Anonymous wrote:Why not have more competitive teams play LOCALLY. There are tons of good players in the DMV. You don’t need to go to Connecticut for competition. Travel teams make sense in rural areas, not here. There’s a balance between rec and travel. The travel part is just a gimmick.

Only top national level teams travel to "Connecticut." ECNL Regional League is Virginia teams only. NCSL teams play other teams in northern VA. The "travel part" is more about a season with 10 months of practices and games and a dedicated paid coach, tournaments, etc.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don’t play travel hoping to play in college. We play for the organized practices 3-4 days a week for 10 months a year. The friendships, the tournament fun, and hopefully the professional coaching vs a parent. The many (so many more than rec) games and scrimmages they always look forward to year round. Personally I don’t understand the 8 week rec soccer idea with a random parent coach and teammates. If you get lucky with a coach or team that’s great. But still it’s only for a few weeks a year.

Exactly this. 3-4 practices a week and 20+ games for a few thousand bucks is a good value for 10 months of a kids activity. I don’t know what he’d do with all the free time if he didn’t have travel soccer. College soccer is not in the plans. He’ll stop playing travel once high school starts.

Do many kids stop travel when start HS? Is it a natural drop off point? 50% average? More/less?

Unless your child is on one of the top 2 teams, you are foolish to spend your money on what amounts to a revenue team for whatever club you happen to be supporting.

Why not have more competitive teams play LOCALLY. There are tons of good players in the DMV. You don’t need to go to Connecticut for competition. Travel teams make sense in rural areas, not here. There’s a balance between rec and travel. The travel part is just a gimmick.

Rec leagues have minimum playtime rules.

[quote=Anonymous]We don’t play travel hoping to play in college. We play for the organized practices 3-4 days a week for 10 months a year. The friendships, the tournament fun, and hopefully the professional coaching vs a parent. The many (so many more than rec) games and scrimmages they always look forward to year round. Personally I don’t understand the 8 week rec soccer idea with a random parent coach and teammates. If you get lucky with a coach or team that’s great. But still it’s only for a few weeks a year. [/quote]

Those are fair points to bring up. Still unnecessarily expensive. We’re from England, where kids start “travel style” programs recreationally at a young age for literally a few dollars equivalent a month. anyone could play them. Looking at the players England and other countries produce then compare them to the USMNT..something’s unfortunately broken here.

Definitely think it’s not beneficial having a random parent coach. They just pick their kid and their friends to play and put their least productive players in goal or on the bench.

Anonymous wrote:We don’t play travel hoping to play in college. We play for the organized practices 3-4 days a week for 10 months a year. The friendships, the tournament fun, and hopefully the professional coaching vs a parent. The many (so many more than rec) games and scrimmages they always look forward to year round. Personally I don’t understand the 8 week rec soccer idea with a random parent coach and teammates. If you get lucky with a coach or team that’s great. But still it’s only for a few weeks a year.

I agree, plus I like the fact that in travel they have different coaches throughout the year, who will yell at them, discipline them, and shape them into young men and women. I have no interest in my kid playing in college, I like their being a part of a team.

All of the primary sports have a version of travel so it’s baked in. If you want to play competitively as you get older, unless you’re a great athlete, it’s easy to get left behind compared to your peers. You could always do the 3 sport season rec option and not focus on one sport.

Anonymous wrote:We don’t play travel hoping to play in college. We play for the organized practices 3-4 days a week for 10 months a year. The friendships, the tournament fun, and hopefully the professional coaching vs a parent. The many (so many more than rec) games and scrimmages they always look forward to year round. Personally I don’t understand the 8 week rec soccer idea with a random parent coach and teammates. If you get lucky with a coach or team that’s great. But still it’s only for a few weeks a year.

Exactly this. 3-4 practices a week and 20+ games for a few thousand bucks is a good value for 10 months of a kids activity. I don’t know what he’d do with all the free time if he didn’t have travel soccer. College soccer is not in the plans. He’ll stop playing travel once high school starts.

Rec was great when I was a kid growing up, everyone did it and mostly stuck with it. It was a completely different experience. The county ran the rec program. Now, the county does not run the programs, they let the travel clubs run the rec programs, who essential set them up to become feeder programs for all the travel sports.

Now, decent rec kids are being pulled out for travel programs. They try hard to replace the kid with new kids every year...now, they are putting rec teams in travel-light tournaments and they are trying to hook the kids into playing travel instead.

We don’t play travel hoping to play in college. We play for the organized practices 3-4 days a week for 10 months a year. The friendships, the tournament fun, and hopefully the professional coaching vs a parent. The many (so many more than rec) games and scrimmages they always look forward to year round. Personally I don’t understand the 8 week rec soccer idea with a random parent coach and teammates. If you get lucky with a coach or team that’s great. But still it’s only for a few weeks a year.

Anonymous wrote:Because the rec experience sucks. Every year you get stuck with new kids on your team that have never touched a soccer ball or kids who are only there because their parents make them go. Because it's rec those kids have to get playing time and it's no fun for the kids who actually want to play competitive soccer.

We got lucky this spring with about 6 out of 12 kids liking to play and be competitive. They are only U8 so playing in two groups of 4v4. The coach figured out early to group the kids who were more competitive together instead of trying to split them up. At least a couple are heading off to travel and one (whose parent has been coaching the team) may be going to another sport. Our DC has an offer from the travel club where older DC will be playing. Feeling torn as to whether to make the move or wait. I am sure there will still be some decent kids in rec at U9, but it will be harder to put a solid team together because the teams tend to be school based. We don't know who the more competitive kids are at the other schools.

Anonymous wrote:Because the rec experience sucks. Every year you get stuck with new kids on your team that have never touched a soccer ball or kids who are only there because their parents make them go. Because it's rec those kids have to get playing time and it's no fun for the kids who actually want to play competitive soccer.

+100

Because the rec experience sucks. Every year you get stuck with new kids on your team that have never touched a soccer ball or kids who are only there because their parents make them go. Because it's rec those kids have to get playing time and it's no fun for the kids who actually want to play competitive soccer.

Given the liw numbers of kids that get recruited to d1/ turn pro, why shouldnt we toss the whole system on tbe scrap heap. Instead, invest the coaching resources to ensure all u6-u11 plsyers get great coaching and tnen at u12 clubs only have 1-2 treams thst becomebtravel. All others playets keep playing rec