What BSC really looks for is aggression more than skill.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure you're a BSC parent because the top team is always huge. The second top team, which is always a very good team, may have more of a mix but if you actually know the players in some of the age groups you mentioned the top teams are all big and tall and fast and have great technical skills. I don't know all the information for all the age groups but for the two that I know I can tell you they do not have smaller players on those top teams.

I'm not the PP, but my DS has played against Bethesda's top team at two different age groups for many years now, and we have seen other age groups too when waiting for DS' game to start. Based on that experience I disagree that Bethesda's top teams are especially big and tall.

[quote=Anonymous]Agree in a few years it will show who has the better talent. One thing I think hurts ECNL is most teams the kids get fair playing time. Not perfectly even but a lot more playing time than the older MLS kids get. Most of the kids that do not make an impact on the field for MLS only get 10 to 15 min of playing time. ECNL plays you a lot more and that can hurt the flow of the game. [/quote]

This varies between clubs rather than between leagues. In general the better clubs and better teams provide more even playing time - it is the weaker clubs and teams which do not do this, and it tends to create a self-reinforcing loop.

I'm not sure you're a BSC parent because the top team is always huge. The second top team, which is always a very good team, may have more of a mix but if you actually know the players in some of the age groups you mentioned the top teams are all big and tall and fast and have great technical skills. I don't know all the information for all the age groups but for the two that I know I can tell you they do not have smaller players on those top teams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are interested in MLS Next at BSC and have a very good player my suggestion would be to join at U11 or U12 and only take the offer if your child is placed on one of the pre-academy teams.

You should also be aware that the club is so big and attracts so many talented kids that your child's size will figure into decisions. If you have 30 kids who are all fast, technically skilled and aggressive and 20 of them are also really tall your child may be at a disadvantage. Good luck OP!

Slightly disagree. For U9-U13 currently, if your son has technical skills etc their size won’t matter. Most of the best players on the top teams from those ages are undersized, and it doesn’t matter one bit.

Also, I agree with a previous poster that it is better to attend a practice and try out mid season that way than to wait until open tryouts in the Spring.

+1 The general advice is good, but I would say you should head to BSC by U10 for the best odds. You will get very good training on any of the top 3 teams at that age. BSC on the boys’ side does not care about height in the slightest. For at least the last decade their top teams have featured lots of small players, and this is true at the older age groups too. At a certain point speed will matter, but that’s true everywhere at higher levels.

Anonymous wrote:If you are interested in MLS Next at BSC and have a very good player my suggestion would be to join at U11 or U12 and only take the offer if your child is placed on one of the pre-academy teams.

You should also be aware that the club is so big and attracts so many talented kids that your child's size will figure into decisions. If you have 30 kids who are all fast, technically skilled and aggressive and 20 of them are also really tall your child may be at a disadvantage. Good luck OP!

Slightly disagree. For U9-U13 currently, if your son has technical skills etc their size won’t matter. Most of the best players on the top teams from those ages are undersized, and it doesn’t matter one bit.

Also, I agree with a previous poster that it is better to attend a practice and try out mid season that way than to wait until open tryouts in the Spring.

If you are interested in MLS Next at BSC and have a very good player my suggestion would be to join at U11 or U12 and only take the offer if your child is placed on one of the pre-academy teams.

You should also be aware that the club is so big and attracts so many talented kids that your child's size will figure into decisions. If you have 30 kids who are all fast, technically skilled and aggressive and 20 of them are also really tall your child may be at a disadvantage. Good luck OP!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BSC’s U13 this year is 100% BSC kids or close to it. They kept all off the top u12 09s from the prior year and added 5 or so 09s from the prior year U12 BSC second team. Maybe a couple kids got added from outside the club—can’t say for sure. There tends to be more movement in MLSNext teams in older age groups at BSC and most clubs.

So to answer the OP's question, there would be a lot of spots open for their U13 B team (non-MLSNext team)? Was that the info you were looking for, OP? Or were you interested in knowing whether BSC was open to taking non-BSC kids straight into their MLSNext teams?

This will differ by club and birth year, but the BSC U13 second team this year is also made up almost entirely of BSC kids.

OP, if you are looking for good club second teams for your kid, look at how many teams the club currently has at your kid’s age group. BSC tends to have a lot of boys’ teams at the younger age groups, and over time the 5 or 6 teams turn into 2 or 3. On the boys’ side at least, U13 is usually a tough year to break in to a higher level team at the club unless your son has some really eye-catching skills. At the point BSC or any other club has only two teams per age group, it usually becomes easier to break in to one of those teams from the outside because there is always attrition and there are no longer scores of kids who are known entities to the club trying to move up.

I'm pretty sure BSC's MLSNext team is 100% BSC kids and that the second team is also 100% BSC kids. I don't know about the third team.

So they don’t even hold tryouts then? Or they do but never bring on any from outside?

BSC had open tryouts for that age group, and had a big turnout. There were a lot of great players, some we recognized from the top teams of other clubs, but if you are coming from another club you don't need to just be on par with the top BSC players you need to be a standout among them and that just wasn't going to happen with the caliber of BSC'S MLS Next team for that age group. Even their second team is better than many first teams in our area. That age group had three pre-academy teams when they played U12 and all three were very good teams.

Same for the younger years ( u10-u12). Players from top teams often come to practices during the year to tryout and see how they fit with bsc's top team. I have seen it many times. Most of the kids are at the level of the second and some with the third team. BSC has very good second teams.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BSC’s U13 this year is 100% BSC kids or close to it. They kept all off the top u12 09s from the prior year and added 5 or so 09s from the prior year U12 BSC second team. Maybe a couple kids got added from outside the club—can’t say for sure. There tends to be more movement in MLSNext teams in older age groups at BSC and most clubs.

So to answer the OP's question, there would be a lot of spots open for their U13 B team (non-MLSNext team)? Was that the info you were looking for, OP? Or were you interested in knowing whether BSC was open to taking non-BSC kids straight into their MLSNext teams?

This will differ by club and birth year, but the BSC U13 second team this year is also made up almost entirely of BSC kids.

OP, if you are looking for good club second teams for your kid, look at how many teams the club currently has at your kid’s age group. BSC tends to have a lot of boys’ teams at the younger age groups, and over time the 5 or 6 teams turn into 2 or 3. On the boys’ side at least, U13 is usually a tough year to break in to a higher level team at the club unless your son has some really eye-catching skills. At the point BSC or any other club has only two teams per age group, it usually becomes easier to break in to one of those teams from the outside because there is always attrition and there are no longer scores of kids who are known entities to the club trying to move up.

I'm pretty sure BSC's MLSNext team is 100% BSC kids and that the second team is also 100% BSC kids. I don't know about the third team.

So they don’t even hold tryouts then? Or they do but never bring on any from outside?

BSC had open tryouts for that age group, and had a big turnout. There were a lot of great players, some we recognized from the top teams of other clubs, but if you are coming from another club you don't need to just be on par with the top BSC players you need to be a standout among them and that just wasn't going to happen with the caliber of BSC'S MLS Next team for that age group. Even their second team is better than many first teams in our area. That age group had three pre-academy teams when they played U12 and all three were very good teams.

Agree in a few years it will show who has the better talent. One thing I think hurts ECNL is most teams the kids get fair playing time. Not perfectly even but a lot more playing time than the older MLS kids get. Most of the kids that do not make an impact on the field for MLS only get 10 to 15 min of playing time. ECNL plays you a lot more and that can hurt the flow of the game.

Bottomline, for any team your DC has to be able to outplay one of the better kids on the team. If not, it doesn't make sense for a coach to replace a current player if your DC can't make an immediate impact for the team.

Quite a few Development Academy clubs went to ECNL after it folded and their top teams can rival any MLS top team. The next few years will really determine who will come out on top as the better league.

Anonymous wrote:The trick with BSC if you are joining later is to shine during a game playing for one of their rivals - Paragon, Potomac or even Achilles. But at that point why join? You are probably satisfied where you are.

Otherwise, they reward loyalty - if you started with them in juniors (and financed the 170,000 a year salary for their director) they will put you on their first or second team, no problem. Their final career banquet proves this - so many pics of their Academy kids in BSC jerseys as a 5 year old. Can you blame them? It’s good business.

This is true, but they will not pass on talent. If an outside player trys out or joins practice for evaluation, and they play very well, regardless of what position they play, BSC will offer you a position on the top team. They do pull from within, which is a nice perk. All the other clubs do the same. BSC has taken many players from outside the club and placed them on their teams. They want good talent associated with their name.

The challenge is once you get to the U13 level and up, the players talented enough to play at that level, are trying out for all the top clubs. They may get an offer from BSC but decide to go with DC United. Also, the number of players in this area who are talented enough to play at that level, become fewer and fewer, as they move up clubs. So, there are not many players to pull from that are more talented than the plaers moving up within the same club. If there are better players, then those moving up can be placed on the Blue team while the better players, even if outside the club, will be placed on MLS Next. This is how the clubs do it. Talent wins over everything, but if not enough talent shows up, they pull from what the have.

BSC offers outside players a yes/no notice first to see who accepts, and then offers the current BSC players afterwards.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:BSC’s U13 this year is 100% BSC kids or close to it. They kept all off the top u12 09s from the prior year and added 5 or so 09s from the prior year U12 BSC second team. Maybe a couple kids got added from outside the club—can’t say for sure. There tends to be more movement in MLSNext teams in older age groups at BSC and most clubs.

So to answer the OP's question, there would be a lot of spots open for their U13 B team (non-MLSNext team)? Was that the info you were looking for, OP? Or were you interested in knowing whether BSC was open to taking non-BSC kids straight into their MLSNext teams?

All the MLS Next teams in this area, including Bethesda, will take good players from outside the club, onto their teams. All of them! To get on the team, the player would need to be be as good as or better than the club player playing that position. The teams are always looking for good players. They want to win games and increase the club's prestige. So, try out for the clubs that you are interested in. If you aren't chosen for MLS Next, they will recommend the level of play that your child should ply under, in their club.

Anonymous wrote:The trick with BSC if you are joining later is to shine during a game playing for one of their rivals - Paragon, Potomac or even Achilles. But at that point why join? You are probably satisfied where you are.

Otherwise, they reward loyalty - if you started with them in juniors (and financed the 170,000 a year salary for their director) they will put you on their first or second team, no problem. Their final career banquet proves this - so many pics of their Academy kids in BSC jerseys as a 5 year old. Can you blame them? It’s good business.

Ok, but there are players on the U13 team that joined from other clubs in past years. They are definitely open to kids who have talent and/or athletic ability, as you would expect from a boys club of that caliber. It is not a country club team at all.

The trick with BSC if you are joining later is to shine during a game playing for one of their rivals - Paragon, Potomac or even Achilles. But at that point why join? You are probably satisfied where you are.

Otherwise, they reward loyalty - if you started with them in juniors (and financed the 170,000 a year salary for their director) they will put you on their first or second team, no problem. Their final career banquet proves this - so many pics of their Academy kids in BSC jerseys as a 5 year old. Can you blame them? It’s good business.