Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

My only experience with Arlington is in the DA (came up thru another club) and i haven’t seen politics on the DA side.

Their 03 Academy finished last in tournament bracket (BRYC beat them 7-1) and many of their younger teams finished in bottom of brackets this weekend. The Club never seems to do well against MD teams, or outside of the same few CCL teams they play over and over. I think the overall quality in the Club has been going down for quite some time. Maybe some of the things mentioned are the reason why. Or- maybe there are now so many other Clubs with better development/coaching that relying on numbers/largest player pool alone is no longer good enough in this area. They lost many good coaches over the years that couldn’t stomach the system. The reign of the big boys like Loudoun and Arlington really doesn’t exist anymore. That is what is promising, better soccer vs kick and run is becoming more prominent with more options for players and coaches that don’t do politics and are more concerned with individual development. Too big to fail...

Arlington girls does not do enough technical training in the u littles(u12 and below). They are athletic enough but lack the ball skills of some other programs. They seem to work on speed of play before a lot of players have developed enough individual skills need to play that way. In the top brackets in the bigger tournaments every team is fairly close athletically, the difference is usually technical skill. Good technical skills allows faster speed of play.

The Club had major staff changes/leadership over the past 6 years of so. Some of those people took the Club in a different direction and I think the downfall is a direct result of the character of the Club changing and the people involved. They got greedy very fast and it's easy to lose focus of what it really should be all about, e.g., the young kids starting out and developing vs recruitment in later years to earn titles. Not having a feeling of 'one club' given the dynamics and differential treatment which little kids starting out really notice, many of which drop the sport completely due to it. I feel as some of the original members were bamboozled and fooled by fancy resumes without thoroughly checking out their track record or history other places. Some of the exodus a pp mentioned was due to the feeling of lack of investment in young players. Coaching staff was inconsistent with some teams obviously they didn't care about. They also would focus way too young on only 10-12 of the players when they had over 75 in an age group. When those players don't pan out who can they turn to? They have the kids they didn't care about and often didn't even have a coach show up at tournaments---with manager taking over. When you have an enormously sized player pool and very limited geographic/traffic-wise options near you (a monopoly), you can cavalierly choose to just tell people "if you don't like it, leave". That does catch up to you over time and the 'brand' begins to tarnish. The same exact thing is happening over at Loudoun, btw.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

My only experience with Arlington is in the DA (came up thru another club) and i haven’t seen politics on the DA side.

Their 03 Academy finished last in tournament bracket (BRYC beat them 7-1) and many of their younger teams finished in bottom of brackets this weekend. The Club never seems to do well against MD teams, or outside of the same few CCL teams they play over and over. I think the overall quality in the Club has been going down for quite some time. Maybe some of the things mentioned are the reason why. Or- maybe there are now so many other Clubs with better development/coaching that relying on numbers/largest player pool alone is no longer good enough in this area. They lost many good coaches over the years that couldn’t stomach the system. The reign of the big boys like Loudoun and Arlington really doesn’t exist anymore. That is what is promising, better soccer vs kick and run is becoming more prominent with more options for players and coaches that don’t do politics and are more concerned with individual development. Too big to fail...

Arlington girls does not do enough technical training in the u littles(u12 and below). They are athletic enough but lack the ball skills of some other programs. They seem to work on speed of play before a lot of players have developed enough individual skills need to play that way. In the top brackets in the bigger tournaments every team is fairly close athletically, the difference is usually technical skill. Good technical skills allows faster speed of play.

Anonymous wrote:There has been an exodus of really good players going on over the past few years. This is the result. Lots of in-fighting.

Politics and parents are usually the cause for players/families leaving.

And they go hand in hand sometimes.

There has been an exodus of really good players going on over the past few years. This is the result. Lots of in-fighting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

My only experience with Arlington is in the DA (came up thru another club) and i haven’t seen politics on the DA side.

Their 03 Academy finished last in tournament bracket (BRYC beat them 7-1) and many of their younger teams finished in bottom of brackets this weekend. The Club never seems to do well against MD teams, or outside of the same few CCL teams they play over and over. I think the overall quality in the Club has been going down for quite some time. Maybe some of the things mentioned are the reason why. Or- maybe there are now so many other Clubs with better development/coaching that relying on numbers/largest player pool alone is no longer good enough in this area. They lost many good coaches over the years that couldn’t stomach the system. The reign of the big boys like Loudoun and Arlington really doesn’t exist anymore. That is what is promising, better soccer vs kick and run is becoming more prominent with more options for players and coaches that don’t do politics and are more concerned with individual development. Too big to fail...

I had kids at Arlington and there were politics but not as much as other local clubs. The board reflects the ratio of rec to travel players so the potential for corrupting influence from travel parents on the board is not what was suggested in earlier posts.

The thing I keep hearing about Arlington is how many lawyers sit on that board (not verified), and that can't be a good thing.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

My only experience with Arlington is in the DA (came up thru another club) and i haven’t seen politics on the DA side.

It's very political in the U9-U12 years. I think they are less concerned with those age groups and just want to keep 'customers' happy. There is a lot of parental influence that makes for a toxic environment.

It seems to start washing out by U14 and above. Most kids then quit that were pushed beyond their talent level and can't face moving down teams or they get cut. You also get kids that left in the very early years start to circle back.

I agree it's a good sign for DA that there is diversity of Clubs represented, as it should be for a DA team. It would not make sense for it to be homogenous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

Their choices for actual boys DA teams do not reflect a strong in-club bias. That is a really good start and sign about the DA. Their non-DA top teams also reflect a willingness to take players from other clubs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

My only experience with Arlington is in the DA (came up thru another club) and i haven’t seen politics on the DA side.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

Nope.

McLean beats that hands down, lots of $ and politics going around ...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

Nope.

In my experience there have definitely been some situations and especially specific coaches that favor connected parents kids. However, that is not a majority though the board members kids are very well connected and it can get in the way sometimes. Overall, a well run club.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

Nope.