Reply to Soccer: WAGS and NCSL to merge this Fall

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Here's the thing -- having all these separate leagues takes away from EVERYONE'S experience, at least if you're on an A team. It means you may be stuck playing St. Mary's in NCSL when you could be playing Arlington.

So "shut up and play NCSL if you think it's better" isn't a solution. A lot of top teams have left NCSL, so the competition has diminished while the travel distances have gone up.

I wonder if NCSL/WAGS will be able to lure some clubs back from VPL and EDP by cutting down on travel. [/quote]

Everything is watered down these days.  Too many teams per club. Top talent spread too wide and diluted in too many different places/leagues.

Travel used to be an elite experience and not meant for every child.  It used to mean something to play travel.  Now anyone with a checkbook can find a team.

This has meant middle class families are needlessly shelling out 3k per kid for crappy training and sucky competition.

Jon Stossel should do an expose or Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel on what robbery this is and how US soccer is not improving with more of this pay to play crap.

[/quote]

I think most families playing lower-division NCSL and ODSL are making informed decisions. And I think if you're good enough for the DA, go for it.

It's the people in between -- the ones suckered in by "elite" leagues of dubious "elite"ness -- that are sometimes getting fleeced. And that still depends from club to club. I'm not a great CCL fan, but if I lived in Loudoun and had one of the top soccer-playing kids in whatever age group -- sure, play for Loudoun. Great program, and I'd suck it up on the travel.

It shouldn't "mean something to play travel." I've seen kids who get attitudes when they make travel at age 8, and they stop learning immediately. Travel is supposed to be the journey, not the destination. Maybe the destination is pro soccer, maybe it's high school varsity, maybe it's just having a good experience playing relatively serious soccer with kids from the same town.

Also -- 3k is too much. If you're paying 3k, shop around. You can beat that price, especially if you're playing at any level below NCSL D1.[/quote]

Totally agree with you, PP. Not paying anywhere near $3000 and have no expectation or desire for my son to play Division 1 in college. My kid loves to play, loves to compete, knows how to listen, wants to learn, and had outgrown rec. He is one of the better players on his NCSL team, we live fifteen minutes from practice, and he loves every minute of it all.  Why wouldn't there be a league for kids like him? And why wouldn't I sign him up? It's healthy, we can afford it, we are all happy. Most people I know have the same mindset.[/quote]

There is a league for a kid like your son, you are currently in it. The difference between you and Captain Anti CCL is your expectations and ego have found balance. Captain Anti CCL would rather change an entire league to suit their own ego an ambition rather than play at an appropriate level that makes the most sense for their family.

You don't have to drive to VA Beach to play soccer, but you do have to give up a perceived advantage of playing in a particular league to play closer to home.[/quote]

I can't speak for all the elite-league skeptics in here (again, more than one), but let's reiterate -- it's not just that CCL/VPL/EDP affects the parents in THOSE leagues. It dilutes NCSL competition and adds travel time. (And poor old ODSL, which does a lot of things right but now has such a small number of clubs that you can pretty much count on traveling to Stafford or Clarke far more often than you want.)

Despite the CCL defensiveness, it's not all about CCL. You could easily argue VPL makes much less sense than CCL. Hard to tell with EDP -- it might depend how much each team ends up traveling.

So the relevance to this conversation is that, with an NCSL/WAGS merger and talk of "regionalization," they may be able to offer an alternative -- if not to CCL, then certainly to VPL or EDP.

And if you've talked to any soccer parents outside the CCL bubble, you know this is important to them! A lot of Fairfax County parents would like for their kids to be able to play competitive games without (A) practicing 30 minutes from home or (B) driving to Virginia Beach for games. Is that really so hard to understand?[/quote]

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