I'd take a min and comb through the league sites as a secondary data source for evaluation. CCL, NCSL, EDP, etc all have standings (some with scores) to help you with the evaluation of the competition level. With that being said, the records are no way a reflection of the quality of coaching but at least it'a numeric way of comparing clubs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also, there are smaller clubs and non-DA/ECNL clubs. There are strong independent clubs with great coaches and competitive teams. Herndon, Beach, LMVSCand others in VA and Pipeline, Premier Navy, Rush and SAC in MD are some names. DA/ECNL are great leagues with top talent but the independent clubs also produce elite players.

Pipeline and SAC are affilliated with Spirit DA Maryland

A lot of Herndon players end up playing for McLean

Technical director for Rush is a former McLean/Bethesda coach

Beach is in Virginia Beach

But the above does not contradict that there are strong non-ECNL/DA teams.

Anonymous wrote:BRYC girls U9-U12 is run academy style. There are many postings here on how they do it. U9-U12 only does scrimmage days and tournaments, they do not play in a league.

At U9/U10, a lot of players come and go, they take mostly any player who is borderline "travel" material, or higher of course. Braddock Road has ODSL level teams (they don't have NCSL teams at that age), and some players cross over between ODSL and the academy. You do see a lot of younger siblings of older players, since it's an easy option for parents already driving them to practice around the same fields.

By U11, some players aren't ready for the next step, in that case they stay on their ODSL or house league all-stars level teams which is not part of the academy. At U11, more players join out of the blue because they've spent U9/U10 somewhere else and want a more serious program, or BRYC is close to them and the parents think it's a better option than their current team/program. Word of mouth is strong with BRYC because of its history and it covers a wide area (3 public high schools in its foot print, Robinson, Woodson, Lake Braddock), plus it's not a small club.

By the time the players reach U12, they have a core group of players that they know who is ECNL material and who isn't. A good chunk of these players have just joined at U12 from other places to get known by the coaches a year in advance for the ECNL selections, and were not "developed" by the club at the younger years.

Then when U13 ECNL tryouts come around, even more players from elsewhere will try out. So when the U13 team ECNL is formed, how many of those players can you say were developed by the club? 1/2? 1/3? 1/4? Who knows... but it doesn't matter, because they will always be able to field a competitive squad at U13 because they draw in players from outside the club.

none of the above describes why BRYC is described as talented in the “younger & older”. age groups. Everything described above seems to describe why the middle age groups u12-u15 should be solid. Is u12 really part of the academy? the coaching staff indicates that it may not be part of the academy groups.

Ideally - yes its best to develop your own players. At smaller clubs, if a handful of good players leave in an age group, the team becomes less competitive 1) making the team less appealing to other good players 2) it's also hard to find a great coach to work with a middle of the road or below team 3) the level of the team just lowers.. NCSL has many divisions, so you just play in a lower division. If your club is "locked in" to a league like CCL or VPL, if you have a weaker team or weaker age group, then you are just stuck playing harder teams all the time... the teams just have to do the best they can since there are no divisions. This is why NCSL is a fit for smaller clubs, which don't always have consistency in strength of teams at each age group.

Smaller clubs have to develop their own players, there is no other option. Large clubs, frankly don't have to in order to put together competitive teams at the younger ages purely because it's a numbers game.

When you have 300-400 kids in U8 house program, by factor of numbers you are going to have some good athletes and some talent.

When you have 100 kids or fewer in a U8 house program, maybe you can form 2 travel teams at U9. If 50-60 kids, you're looking at 1 team. Some clubs wait until U10 to form travel teams, or have a U9/U10 combined age group team. Then they form real teams at U11 or U12.

Smaller clubs have to act like the Netherlands - attention to detail, not letting anything slip, making sure everything is being run properly, because there is not much room for making mistakes. Larger clubs can be lazy and "wing it" with a lot of aspects of developing players and it won't show. The worst offenders of cutting corners with player development from U9-U12 are clubs that have DA or ECNL at U13, because outside players will want to migrate there at U13 anyway. Once you hit U13, a team has started to set its trajectory as far as how competitive it will be.

Isn’t it better for a club to cultivate its own players? What happens to a small club if the players leave to go elsewhere and the club has to rebuild at U14+? Regardless of size that doesn’t sound like a great model; unless this is why DC United and Washington Spirit have alliances/collaborations/partnerships with several smaller clubs too?

There are definitely some talented players for their age mixed in, and the not-as-talented players start to get the picture by the end of U10.

BRYC girls U9-U12 is run academy style. There are many postings here on how they do it. U9-U12 only does scrimmage days and tournaments, they do not play in a league.

At U9/U10, a lot of players come and go, they take mostly any player who is borderline "travel" material, or higher of course. Braddock Road has ODSL level teams (they don't have NCSL teams at that age), and some players cross over between ODSL and the academy. You do see a lot of younger siblings of older players, since it's an easy option for parents already driving them to practice around the same fields.

By U11, some players aren't ready for the next step, in that case they stay on their ODSL or house league all-stars level teams which is not part of the academy. At U11, more players join out of the blue because they've spent U9/U10 somewhere else and want a more serious program, or BRYC is close to them and the parents think it's a better option than their current team/program. Word of mouth is strong with BRYC because of its history and it covers a wide area (3 public high schools in its foot print, Robinson, Woodson, Lake Braddock), plus it's not a small club.

By the time the players reach U12, they have a core group of players that they know who is ECNL material and who isn't. A good chunk of these players have just joined at U12 from other places to get known by the coaches a year in advance for the ECNL selections, and were not "developed" by the club at the younger years.

Then when U13 ECNL tryouts come around, even more players from elsewhere will try out. So when the U13 team ECNL is formed, how many of those players can you say were developed by the club? 1/2? 1/3? 1/4? Who knows... but it doesn't matter, because they will always be able to field a competitive squad at U13 because they draw in players from outside the club.

Anonymous wrote:Lots of talent at BRYC on the girls side. Younger and older.

BRYC talent is at “younger and older”? Thats not a huge testament to the ability to develop players. Young talent probably were talented wherever they went, how much of the older talent were BRYC younger? What happened to all those players in between?

Anonymous wrote:Lots of talent at BRYC on the girls side. Younger and older.

BRYCs talent is at “Younger and older”? that's a very odd way of describing where the talent is.. is there a big talent issue in the pre-ecnl and younger ecnl u12-u15 groups? What's going on with these age groups?

Anonymous wrote:Also, there are smaller clubs and non-DA/ECNL clubs. There are strong independent clubs with great coaches and competitive teams. Herndon, Beach, LMVSCand others in VA and Pipeline, Premier Navy, Rush and SAC in MD are some names. DA/ECNL are great leagues with top talent but the independent clubs also produce elite players.

Pipeline and SAC are affilliated with Spirit DA Maryland

A lot of Herndon players end up playing for McLean

Technical director for Rush is a former McLean/Bethesda coach

Beach is in Virginia Beach

Also, there are smaller clubs and non-DA/ECNL clubs. There are strong independent clubs with great coaches and competitive teams. Herndon, Beach, LMVSCand others in VA and Pipeline, Premier Navy, Rush and SAC in MD are some names. DA/ECNL are great leagues with top talent but the independent clubs also produce elite players.

Lots of talent at BRYC on the girls side. Younger and older.

Or girls. They do charge alot though

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do some of the smaller clubs get bypassed simply because they are not as flashy? The poster above mentioned several clubs I had not heard of.

It is actually more the opposite -- many, many kids start at the smaller clubs (which are often the club closest to their home) but then move to bigger clubs (usually a bit further from home) as their skill level, dedication and aspirations to play at higher levels outgrow the small club.

The clubs which play in DA and or ECNL at the older age groups tend to attract the best players at the younger ages as well. BRYC for example plays in ECNL both boys and girls. They don't carry as many teams at the older age groups as say Arlington.

DC United and Washington Spirit are somewhat unique in that they essentially only have DA teams.

BRYC attracts the best players at younger ages????? umm not on the boys side sir ..