Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really seeing kids from Arlington and surrounding areas, DC or MD currently at DCU going out to Loudoun 4 times per week just to practice plus games. This will hurt the diversity of players from many different areas available for DCU's player pool.

So they aren’t going to have any teams with regular DC practices? There goes the DC, Arlington, Alexandria, Annandale, Gunston, parts of Maryland diverse player pool that DC United used to attract.

Loudoun is American football, baseball heavy in older years. Other than the vast amounts of unused land I can’t come up with a single reason for that area to be a home base. It is cheap land period. DC has no land to build.

So now you have Loudoun, DC United, FCV and FCBescola all sitting on top of one another.

How many current DC United Academy kids are going to leave with this geographic move? I guess they will need to start all over.

I imagine this is how DC United will be reduce or eliminate their DA fees for their players. They are one of the few MLS academies, maybe the last one, that still charges their players for fees. Understandably there may be some travel-related costs that the parents have to pay, but for the most part joining and participating in an MLS DA is free of cost for the player's families in the rest of the US. People are concerned about Arlington, as if their DA won't continue to receive expanded age groups. I think the weaker DA's in the region were always McLean and Loudoun. I said before, this is not good news for Loudoun Soccer, but great news for Loudoun residents as a whole.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not really seeing kids from Arlington and surrounding areas, DC or MD currently at DCU going out to Loudoun 4 times per week just to practice plus games. This will hurt the diversity of players from many different areas available for DCU's player pool.

So they aren’t going to have any teams with regular DC practices? There goes the DC, Arlington, Alexandria, Annandale, Gunston, parts of Maryland diverse player pool that DC United used to attract.

Loudoun is American football, baseball heavy in older years. Other than the vast amounts of unused land I can’t come up with a single reason for that area to be a home base. It is cheap land period. DC has no land to build.

So now you have Loudoun, DC United, FCV and FCBescola all sitting on top of one another.

How many current DC United Academy kids are going to leave with this geographic move? I guess they will need to start all over.

I wonder if Barron will commute from DC.

Anonymous wrote:Not really seeing kids from Arlington and surrounding areas, DC or MD currently at DCU going out to Loudoun 4 times per week just to practice plus games. This will hurt the diversity of players from many different areas available for DCU's player pool.

So they aren’t going to have any teams with regular DC practices? There goes the DC, Arlington, Alexandria, Annandale, Gunston, parts of Maryland diverse player pool that DC United used to attract.

Loudoun is American football, baseball heavy in older years. Other than the vast amounts of unused land I can’t come up with a single reason for that area to be a home base. It is cheap land period. DC has no land to build.

So now you have Loudoun, DC United, FCV and FCBescola all sitting on top of one another.

How many current DC United Academy kids are going to leave with this geographic move? I guess they will need to start all over.

Not really seeing kids from Arlington and surrounding areas, DC or MD currently at DCU going out to Loudoun 4 times per week just to practice plus games. This will hurt the diversity of players from many different areas available for DCU's player pool.

Selfishly being a Loudoun resident, this make my son jump for joy. He's wanted to try out for DCU DA in the past but there was no way of us getting him to DC on a daily basis. I think Loudoun will have to pull back from DA, they are struggling to keep up with VDA as it is and in a few years will have to fight with DCU on top of that. It's not a good situation to be in. They just had ID centers open up a few weeks ago for the current season. Not sure if they have roster issues already.

Anonymous wrote:Man that sucks. Who the hell wants to leave the city to move out near Loudoun?

+1

I still go back to “who gives a sh@t”. The training sucks anyways.

Anonymous wrote:PP Here. Completely agree that if they take the merger route Loudoun would lose its DA vs DCU. Besides merger/partnership and coexistence with literally a fence divIding the two organizations, what are the other options?

Frankly for Loudoun there are no options short of suing to prevent the move in the first place. There is literally nothing Loudoun has that DC United needs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would DC United, an MLS team with training facilities for team players and U12 DA and above affect U9 Travel teams, or any rec team? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

There are a large number of U9-U11 travel - plus U8 academy - players driving 30-40 mins each way 3x/week from Sterling, Purcellville, South Riding, Brambleton, etc. on Loudoun's teams. A lot of those kids are on Loudoun's 2nd-6th teams, but hoping in time to move up to the Red (1st team) and make the DA. I think a good number of those people will look for closer options -- i.e. play for another club like Sterling's 1st team rather than Loudoun's 3rd or 4th team since being in the Loudoun system won't be an advantage later on at U14, etc. We'll see.

Above U14 there is no major advantage to playing in Loudoun as they are not a full DAso those teams at Loudoun really remain unchanged. This only affects the DA program which is important for marketing and talent retention. The top Loudoun talent will likely tryout for DC United first since they are a full Academy and it would be a one stop shop.

PP Here. Completely agree that if they take the merger route Loudoun would lose its DA vs DCU. Besides merger/partnership and coexistence with literally a fence divIding the two organizations, what are the other options?

Anonymous wrote:How would DC United, an MLS team with training facilities for team players and U12 DA and above affect U9 Travel teams, or any rec team? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

There are a large number of U9-U11 travel - plus U8 academy - players driving 30-40 mins each way 3x/week from Sterling, Purcellville, South Riding, Brambleton, etc. on Loudoun's teams. A lot of those kids are on Loudoun's 2nd-6th teams, but hoping in time to move up to the Red (1st team) and make the DA. I think a good number of those people will look for closer options -- i.e. play for another club like Sterling's 1st team rather than Loudoun's 3rd or 4th team since being in the Loudoun system won't be an advantage later on at U14, etc. We'll see.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How would DC United, an MLS team with training facilities for team players and U12 DA and above affect U9 Travel teams, or any rec team? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

It wouldn’t impact the u9-u11 level or Rec programs. It will impact the U12-U14 DA program. Either both the DCU programs and Loudoun DA program would coexist, stealing players from each other and lowering the playing pool to get enough kids for two programs. Or they will need to partner/combine their U12-14 DA programs. I believe Loudoun is already a feeder/partner for the DCU DA program based on the Loudoun materials. Not sure what happens to all of the. Maryland/DC players. Will they truck all the way out to Loudoun?

If they merged that is essentially the end of Loudoun DA. As a MLS club DC United is never going to lose their Academy status and as a full Academy, unlike Loudoun. There really is no incentive for DC United to merge with Loudoun.

Anonymous wrote:How would DC United, an MLS team with training facilities for team players and U12 DA and above affect U9 Travel teams, or any rec team? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

It wouldn’t impact the u9-u11 level or Rec programs. It will impact the U12-U14 DA program. Either both the DCU programs and Loudoun DA program would coexist, stealing players from each other and lowering the playing pool to get enough kids for two programs. Or they will need to partner/combine their U12-14 DA programs. I believe Loudoun is already a feeder/partner for the DCU DA program based on the Loudoun materials. Not sure what happens to all of the. Maryland/DC players. Will they truck all the way out to Loudoun?

How would DC United, an MLS team with training facilities for team players and U12 DA and above affect U9 Travel teams, or any rec team? I don't think you know what you're talking about.

I don't see how this anything but bad news for Loudoun Soccer. They essentially have a stranglehold on LoCo; FCV's girls program is the only other relevant entity in the county. As it stands now, you have people driving their 6 and 7 year olds from every corner of the county to Leesburg to get junior into the U7 pre-academy and U8 academy, and eventually on to the Red Team. If Loudoun's Red teams aren't the proverbial top of the mountain for Loudoun youth soccer players - and more importantly, the status symbol for Mom and Dad at cocktail parties, I think it erodes their travel program and eventually their recreation program. They have a lot of cash - and some time - so if they're smart and creative, I suppose they may be able to align with DCU, partner w/ an Intl club or develop some resources outside of Leesburg to diversify their facilities.

Man that sucks. Who the hell wants to leave the city to move out near Loudoun?