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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=RantingSoccerDad][quote=Anonymous][quote=RantingSoccerDad]Arlington population: 236,842 
Reston population: 60,335 (add 15,394 for Great Falls)
McLean population: 47,075
Vienna population: 16,556

I think VYS has shown players can stick with it all the way and still go to a D1 college. (If you don't believe me, just Google it. I'm tired of looking everything up for everyone.)

The very best players may still go ECNL. Vienna is nowhere near big enough to be an ECNL club.

Why Metro United includes Stoddert and Potomac instead of the more geographically logical Vienna and Herndon is above my pay grade. VDA is just too far away.
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This is a basic question, but I'm still relatively new to the area ... yes, I understand that officially, the "Town of Vienna" has 16K residents.  But most of Fairfax is unincorporated, and one would think that Vienna has the potential to draw from all of the unincorporated parts of Fairfax County that surround the town of Vienna, so their potential population is larger, isn't it?  I think the number shown for Vienna is small only because it's the technical population of the Town of Vienna; there are many more people surrounding the town for whom VYS would be the closest club, or equidistant to other clubs.  But maybe I'm missing something.

I was disappointed to learn that Vienna limits its financial aid to kids from select schools (presumably those from Vienna proper).  So it seems they've made a conscious decision to treat kids from outside of Vienna differently.  It's one of the reasons -- not the only reason, but one of them -- that we'll be looking for a new club next year.  [/quote]

Here's a map I made a few years ago of clubs in the area. It's a little outdated and doesn't have all the more recent mergers and partnerships, but it gives you an idea:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=1ThvfARJPLBWxi9eeH4s_pL7DWTg&ll=38.949226214389654%2C-77.22207325967217&z=11

Vienna borders Reston, which is large and has merged with Great Falls. Vienna and McLean share a border (postal addresses, anyway) in Tysons. To the east, Falls Church tends to feed into Arlington. (It's also the home of Premier AC, which draws a good bit from Falls Church/Arlington and some from Vienna.) To the south, Annandale has had some success in the past, and Villarreal is still in there somewhere.

The only nearby area that doesn't have its own team is Oakton, and while Vienna draws a fair amount from there, Oakton kids also go to FPYC, Great Falls-Reston or Chantilly.

Braddock Road also draws some Vienna kids because of its history and its ECNL affiliation.

I'm not sure how Vienna treats out-of-towners, but I know the mentality a few years ago when Eddie Lima was in charge was indeed that Vienna meant "Vienna." That notion fits the town rather well -- we're incorporated, and we're protective of our identity. (That identity also includes a big baseball presence -- soccer may be the No. 1 sport in Arlington and Reston, but I don't think that's the case here. I see more private trainers running around here for baseball than I do for soccer, that's for sure.)

I've been ripped for saying this before, but I think VYS punches above its weight. So many clubs in Fairfax County posit themselves as "elite" -- some with good reason, some not. Loudoun County is much simpler -- Loudoun is the gargantuan club, TSJ FC Virginia also draws from the region, and then you have smaller clubs. In Fairfax County, you have the traditional powerhouses (Braddock Road, McLean), ambitious clubs drawing from large areas (Great Falls Reston, SYC, SYA), a couple more community clubs that sometimes have terrific teams (Chantilly, Herndon, Annandale), some boutique clubs (FC Dulles, PAC), and more clubs around the periphery (Alexandria, Lee Mount Vernon, NVSC). On top of all that, D.C. United and Arlington are waiting to bring in top talent.

[/quote]

Whats a boutique club mean? I think PAC is a small very solid club. I am bias because my DS plays there. [/quote]

So did mine, and we still have some friends there. I don’t mean it as an insult at all. It’s small - one of the few clubs in the region with no rec program.

The coaches do a marvelous job maximizing the potential of each player. It’s not a bad niche to fill. And they occasionally have (or keep) enough players to have a pretty good team. [/quote]

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