMVParent wrote:joy4 wrote:Pls specific about Boys or Girls.
There is big difference.
Anyway, for BOYS!!!, VYS does not stand out in EDP play, and with some previous VYS players on BYRC ECNL teams already, I do believe VYS replacing BRYC for ECNL is getting lower performance, if most BRYC BOYS players moving to NVU.
The initial concept is to consolidate, but with what is happening for BOYS side, it basically introduced a new NVU club into Nothern Virgina boys' landscape. Good or bad, time will tell.
I feel it is going to be a bad thing, well, I only care about my boy, to make things easy he may go alone with NVU. sadly, no option is better than another.
Is NVUFC actually starting boys teams for regular season play or is that still just a rumor?
The initial materials distributed at BRYC and VYS said that the best players will make Brave. If you are making the assumption that BRYC is better than VYS on the boys side and therefore all the BRYC kids will be upset and leave for NVU or elsewhere, then of course Brave teams will suffer. VYS alone isn't going to be big enough or good enough to build competitive ECNL teams. That's especially true on the boys side.
In my opinion, those are bad assumptions. What makes you think that BRYC families would leave a Fairfax ECNL team that practices on local fields for unproven NVU program that has never even fielded teams before? Isn't BRYC is badly in need of some organization and professionalism? I haven't heard anyone deny that, and if VYS can bring that then its a huge plus even if nothing else changes.
My guess for the boys is that VYS beings an influx of talent at younger age groups, but has a little less to offer at older age groups. On average maybe 50-70% of Brave rosters next year will be current BRYC kids. Maybe 25% will come from VYS and the remaining amount will join from elsewhere in Fairfax county. Those kids could be good too and be opting for Brave as opposed to driving further to other established ECNL clubs.
Union and VDA are both partnerships. I think that's what it takes to succeed in ECNL if you are not as big as Loudoun or Arlington. If the launch is organized, then I think top BRYC boys stay and you will be surprised how good these Brave teams are.
Whether or not the 27th best player on a 30 person roster sticks around for ECNL regional league is a different question. Regional league is probably the right competition for those kids though, and still should be a better option than NVU. I know some people are hyping up NVU, but I just don't see it at all. Good luck with that.
+1
The NVU talk seems like a lot of bluster. If you choose to take your player out of ECNL because his coach is upset, best of luck to you.
Godot wrote:So structurally, where does this leave ostensibly high-level club soccer at U14+ in the local area?
For both girls and boys, on the Virginia side of the Potomac, there’s ECNL at Loudoun, VA Union (Mclean/SYC), VDA (PWSI/VSA), BRAVE (BRYC/VYS), Arlington.
For girls, there’s GA at FCV and Metro United.
For boys, there’s MLS Next at Alexandria and SYC (an alternative to VA Union, for the combo group right? I haven’t had a boy in travel soccer for a few years). Plus Bethesda and DC United north of the Potomac.
This actually seems like decent consolidation to me, something that’s been needed for a while now. My prediction, worth exactly the zero dollars that you all paid for it, is that MLS Next will slowly fade and the top ECNL boys teams will end up playing against the MLS academy teams in some format. GA will quickly fade, and FCV really ought to consider that partnership with a geographically rational ECNL team for the sake of the players. We’ll end up with 4-5 local clubs that are really top feeders to both pros and college, and those will be the clubs that capture a large young player pool from a geographic area that the club dominates. So eventually, Loudoun, Arlington, and VDA win their areas, with Fairfax still up for grabs among the VA Union//SYC//BRYC//VYS machinations. This also has to do with resources for hiring and keeping coaching staffs — the big clubs with huge natural player pools at the young rec and young travel levels have the revenue to support coaches’ salaries. That gets a lot harder when you’re smaller.
this seems about right