Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BARCA has been full of crap since day one. We left over the winter after 1.5 years. Don't believe the hype the folks here toss out.

Communication is horrible, they keep tossing out the word family, but yet there is not interaction between the coach and parent. They aren't competitive (not because of coaching) due to the player pool, lots of kids left over from Evergreen which was a crap club. What you have a is group of adults who love the idea of their kid playing for Barca, the same badge worn by Messi.

If you took their coaches and fed them a player pool that you would find with one of the bigger clubs, then you have something. Until then, you have a good program with players that cannot execute.

You left a club with admittedly good coaching because the player pool wasn’t good enough and you didn’t have a direct relationship with the coach? I’m curious how did your player feel about the experience? Was he/she developing?

Anonymous wrote:BARCA has been full of crap since day one. We left over the winter after 1.5 years. Don't believe the hype the folks here toss out.

Communication is horrible, they keep tossing out the word family, but yet there is not interaction between the coach and parent. They aren't competitive (not because of coaching) due to the player pool, lots of kids left over from Evergreen which was a crap club. What you have a is group of adults who love the idea of their kid playing for Barca, the same badge worn by Messi.

If you took their coaches and fed them a player pool that you would find with one of the bigger clubs, then you have something. Until then, you have a good program with players that cannot execute.

Anonymous wrote:Communication is definitely a personal measure. I’m a different Barca parent than PP. I like the centralized communication. I have never tried to schedule a meeting with an age group coordinator or TD. I have no desire to speak with coaches other than a friendly hello. I take my kid to the field, watch from the sidelines, they are having fun, so I don’t have any need for meetings. Personally I don’t care which team they are playing on, how much playing time they get, how good is the player pool, I don’t second guess strategies or positions, just a happy cheering spectator on the sideline. The system works very well for me. I recognize that it is a different communication model than the typical clubs around here, and may not work for everyone.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BARCA has been full of crap since day one. We left over the winter after 1.5 years. Don't believe the hype the folks here toss out.

Communication is horrible, they keep tossing out the word family, but yet there is not interaction between the coach and parent. They aren't competitive (not because of coaching) due to the player pool, lots of kids left over from Evergreen which was a crap club. What you have a is group of adults who love the idea of their kid playing for Barca, the same badge worn by Messi.

If you took their coaches and fed them a player pool that you would find with one of the bigger clubs, then you have something. Until then, you have a good program with players that cannot execute.

You have said nothing different than what has been said before from the "Pro Barca" posters.

Everyone has acknowledged shallow talent pool but excellent training.

The poor communication aspect is more a personal thing and many clubs suffer from similar complaints.

The problem with parents complaining about "communication" is they tend to never be very specific. For some people it is regarding practice schedules, with other parents it is in regards to payer performance, and still others it could just be a coach who is chatty with the parents. These things are never really explained in the complaint.

With Barca, what I suspect is rather off-putting for parents regarding communication is that all communication is centralized. There is no electronic direct line to and from a coach. Team related messages all come from the same email address and SportsEngine. If you want to talk with a coach you have to email the same address to set something up or just catch the coach between practices if possible.

Schedules for the internal games can be emailed late as well as random friendlies with other clubs.

However, Barca does communicate practice schedules much earlier than almost any other club I have had a kid with.

Barca does provide 2 detailed player evaluations per year.

Barca does provide 1 to 2 team oriented informational meetings per year.

Barca does NOT provide easy, direct access to coaches. My guess is, the lack of direct access bothers people who are accustomed dealing directly with their kids coaches frequently. I can see how this would bother some parents and I can see how others would see it as a refreshing change.

Let me be clear, I schedule 3 meetings with the age group lead and all 3 were cancelled at the last min. That's not good communication in any setting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BARCA has been full of crap since day one. We left over the winter after 1.5 years. Don't believe the hype the folks here toss out.

Communication is horrible, they keep tossing out the word family, but yet there is not interaction between the coach and parent. They aren't competitive (not because of coaching) due to the player pool, lots of kids left over from Evergreen which was a crap club. What you have a is group of adults who love the idea of their kid playing for Barca, the same badge worn by Messi.

If you took their coaches and fed them a player pool that you would find with one of the bigger clubs, then you have something. Until then, you have a good program with players that cannot execute.

You have said nothing different than what has been said before from the "Pro Barca" posters.

Everyone has acknowledged shallow talent pool but excellent training.

The poor communication aspect is more a personal thing and many clubs suffer from similar complaints.

The problem with parents complaining about "communication" is they tend to never be very specific. For some people it is regarding practice schedules, with other parents it is in regards to payer performance, and still others it could just be a coach who is chatty with the parents. These things are never really explained in the complaint.

With Barca, what I suspect is rather off-putting for parents regarding communication is that all communication is centralized. There is no electronic direct line to and from a coach. Team related messages all come from the same email address and SportsEngine. If you want to talk with a coach you have to email the same address to set something up or just catch the coach between practices if possible.

Schedules for the internal games can be emailed late as well as random friendlies with other clubs.

However, Barca does communicate practice schedules much earlier than almost any other club I have had a kid with.

Barca does provide 2 detailed player evaluations per year.

Barca does provide 1 to 2 team oriented informational meetings per year.

Barca does NOT provide easy, direct access to coaches. My guess is, the lack of direct access bothers people who are accustomed dealing directly with their kids coaches frequently. I can see how this would bother some parents and I can see how others would see it as a refreshing change.

Anonymous wrote:BARCA has been full of crap since day one. We left over the winter after 1.5 years. Don't believe the hype the folks here toss out.

Communication is horrible, they keep tossing out the word family, but yet there is not interaction between the coach and parent. They aren't competitive (not because of coaching) due to the player pool, lots of kids left over from Evergreen which was a crap club. What you have a is group of adults who love the idea of their kid playing for Barca, the same badge worn by Messi.

If you took their coaches and fed them a player pool that you would find with one of the bigger clubs, then you have something. Until then, you have a good program with players that cannot execute.

Anonymous wrote:Their original plan was to have all their teams in EDP, the new plan is to have half of their teams in ODSL, is there a new plan regarding moving to NCSL that is in the works? I have not heard anything about any pending application to join NCSL, which I think is a better option than ODSL. Or are they thinking about moving their remaining teams from EDP to NCSL? I think it is pointless to speculate until we hear something from the club.

Anonymous wrote:Their original plan was to have all their teams in EDP, the new plan is to have half of their teams in ODSL, is there a new plan regarding moving to NCSL that is in the works? I have not heard anything about any pending application to join NCSL, which I think is a better option than ODSL. Or are they thinking about moving their remaining teams from EDP to NCSL? I think it is pointless to speculate until we hear something from the club.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Griezmann was playing for a local club, but was unsuccessfully trying to make it into one of the pro academies. When Griezmann was 14 or so, he was spotted by Real Sociedad's scout and was offered a one-week trial in Spain. He was offered a spot in Real's academy and developed his game outside France. French youth development system is one of the best in the world, but even French academies make mistakes in assessing youth talent. You are probably thinking about Gareth Bale who was almost cut by Southampton academy in his teenage years, until the coach who discovered him intervened.

I file this under the MJ category, it was passed up on the Varsity squad in highschool and look he turned out. Let's talk about all the other players that didn't make the cut. Get real folks.

Cannot agree more. Even if rejected by some European academies, Griezmann was considered a very good player at 13 and would likely have been accepted in any youth team in the US. How we got from ODSL to him in two posts is beyond me.

Exactly. The road from ODSL to the pros is not exactly a worn path.

I was a Field Marshall at the ASIST tournament and was able to catch several Barca matches. I wasn't sure what to expect after reading comments here, but I was very impressed with, even at the youngest ages, how well the kids moved the ball and the level of intelligence of the field. They were coached very well.

There is all this focus on wins and league rankings --and several teams did finish well last weekend--but it really comes down to developing. Bigger, physically mature kids are going to come out ahead in these younger years--but if they aren't developed they aren't going to stay on top.

I was just reading an article about Dortmund's development strategy and it's made me take a hard look at what my kids are learning. The U12 Dortmund Academy director said players are not assessed on winning matches — that demand will come later in life — but on whether they reach a specific target. In a game, a striker may be told they will be judged not only on whether they score goals, likely to be one of their strengths, but also on how well they “press” or chase down a defender, potentially a weakness. “It’s challenging them intellectually,” says Kirk. “I would say up to the under-12s, 70 per cent is technical, just getting them to become familiar with the ball and execute actions. As soon as you get into ages 12 to 15, you want them to start thinking two, three, four phases ahead in the game.” The bolded part is what is missing in a lot of places and I was impressed that the focus definitely seemed about learning the game at a deeper level than stacking the team with big players and booting it. It's refreshing and was fun to watch.

These teams were not Barca's ODSL teams. They entered their top teams (EDP or EDP to be) in the lower divisions of this tournament and they mostly played against B, C and D teams from other clubs. I like that Barca tends to put their teams in lower brackets of various tournaments, which gives the kids a higher chance of winning and confidence, but I also think that the level of opposition matters when assessing performances. Some of the same Barca teams lost badly in EDP. The debate over Barca's move to ODSL move is whether the level of competition in ODSL is sufficiently high and whether it would cause an exodus of the best players on Barca's B teams to other clubs after this season.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Griezmann was playing for a local club, but was unsuccessfully trying to make it into one of the pro academies. When Griezmann was 14 or so, he was spotted by Real Sociedad's scout and was offered a one-week trial in Spain. He was offered a spot in Real's academy and developed his game outside France. French youth development system is one of the best in the world, but even French academies make mistakes in assessing youth talent. You are probably thinking about Gareth Bale who was almost cut by Southampton academy in his teenage years, until the coach who discovered him intervened.

I file this under the MJ category, it was passed up on the Varsity squad in highschool and look he turned out. Let's talk about all the other players that didn't make the cut. Get real folks.

Cannot agree more. Even if rejected by some European academies, Griezmann was considered a very good player at 13 and would likely have been accepted in any youth team in the US. How we got from ODSL to him in two posts is beyond me.

Exactly. The road from ODSL to the pros is not exactly a worn path.

I was a Field Marshall at the ASIST tournament and was able to catch several Barca matches. I wasn't sure what to expect after reading comments here, but I was very impressed with, even at the youngest ages, how well the kids moved the ball and the level of intelligence of the field. They were coached very well.

There is all this focus on wins and league rankings --and several teams did finish well last weekend--but it really comes down to developing. Bigger, physically mature kids are going to come out ahead in these younger years--but if they aren't developed they aren't going to stay on top.

I was just reading an article about Dortmund's development strategy and it's made me take a hard look at what my kids are learning. The U12 Dortmund Academy director said players are not assessed on winning matches — that demand will come later in life — but on whether they reach a specific target. In a game, a striker may be told they will be judged not only on whether they score goals, likely to be one of their strengths, but also on how well they “press” or chase down a defender, potentially a weakness. “It’s challenging them intellectually,” says Kirk. “I would say up to the under-12s, 70 per cent is technical, just getting them to become familiar with the ball and execute actions. As soon as you get into ages 12 to 15, you want them to start thinking two, three, four phases ahead in the game.” The bolded part is what is missing in a lot of places and I was impressed that the focus definitely seemed about learning the game at a deeper level than stacking the team with big players and booting it. It's refreshing and was fun to watch.

Anonymous wrote:How did field marshall become the same thing as a parent? Listen, if you people hate Barca so much, then why come on this forum? Why talk about Barca at all? That makes no sense, unless you get some cheap thrill out of coming on here to put kids down you don't know on a club you're not with.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Griezmann was playing for a local club, but was unsuccessfully trying to make it into one of the pro academies. When Griezmann was 14 or so, he was spotted by Real Sociedad's scout and was offered a one-week trial in Spain. He was offered a spot in Real's academy and developed his game outside France. French youth development system is one of the best in the world, but even French academies make mistakes in assessing youth talent. You are probably thinking about Gareth Bale who was almost cut by Southampton academy in his teenage years, until the coach who discovered him intervened.

I file this under the MJ category, it was passed up on the Varsity squad in highschool and look he turned out. Let's talk about all the other players that didn't make the cut. Get real folks.

Cannot agree more. Even if rejected by some European academies, Griezmann was considered a very good player at 13 and would likely have been accepted in any youth team in the US. How we got from ODSL to him in two posts is beyond me.

Exactly. The road from ODSL to the pros is not exactly a worn path.

I was a Field Marshall at the ASIST tournament and was able to catch several Barca matches. I wasn't sure what to expect after reading comments here, but I was very impressed with, even at the youngest ages, how well the kids moved the ball and the level of intelligence of the field. They were coached very well.

There is all this focus on wins and league rankings --and several teams did finish well last weekend--but it really comes down to developing. Bigger, physically mature kids are going to come out ahead in these younger years--but if they aren't developed they aren't going to stay on top.

I was just reading an article about Dortmund's development strategy and it's made me take a hard look at what my kids are learning. The U12 Dortmund Academy director said players are not assessed on winning matches — that demand will come later in life — but on whether they reach a specific target. In a game, a striker may be told they will be judged not only on whether they score goals, likely to be one of their strengths, but also on how well they “press” or chase down a defender, potentially a weakness. “It’s challenging them intellectually,” says Kirk. “I would say up to the under-12s, 70 per cent is technical, just getting them to become familiar with the ball and execute actions. As soon as you get into ages 12 to 15, you want them to start thinking two, three, four phases ahead in the game.” The bolded part is what is missing in a lot of places and I was impressed that the focus definitely seemed about learning the game at a deeper level than stacking the team with big players and booting it. It's refreshing and was fun to watch.

Sure....your a field marshall...Nice try Barca parent

Agree, who the hell comes on here with such "positive" comments about a competing club....you sit in the freaking cold/rain as a ASA parent, then on monday you decide you have to go report back to this forum about how good another club was. Good try.