Anonymous wrote:it was emailed last week to current valor families but some bottom tier teams were still coachless. i guess those are hard to staff.

We are a current top team Valor family. No email. Saw it posted on IG and FB.

Anonymous wrote:So, at a Valor tryout, i assumed the first coach picked his team, then the second coach picked his team from who was left, then the third coach and so on

Are you saying the non coaches who run Valor actually pick who is on each team? That can't be accurate, they couldnt possibly know all the kids.
Or are you saying the coaches pick the teans but have to follow "rules" set by the club. Like no one moves up or down from x or y team? How are the teams chosen?

That's cute. Coaches of first and most second teams already know their roster before tryouts. That's what winter/spring ID sessions are for. Only lower and bottom teams wait until tryouts to try and fill their rosters. Valor last year was still adding kids to rosters at the end of August a week before the season started though, so the lower teams are always looking.

it was emailed last week to current valor families but some bottom tier teams were still coachless. i guess those are hard to staff.

So the complete coaching slate is out? Where is it posted? Couldn't find on their site.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious on how Valor tryouts are for a new potential players? are selections for top teams heavily favored to existing players (e.g. Loudoun) or is everyone given a fair shot?

When my child tried out for Valor, it seem liked they already had their rosters set and only a select few made the upper teams and everyone got an offer for the lower teams. Even if your child was better than current roster players. We didn't take the offer and tried out at a few other clubs and got offer for their top teams.

The community org travel teams (Burke, FPYC, Herndon) that aren't business/soccer factories seem to have much fairer tryouts processes.

I bet they love getting all the good players Valor low balls.

Chiming in, for my son's Valor age group last year the first team players were sent offers the week before tryouts.

The 2nd and 3rd team offers were all emailed out at the same time. There were 2-3 new players on the 2nd team from outside of Valor, rest of the team stayed the same and most of the 3rd team was new. No one from his 2nd team was moved down to 3rd team. No one from the 3rd team was moved up (most left).

Anonymous wrote:So, at a Valor tryout, i assumed the first coach picked his team, then the second coach picked his team from who was left, then the third coach and so on

Are you saying the non coaches who run Valor actually pick who is on each team? That can't be accurate, they couldnt possibly know all the kids.
Or are you saying the coaches pick the teans but have to follow "rules" set by the club. Like no one moves up or down from x or y team? How are the teams chosen?

All clubs that I've been a part of use the method you describe (first team picks, then second etc.). This is also why it can take longer for offers to go out, especially for clubs with many teams per age group (gotta wait for first team players to accept, then second etc., etc.

What I'm saying is that for the most part coaches will agree on the list of players from top to bottom, but then politics come into play regarding player retention and player recruitment. Some clubs delegate these decision down to the age group coordinators/individual coaches in that age group. In some clubs the TD or DOC or Boys/Girls Coordinator will get involved with any players moving down as this is where most of the headaches come from. And yes, sometimes there are even issues with moving players UP as they prefer to stay on their existing team... this also causes problems.

Example. Coach sends up his list of players to be offered for first team. Someone who that coach reports to, reviews the list and asks why little suzy didn't make the firs team again this year, and a discussion is had on how to deal with it. Sometimes the coaches themselves will bring this up as they know it will be an issue. Sometimes the coach gets his/her way in the end, sometimes they don't. Sometimes lil suzy's mom/dad emails/calls the club to ask why little suzy is being placed on the second team this year instead of the first and threatens to leave instead... some clubs cave to this, some don't.

It's almost always coaches making these decisions in the end, most of the "non coaches" run the admin side of clubs these days and aren't part of the selection process, but in general the individual team coaches do their best, in my opinion, to select the best players fairly... and then politics get injected in another part of the process because the other coaches (TD/DOC/Boys/Girls Coordinators etc.) that help run the club may have their own agendas or their own way of dealing with the drama that always comes with tryouts.

This is also why sometimes you'll see a disconnect from how certain genders or age groups within the same club handle player selection. Its a mess really. The best clubs I've been with allow the coaches to pick the players and that's it, but I'll say that with few exceptions have I seen that be 100% true, there always seem to be at least one, if not multiple families that try to influence the process and are successful at doing so.

Anonymous wrote:Curious on how Valor tryouts are for a new potential players? are selections for top teams heavily favored to existing players (e.g. Loudoun) or is everyone given a fair shot?

I would contact the age group lead and ask to go to a training beforehand. Get on their radar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son’s age group (top team) has added new players from outside and from the team below literally every year.

Interesting. Where did the open slots come
from in non-expansion years? Did they
move kids down?

We have seen similar in our DC’s age group. I only know what has happened with the top two teams. A couple of kids had been playing up an age group and went down the following year to play with their own age. A couple other kids left to focus on other sports. One went to another club. And yes kids have been moved down and others moved up. I think Valor could do a better job evaluating players at tryouts. It took a while for the team placements to be fully settled and mostly correct. But if you’re lucky, the coaches in your DC’s age group stay in frequent communication and make adjustments as needed. I imagine some of the problems are happening in age groups where the coaches of the different teams don’t talk to each other much.

Anonymous wrote:My son’s age group (top team) has added new players from outside and from the team below literally every year.

Interesting. Where did the open slots come
from in non-expansion years? Did they
move kids down?

So, at a Valor tryout, i assumed the first coach picked his team, then the second coach picked his team from who was left, then the third coach and so on

Are you saying the non coaches who run Valor actually pick who is on each team? That can't be accurate, they couldnt possibly know all the kids.
Or are you saying the coaches pick the teans but have to follow "rules" set by the club. Like no one moves up or down from x or y team? How are the teams chosen?

Anonymous wrote:
If he was so great Great falls would not have let him leave. He just got promoted in jan of 2023. Not looking good for valor. I would not be happy having this guy coaching my kids.

Statements like the above make me laugh. Clubs lose good coaches all the time, for lots of reasons. Coaches have options too, and while clubs will try to keep them, there is only so much they can offer to entice coaches to stay.

Anonymous wrote:
Curious on how Valor tryouts are for a new potential players? are selections for top teams heavily favored to existing players (e.g. Loudoun) or is everyone given a fair shot?

I've yet to meet a coach who doesn't want the best players he can get on his team. Some clubs make it easier for coaches to move players up or down than others.

The main issues I see clubs struggle with are:

• If the player is moved down, will they leave the club? And is the club willing to follow through with that.

• If a new player can fill a slot, as well as an existing player from a lower team, which does the club favor?

Some clubs will favor the new player to increase numbers overall, which may hold down existing players on lower teams, but sometimes that family is happy where they are, even if their kid can play for the higher level team.


Some clubs will favor existing players, which means new players are placed on lower teams than their ability due to not wanting to bump players down (see above reasoning), or due to internal player promotion. This may also cause new players to feel they weren't assessed properly

Either way, it's usually not the individual coaches pushing this direction one way or another, generally everyone wants the best player they can get, but I've yet to see a club who is 100% about player placement and not take into the factor on if that player will stay or go based on the decision. Some are just better than others at it.

Taken from the Great Falls chat on the new coach SA.

"Our experience with SA was not dependent on playing time or win record.

SA constant negativity made our kid want to quit the sport and more than half the others on the team too.

From talking to people who like him I think he can be extremely nice and feed parents ego to the extreme, or he can be extremely nasty to the point of abusive name calling to kids depending on what he thinks/hears the parents on that team want.

Other problem we had was observing practices he does not actually coach any skill (this is not that different from a lot of/most coaches TBH). He wants to sell you his private lessons $$ or extra clinics he developed at GFR for $$$. He runs fast drills over and over and over the same thing which is great but basically no actual coaching or feedback other than yelling FIX IT FIX IT. Huge ego with very little soccer skills development."

He literally sounds like a mixture of all the bad coaches we have experienced at valor.

If he was so great Great falls would not have let him leave. He just got promoted in jan of 2023. Not looking good for valor. I would not be happy having this guy coaching my kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Curious on how Valor tryouts are for a new potential players? are selections for top teams heavily favored to existing players (e.g. Loudoun) or is everyone given a fair shot?

I think it depends on the age group. But, this year may be different since so many players are leaving and they have spots to fill.

I agree i think this year will be different for them too for the same reason.

I will note that in the 2 years we have been with valor we have only had one external kid tryout at actual tryouts. Who knows if they came to practices to try out like other teams do but besides that one kiddo it was all valor shirts at tryouts.

Anonymous wrote:The posts about SA are either people paying him privately coaching where he butters them up but still doesn't play their kid - or himself posting.
I heard he got fired/let go from returning GFR but no way to verify this other than I see he's not there anymore.
He lost a lot of families who left GFR because of his lack of communication & abusive coaching practices last year and was friends with the former gfr TD who also allegedly got fired.

well with that resume no wonder valor picked him up! He seems like a great fit with the poor coaching valor has to offer.