Anonymous
12/14/2020 13:06
Subject: Re:VYS Soccer - better or worse?
Anonymous wrote:Are the older VYS age groups 06s to 02/03s leaving VPL?
Where would they go?
Anonymous
12/14/2020 11:52
Subject: Re:VYS Soccer - better or worse?
Are the older VYS age groups 06s to 02/03s leaving VPL?
Anonymous
12/04/2020 17:18
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:And in French Liegue 2 news...
Literally every player in French Ligue 2 is miles and years ahead of your child in regards to talent, IQ, athleticism in soccer.
Literally every player in French Ligue 2 is miles and years ahead of all but a handful (maybe a couple at most) of players in the entire country including the MLS
Anonymous
12/04/2020 15:10
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
Anonymous wrote:And in French Liegue 2 news...
Literally every player in French Ligue 2 is miles and years ahead of your child in regards to talent, IQ, athleticism in soccer.
Anonymous
12/04/2020 15:06
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
RantingSoccerDad wrote:Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:That hints at my problem with "club-centric" leagues. Vienna's boys don't need a higher level of competition. Vienna's girls might. If they weren't in a club-centric league, they could just go to EDP and get assigned to whatever level makes sense.
This isn’t specific to VYS, but it is a little more complicated. I’ve had boys play for VYS travel before. One season the team lost every regular season game - every one. The other boys’s VYS travel team won every game by blowouts. So some fine tuning of the boys level of competition may be needed, too.
Yep.
Big, big problem with "club-centric" leagues.
How do you improve the team that lost every game? Some players will surely want to leave, and who'd be inclined to come over from another club? They'll end up promoting from the Black team, and that's not going to make them better.
I've been beating this drum for a while. I'm usually met with zombies: "But ... CCL ... good ... coach ... say ... CCL ... good ... (and VPL needed because ECNL)."
Exposing my ignorance of all this jargon ... could you explain what you mean by "club-centric" leagues? I understand (thanks to your blog!) that there are different leagues, e.g. NCSL, ECNL, etc. I understand that VYS plays in one (or more) of these leagues.
But what do you mean by "club-centric" leagues? Sorry, I'm just trying to understand what you see as the potential fix to this type of imbalance. We like VYS but don't enjoy seeing our kids (a) lose every game or (b) win every game by huge margins. I'm trying to figure out what the solution to this is, whether going with another club or lobbying VYS to make some systemic change.
"Club-centric" leagues (CCL, Virginia Premier League -- VYS is in the latter) schedule club vs. club rather than team vs. team. Membership in the league doesn't change from season to season, so you'll play the same teams every year.
Your options would be:
1. Lobby VYS to leave the VPL. I don't think it would get very far because VPL is now also an ECNL regional league, which carries a certain amount of prestige.
2. Insist that your son plays on the Black team rather than Red.
3. Lobby U.S. Soccer to institute a nationwide pyramid system of its own so that U.S. Club Soccer (VPL) and U.S. Youth Soccer (CCL, EDP, NCSL) can't set up all these competing leagues that don't give everyone a good competitive level. Good luck!
At least on the boys side of things....I've honestly never met anyone who felt that VPL had any prestige including parents of non-VYS kids who play in VPL. Maybe that's the problem...Vienna management thinks VPL is prestigious when it really isn't. I bet if we did a survey and asked kids who are on their club's top team and asked them if they wished their team was in VPL, you would get zero positive responses.
Anonymous
12/04/2020 14:26
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
Anonymous wrote:If you have a son on a red team I would not advocate moving to black just to win more games unless he's riding the bench. There is a HUGE difference at VYS between the red and black teams especially as they get older. I have 2 kids there one on red and one and black. The red team gets everything and the black team is just there to help pay the bills. Club fees have a $100 difference over the course of the year and the red team gets an additional practice each week, practices over the winter, gets better coaches, goes to more and better tournaments etc... It's my biggest complaint of VYS.
Well, the kid whose team won every regular season game this fall is already on the red team -- I don't think switching to black would necessarily be any better.
I guess I see what you mean about club-centric. It's frustrating that we can't seem to find relatively evenly matched competition for the kids. No one feels good after a season with no wins. No one learns much after a season with no losses and mostly blowout wins. The tournaments were fun because we played much stronger teams, but you could tell it was a shock for the VYS team to play better competition -- and sadly, having run all over the opposition during the regular season, they weren't really prepared for playing an equal or better team.
Anonymous
12/04/2020 14:21
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
RantingSoccerDad wrote:Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:That hints at my problem with "club-centric" leagues. Vienna's boys don't need a higher level of competition. Vienna's girls might. If they weren't in a club-centric league, they could just go to EDP and get assigned to whatever level makes sense.
This isn’t specific to VYS, but it is a little more complicated. I’ve had boys play for VYS travel before. One season the team lost every regular season game - every one. The other boys’s VYS travel team won every game by blowouts. So some fine tuning of the boys level of competition may be needed, too.
Yep.
Big, big problem with "club-centric" leagues.
How do you improve the team that lost every game? Some players will surely want to leave, and who'd be inclined to come over from another club? They'll end up promoting from the Black team, and that's not going to make them better.
I've been beating this drum for a while. I'm usually met with zombies: "But ... CCL ... good ... coach ... say ... CCL ... good ... (and VPL needed because ECNL)."
Exposing my ignorance of all this jargon ... could you explain what you mean by "club-centric" leagues? I understand (thanks to your blog!) that there are different leagues, e.g. NCSL, ECNL, etc. I understand that VYS plays in one (or more) of these leagues.
But what do you mean by "club-centric" leagues? Sorry, I'm just trying to understand what you see as the potential fix to this type of imbalance. We like VYS but don't enjoy seeing our kids (a) lose every game or (b) win every game by huge margins. I'm trying to figure out what the solution to this is, whether going with another club or lobbying VYS to make some systemic change.
"Club-centric" leagues (CCL, Virginia Premier League -- VYS is in the latter) schedule club vs. club rather than team vs. team. Membership in the league doesn't change from season to season, so you'll play the same teams every year.
Your options would be:
1. Lobby VYS to leave the VPL. I don't think it would get very far because VPL is now also an ECNL regional league, which carries a certain amount of prestige.
2. Insist that your son plays on the Black team rather than Red.
3. Lobby U.S. Soccer to institute a nationwide pyramid system of its own so that U.S. Club Soccer (VPL) and U.S. Youth Soccer (CCL, EDP, NCSL) can't set up all these competing leagues that don't give everyone a good competitive level. Good luck!
If you have a son on a red team I would not advocate moving to black just to win more games unless he's riding the bench. There is a HUGE difference at VYS between the red and black teams especially as they get older. I have 2 kids there one on red and one and black. The red team gets everything and the black team is just there to help pay the bills. Club fees have a $100 difference over the course of the year and the red team gets an additional practice each week, practices over the winter, gets better coaches, goes to more and better tournaments etc... It's my biggest complaint of VYS.
Anonymous
12/04/2020 13:29
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:Vienna's girls did rather well across the board in Virginia Premier League National Premier League ECNL Regional play this fall:
http://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/2081/individual-club/528/9
That's awesome. Those are great results. No idea how it compares to a normal year for them, but if that's how they're doing in a typical year, perhaps they should consider playing in some other leagues or more challenging environments to continue that trend. Or, if the parents and kids are happy and getting what they want out of it, then great for them and keep on rolling. Congrats to the kids and coaches.
That hints at my problem with "club-centric" leagues. Vienna's boys don't need a higher level of competition. Vienna's girls might. If they weren't in a club-centric league, they could just go to EDP and get assigned to whatever level makes sense.
At the other end of the scale, you may have a club that only has a couple of teams that are competitive in the club-centric league, and the other teams would benefit from being in NCSL D2 or D3 instead.
I understand that this would be additive to games and parents might not want to either spend the money or time, but there's no reason rules-wise that they can't do both EDP and the club centric league. I could be wrong about the rules though, I'm not an expert. Yes, it adds 7-8 games over the course of the season and cost, so either of those are immediate deal killers, and I don't want to minimize the impact of 4 additional away games. But with their relegation/promotion system, identifying a sweet spot for the team is likely to happen earlier. Tournament play is also a way to change to competitive level of games, but that's harder to coordinate multiple tournaments within an already committed club schedule. I don't have the impression VYS is interested based on the perception I have of being very community focused and not looking to compete at different levels, but I'm sure there are individual parents or maybe even teams that would be intrigued by that idea.
If you can maintain a healthy roster, and the club is willing and able to fund it (or parents are willing to pay the extra league fee_ I recommend this highly. We've done this and it improves the competitiveness of the team, especially the EDP teams in first divisions.
Anonymous
12/04/2020 12:11
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
RantingSoccerDad wrote:Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:That hints at my problem with "club-centric" leagues. Vienna's boys don't need a higher level of competition. Vienna's girls might. If they weren't in a club-centric league, they could just go to EDP and get assigned to whatever level makes sense.
This isn’t specific to VYS, but it is a little more complicated. I’ve had boys play for VYS travel before. One season the team lost every regular season game - every one. The other boys’s VYS travel team won every game by blowouts. So some fine tuning of the boys level of competition may be needed, too.
Yep.
Big, big problem with "club-centric" leagues.
How do you improve the team that lost every game? Some players will surely want to leave, and who'd be inclined to come over from another club? They'll end up promoting from the Black team, and that's not going to make them better.
I've been beating this drum for a while. I'm usually met with zombies: "But ... CCL ... good ... coach ... say ... CCL ... good ... (and VPL needed because ECNL)."
Exposing my ignorance of all this jargon ... could you explain what you mean by "club-centric" leagues? I understand (thanks to your blog!) that there are different leagues, e.g. NCSL, ECNL, etc. I understand that VYS plays in one (or more) of these leagues.
But what do you mean by "club-centric" leagues? Sorry, I'm just trying to understand what you see as the potential fix to this type of imbalance. We like VYS but don't enjoy seeing our kids (a) lose every game or (b) win every game by huge margins. I'm trying to figure out what the solution to this is, whether going with another club or lobbying VYS to make some systemic change.
Anonymous
12/04/2020 10:20
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
RantingSoccerDad wrote:Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:Vienna's girls did rather well across the board in Virginia Premier League National Premier League ECNL Regional play this fall:
http://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/2081/individual-club/528/9
That's awesome. Those are great results. No idea how it compares to a normal year for them, but if that's how they're doing in a typical year, perhaps they should consider playing in some other leagues or more challenging environments to continue that trend. Or, if the parents and kids are happy and getting what they want out of it, then great for them and keep on rolling. Congrats to the kids and coaches.
That hints at my problem with "club-centric" leagues. Vienna's boys don't need a higher level of competition. Vienna's girls might. If they weren't in a club-centric league, they could just go to EDP and get assigned to whatever level makes sense.
At the other end of the scale, you may have a club that only has a couple of teams that are competitive in the club-centric league, and the other teams would benefit from being in NCSL D2 or D3 instead.
I understand that this would be additive to games and parents might not want to either spend the money or time, but there's no reason rules-wise that they can't do both EDP and the club centric league. I could be wrong about the rules though, I'm not an expert. Yes, it adds 7-8 games over the course of the season and cost, so either of those are immediate deal killers, and I don't want to minimize the impact of 4 additional away games. But with their relegation/promotion system, identifying a sweet spot for the team is likely to happen earlier. Tournament play is also a way to change to competitive level of games, but that's harder to coordinate multiple tournaments within an already committed club schedule. I don't have the impression VYS is interested based on the perception I have of being very community focused and not looking to compete at different levels, but I'm sure there are individual parents or maybe even teams that would be intrigued by that idea.
Anonymous
12/04/2020 08:34
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
RantingSoccerDad wrote:That hints at my problem with "club-centric" leagues. Vienna's boys don't need a higher level of competition. Vienna's girls might. If they weren't in a club-centric league, they could just go to EDP and get assigned to whatever level makes sense.
This isn’t specific to VYS, but it is a little more complicated. I’ve had boys play for VYS travel before. One season the team lost every regular season game - every one. The other boys’s VYS travel team won every game by blowouts. So some fine tuning of the boys level of competition may be needed, too.
Anonymous
12/03/2020 11:13
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
RantingSoccerDad wrote:Vienna's girls did rather well across the board in Virginia Premier League National Premier League ECNL Regional play this fall:
http://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/2081/individual-club/528/9
That's awesome. Those are great results. No idea how it compares to a normal year for them, but if that's how they're doing in a typical year, perhaps they should consider playing in some other leagues or more challenging environments to continue that trend. Or, if the parents and kids are happy and getting what they want out of it, then great for them and keep on rolling. Congrats to the kids and coaches.
Anonymous
12/03/2020 09:25
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
RantingSoccerDad wrote:Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:Vienna's girls did rather well across the board in Virginia Premier League National Premier League ECNL Regional play this fall:
http://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/2081/individual-club/528/9
Yawn.
What an interesting comment. I'm riveted. Please go on.
My translation:
"I have an axe to grind with VYS, so I'll counter any positive VYS comments."
or
"I'm insecure about my current non-VYS club, so I'll counter any positive VYS comments."
Anonymous
12/03/2020 09:22
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
Anonymous wrote:RantingSoccerDad wrote:Vienna's girls did rather well across the board in Virginia Premier League National Premier League ECNL Regional play this fall:
http://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/2081/individual-club/528/9
Yawn.
Haters gonna hate.
Anonymous
12/02/2020 23:02
Subject: VYS Soccer - better or worse?
And in French Liegue 2 news...