Reply to Is Sterling Youth Soccer club a good option?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are somewhat new to the area.  My kid is 2017 and we live in Sterling.  My kid is interested in doing travel in the Fall however I am blown away by the amount of things I see these clubs promise.  I got this email from Sterling Youth Soccer, can someone give me more info if they really do what they promise.  I couldn’t find anything online on what they claim:

Tryouts for the 2025/2026 Travel Soccer Year begins this upcoming week. We will host tryouts in March and April to assess the current player and new players for the upcoming Season beginning in July 2025.
Existing Sterling Travel players do not need to register for the Tryouts but all players are required to attend the tryouts, similar to regular training days so that existing players can be evaluated against the new players that come to try out.
This season we have over 100 new players who have registered to attend our tryouts. This is a result of the positive impact that our Players, Parents and our Club is making in Northern VA.
Our Club is recognized as one of the best developing Clubs in the areas providing valuable training programs, unlike other clubs who overcharge and under deliver.
[b]We continue our progress of becoming the top Development Academy in Virginia that places players at professional Academies within the United States and Internationally[/b] through the development of our dedicated Coaches and the addition of qualified Coaches to join our unified Team.[/quote]

This is dubious at best.  No, they are not recognized by anyone as one of the best developing clubs.... that is such a general statement.   I'll tell you, practically all clubs claim this type of non-sense.  Who recognized them and when exactly?   -Which players did they grow, develop and place in professional academies?  Were they placed there or did those players once play for Sterling and then leave and go play elsewhere and eventually make it to a DC United Academy for example?    All clubs like to say this exact thing when one of their 8 or 9 year olds, who played for them for a year or two in the past, eventually developed and "made-it" somewhere.

Your player will get a lot better in just 1 year playing for them or anyone else.  That comes with the territory of practicing 2-2 times per week for 8 months of the year.  Wherever you decide to play and you want to help yourself on the development path, make sure to get extra training and look for ball-mastery clinics and programs.  You will likely find these offered by other clubs.  Be sure to do some of those sessions and check out the other clubs.

Also, you will start to gain a sense of how "development" is going once you compete in the end of year Spring Tournaments and see how other local teams fare.  Then ask the coach or team manager, if you are on the top team at Sterling (or whatever club you are at), did we just compete in the Top Bracket of the tournament or did you compete in the middle or bottom bracket of the tournament?  Then ask yourself of that is where you want to be? Because things likely won't change much.  Top Bracket Teams/ Clubs do a better job with development and present opportunities for the players to compete against the best around and later showcase their skills in tournaments where it matters.

By the start of year 3 at my old club, I got tired of getting beat by everyone in the middle bracket of every tournament and then we switched clubs.  Also, we saw how top teams did compete and it was a ton better than our club.

So, it might not be apparent at first, but eventually you will pick up on how good your club is, or is not, at the tournaments. [/quote]

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