Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Correct! Also, doesn’t help if NPL is not at the same level of league as ECNL, DA and CCL.

NPL is not the same as ECNL but I would argue it might be better than CCL. NPL is one of the ECNL Regional leagues and even though it is way below ECNL if you are the top team in your ECNL Regional group you do get to attend an actual ECNL Showcase. You will be in a lower bracket/pool but you get to go!

Oh god not this crap again. Relevant only after U12 and no, playing in a good league does not make your club, team or kid necessarily any better. League talk is for parents whose kids are not good enough to merit discussion of their individual talent.

Anonymous wrote:Correct! Also, doesn’t help if NPL is not at the same level of league as ECNL, DA and CCL.

NPL is not the same as ECNL but I would argue it might be better than CCL. NPL is one of the ECNL Regional leagues and even though it is way below ECNL if you are the top team in your ECNL Regional group you do get to attend an actual ECNL Showcase. You will be in a lower bracket/pool but you get to go!

Correct! Also, doesn’t help if NPL is not at the same level of league as ECNL, DA and CCL.

Top players will not stay in VYS if the club does not have the quality of players, coaches, and directors as other top clubs in the area.

Anonymous wrote:+1

VYS is a very solid "neighborhood club," with a somewhat better than average girls program in the upper age groups, that also functions as a feeder of talented boys and girls players to McLean and other clubs that conventional wisdom elevates as being more "elite."

I wouldn’t classify their older girls as better than average - it was established earlier in the thread that they are average for the area. They are a typical club with average players. When more talented players come through the ranks, they will leave for more competitive programs. This is how it is at most of the clubs in the area.

+1

VYS is a very solid "neighborhood club," with a somewhat better than average girls program in the upper age groups, that also functions as a feeder of talented boys and girls players to McLean and other clubs that conventional wisdom elevates as being more "elite."

Anonymous wrote:Top clubs are created by the quality of players, coaches, directors and the reputation of the club to help players to be recruited by college coaches. So, I would like to know if VYS has the same quality, especially in regards coaches and directors, as the top clubs in the area (Mclean, Arlington, Alexandria, Loudoun, Braddock, SYC, VDA, and SYA)?

For super-talented kids at U13 up, this can be a relevant question, and of course those clubs have more resources than others, including VYS. For kids younger than that, this is an irrelevant question for many reasons. First, it is totally irrelevant for all but the most talented kids. Second, the most talented kids at younger ages often are not as the most talented as they get older. Third, many of the most talented move clubs for a variety of reasons (and frankly, it is healthy for a kid so long as it is not a frequent phenomenon). Fourth, being on the top teams at the clubs above at younger ages makes little or no difference in determining whether your kid will remain on the top team at that club by the time recruiting arrives. (This is the classic error that many parents make in assuming that getting on to a top team on a top club is like getting into Sidwell Friends when you are first eligible. It is nothing like that at all. Once in, you are not in forever, and in many clubs, you are not likely there in two or three years.)

So, if your kid is younger than U13, I recommend looking for a great combination of good club culture, good coach for that specific age group, competitiveness within team and across leagues, and convenience. I think that's what most VYS parents do. And then top players often go to the clubs on your list above as they age out (you can add Bethesda to that list on the boys side). The top clubs are more meritocratic than comments on these boards suggest. The coaches themselves are really competitive and want to win.

no. not extremely far behind, but definitely not ahead of that list.

Top clubs are created by the quality of players, coaches, directors and the reputation of the club to help players to be recruited by college coaches. So, I would like to know if VYS has the same quality, especially in regards coaches and directors, as the top clubs in the area (Mclean, Arlington, Alexandria, Loudoun, Braddock, SYC, VDA, and SYA)?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Agree that the top teams get that way by collecting top players from other clubs. That mostly happens with ECNL and GA starting at U13. At the older ages VYS girls are right outside that top tier and somewhere between 5-10 in the region.

At the younger ages U12 and below, VYS girls can play with anyone and have generally had better results than Great Falls, FCV, SYC, PWSI, SYA, and BRYC. They aren't a huge club, so I think that says good things about their programming and development, or maybe about their ulittles rec league. Younger girls are probably #4-5 in the region as a group.

To let everyone know - usually once teams become ECNL they stop doing tournaments. Teams don't earn "points" playing in ECNL games but teams that play in VPL (like Vienna) continue to earn points for regular league games as well as tournaments. Ranking reflect the number of points teams achieve and you can only get these points playing in tournaments or by playing in a league that lists games in gotsoccer and gives points for those games as well. For example the WAGS tournament have zero ECNL teams participating and only one GA team. Point being that above the U12 age rankings only really give you a picture of the strength of teams outside of the ECNL and GA teams. I would also like to add that the Richmond Strikers and VSA teams are not the same anymore. The top Richmond players have moved onto the Richmond United ECNL team which doesn't exist until U13. Same for VSA. VDA ECNL starts at U13 and is made up of top girls from VSA and PWSI. So neither of these teams is even listed in rankings and may never be if they don't do any tournaments.

Youthsoccerrankings.us use all available scores and competitions, so they are a much better reflection than gotsoccer. It looks like that's what the above posters were using.

2008 rankings are the only screwy age group right now since those don't include ecnl/ga clubs yet. VSA and Strikers are still ranked highly, but those will be replaced with United and VDA at some point. FCV should jump too since their 2008 team wasn't ranked highly before this year. VYS still top 10 it looks like, but behind GA and ECNL teams at U13 and older and definitely behind a few of the bigger clubs at younger ages.

Anonymous wrote:Agree that the top teams get that way by collecting top players from other clubs. That mostly happens with ECNL and GA starting at U13. At the older ages VYS girls are right outside that top tier and somewhere between 5-10 in the region.

At the younger ages U12 and below, VYS girls can play with anyone and have generally had better results than Great Falls, FCV, SYC, PWSI, SYA, and BRYC. They aren't a huge club, so I think that says good things about their programming and development, or maybe about their ulittles rec league. Younger girls are probably #4-5 in the region as a group.

To let everyone know - usually once teams become ECNL they stop doing tournaments. Teams don't earn "points" playing in ECNL games but teams that play in VPL (like Vienna) continue to earn points for regular league games as well as tournaments. Ranking reflect the number of points teams achieve and you can only get these points playing in tournaments or by playing in a league that lists games in gotsoccer and gives points for those games as well. For example the WAGS tournament have zero ECNL teams participating and only one GA team. Point being that above the U12 age rankings only really give you a picture of the strength of teams outside of the ECNL and GA teams. I would also like to add that the Richmond Strikers and VSA teams are not the same anymore. The top Richmond players have moved onto the Richmond United ECNL team which doesn't exist until U13. Same for VSA. VDA ECNL starts at U13 and is made up of top girls from VSA and PWSI. So neither of these teams is even listed in rankings and may never be if they don't do any tournaments.

Anonymous wrote:Vienna's area isn't "small". It covers 3 big high schools, oakton, madison, and marshall high school. VYS was about the same size as great falls or reston socce club before they merged into one entity.

it's 40,00 with vienna and oakton. It's about one-eighth the size of the Arlington and Alexandria areas and one-tenth the size of Loudoun. So yes, it is small. And so is GFR.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one should be crossing the Potomac for youth soccer. If you consider region as Virginia only and closer than Richmond, this is VYS top team girls ranking. Might as well have your information correct at least.

2010:5th
2009:9th
2008:6th
2007:10th
2006:5th
2005:13th
2004:8th
2003:6th
2002:7th

That includes ECNL and GA teams in 2007 and older.

I added the VA only rankings so everyone has some perspective. I know one could carve out a small enough geographic area so that each team appears to be number one, but that seems a little self-interested. I also don’t think excluding MD/DC teams is logical (the trip there may be easier for some people than the VYS facilities) but to keep up your Old Dominion pride, I’ll leave them out for now. Being that SYC competes in CCL, full VA rankings probably make sense. Now that we have the information correct, do you want to twist the facts a bit more to justify your point?


2010:5th - 6th
2009:9th - 10th
2008:6th - 8th
2007:10th - 13th
2006:5th - 10th
2005:13th - 18th
2004:8th - 12th
2003:6th - 12th
2002:7th -25th

I don't think that anyone is twisting anything.

The original question was "would you consider VYS top 10 in the NOVA area?" It sounds like you agree that its a clear yes if NOVA area is NOVA. If you want to include all of Virginia than you basically add one team (Strikers) at the younger ages, and a few more between VA Beach and Charlottesville at the older ages. I like stats and think that you did that correctly. So I agree with you. Congrats. There are more teams to add in Maryland, of course, if you consider NOVA area to be all of Virginia and Maryland.

I was mostly responding to the first answer in this section of the thread which listed 10 NOVA clubs that are clearly not all better than VYS. Especially not at younger age groups on the girls side.

I agree that there is a big drop off between 3-5 and everyone else at the older age groups. Not at the younger age groups though.

Anonymous wrote:The top teams are those that collect players from other clubs. Traffickers in human flesh rather than developers of homegrown talent. It's a model that works.

I think that it is usually a question of bother player development and player acquisition. One of the reasons that the top teams are able to acquire the players is that they have a reputation for good coaching and player development. It's not a 100% correlation, but usually when good coaches leave and are replaced by inferior coaches you see a club start to decline as the better players drift away (or in some cases rush for the exits). And a club which acquires good coaches starts to perform better and then begins to be able to attract players.

Vienna's area isn't "small". It covers 3 big high schools, oakton, madison, and marshall high school. VYS was about the same size as great falls or reston socce club before they merged into one entity.