Reply to PPA after age 10, grade 6 and up? good alternatives?

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Reply to "PPA after age 10, grade 6 and up? good alternatives?"

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[quote=Anonymous]We had a good experience with PPA, both its Premier and pre-Premier teams, at the younger years.  However, our experience began to change with PPA's older teams (U13 and older), which are falling apart.  This is not a knock on PPA, so much as it is a knock on small clubs like PPA, Achilles, etc.

PPA and these other small clubs have a tough time maintaining their rosters at these older ages for a variety of reasons.  First, a number of the better players get picked off by bigger clubs as the years go by.  Second, some kids decide to stop playing soccer, either because they start focusing primarily on another sport or because they simply move on to other things as they hit the teen years.  And because PPA and other small clubs don't have 3+ teams at each age bracket, they cannot backfill the rosters as they suffer these player losses.  Achilles, for example, has tried to address this issue by playing some boys up an age group just so the older team will have enough boys to field a team on game days.  Of course, with games sometimes happening on the same day and at the same time on the weekend, the younger team that lost some of the "play-ups" now find themselves undermanned, and they either suffer as a result, or they pull players up from the year below, which then causes the same problem down the line.  And this is just to get a full roster for a game.  Practices are constantly undermanned, and some of the older age groups frequently practice without anything close to a full roster, which of course does not help player development at the individual or team level.  PPA suffers from the same problems at the older ages and has tried some of the same stopgap measures as Achilles.  The issues were so bad for PPA's oldest age group that they had to abandon the stopgap approach and just consolidate the Premier and non-Premier teams at that age group, which has resulted in a roster that is far too big for a single team, but not big enough for two teams.

Like I said, this is not meant to slam PPA, Achilles or other small clubs.  The founders at those clubs are great, and the level of coaching is quite high, as several of their coaches were accomplished coaches for some of the big area clubs.  More importantly, those coaches are good people and well-liked by the players. Those clubs have a lot to offer their players, especially those that are looking for something more competitive than MSI, but not as competitive and time-consuming as big clubs like Potomac, Bethesda, etc.  I think PPA and these other small clubs are particularly good at the younger ages, but parents just need to be aware that they may need to start looking at other options if their son is still interested in playing soccer by the teen years.

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