Depending on where you live in western or northwestern Fairfax County, Loudoun and VSA are good options as well. Loudoun has the ECNL charter for Northern Virginia Alliance (Valor, Loudoun, Herndon, GFR) and VSA is the main club for VDA (VSA, PWSI), which is a strong ECNL club. Being at Loudoun and VSA provides an advantage in the pathway to their ECNL clubs and they'll have more resources down the pyramid.

Snorlax wrote:You can try out for Herndon, Great Fall-Reston. St. James/FCV has a loudoun location but last time I checked their practice are all over loudoun county and some are very far from Fairfax county.

Herndon is a smaller organization, Great Fall-Reston has 50% more players and I think better coaches. Herndon players has lots of latinos while GFR are mostly white.

I don't like Valor because they are more grabby for donation etc. Here are their top team standing:

https://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/2561/conference-standings/12

Thank for the information. There is a lot of overlap in the tryout dates/times for these clubs. What if we can't make any of the tryout for a club we are interested in? Should we just ask to attend a practice on a night that does work for us? It would be nice to get some idea of which team my son would be most likely to end up on. Will coaches give that sort of feedback based on attending a practice? I have seen kids randomly attend practices at our current club. Some end up on a team but plenty are never seen again.

You can try out for Herndon, Great Fall-Reston. St. James/FCV has a loudoun location but last time I checked their practice are all over loudoun county and some are very far from Fairfax county.

Herndon is a smaller organization, Great Fall-Reston has 50% more players and I think better coaches. Herndon players has lots of latinos while GFR are mostly white.

I don't like Valor because they are more grabby for donation etc. Here are their top team standing:

https://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/2561/conference-standings/12

We have a mid elementary aged boy that has played a year of travel soccer elsewhere in the DC area. Relocating and wondering about the following clubs in the northern/western part of Fairfax County for a mid-level travel player:

Herndon
Great Falls-Reston
Sterling
St. James/FCV (they list a Chantilly location in addition to some Loudoun County locations)
Virginia Valor

Priorities are good coaching and not a screamer, player development, nice/fun team culture, and appropriate level of competition where games aren't lopsided all the time. We would hope to stay there long term, so it would be nice to find a team that is good for older ages too.

On a related note: if my son can't make some tryouts, would we just ask to attend a practice or two instead? If so, should we make sure to do that before tryouts have wrapped up for a team? I assume the clubs will want to make decisions soon after.