Amazing that a club can be so bad that so many parents --in October-- are already fed up and planning their exit strategy.

Anonymous wrote:We are taking our dc to try out for Burke (It is almost half the price!), Herndon and FC Dulles. We want a smaller club experience.

Our crap Valor coach keeps combining practices with his other team and barely knows the kids names. He has never coached soccer before! Why he has multiple teams I do not know.

We are targeting BRYC, Burke, and SYC as we are more in the Clifton area. Cannot believe we overpaid for this Valor s-show. Good luck.

^^ Valor as well. I guess anything goes there.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are taking our dc to try out for Burke (It is almost half the price!), Herndon and FC Dulles. We want a smaller club experience.

Our crap Valor coach keeps combining practices with his other team and barely knows the kids names. He has never coached soccer before! Why he has multiple teams I do not know.

Which age group/gender? That seems odd.

Not odd at all if the coach is greedy. Our coach did it all last spring (combined two teams for practicing). He is getting paid to coach two teams with separate practices. Combining practices is more lucrative for him. I heard from another family he was doing private lessons on the field space he was supposed to be practicing on.

Anonymous wrote:Better yes, but I wouldn’t say good.

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here’s the real question

Why do CYA and SYA allow this to happen? They are the board of directors for valor. Maybe this combined experiment has gone too far and SYA and CYA should go back to doing their own club teams.

What is the history of this combined effort gone bad?

Were CYA and SYA really any better? In theory this was a good idea there are way too many small clubs within short distances of one another.

SYA was way better. Problem is most SYA coaches have left valor. Now we have legacy CYA coaches who have legacy of losing and bleeding good player. 3 age groups on boy side now destroyed. PE this happened under your watch.

they were very good. In the merger there was a reason why most of the top teams were mainly SYA kids. CYA travel teams were pretty much rec quality.

Anonymous wrote:We are taking our dc to try out for Burke (It is almost half the price!), Herndon and FC Dulles. We want a smaller club experience.

Our crap Valor coach keeps combining practices with his other team and barely knows the kids names. He has never coached soccer before! Why he has multiple teams I do not know.

Which age group/gender? That seems odd.

We are taking our dc to try out for Burke (It is almost half the price!), Herndon and FC Dulles. We want a smaller club experience.

Our crap Valor coach keeps combining practices with his other team and barely knows the kids names. He has never coached soccer before! Why he has multiple teams I do not know.

Anonymous wrote:At this point spring can’t come soon enough. Valor’s bad reputation is catching up with it and now any parent with a decent player my kid’s age knows not to go there. They can’t even put together one good team in the age group. It’s incredibly frustrating for the kids who can play. I don’t even think the best coach ever could turn it around. It feels like a lost year.

Understand what your saying about spring but the Pre ECRL (1st team) seems to be doing to just fine. The jump to U11 is where the gap between 1st and 2nd, 3rd teams for clubs is more transparent. Of the top 15 of 24 teams, half are NOVA clubs holding 4 of the top 5 spots w/the other half down south (Richmond, Charlottesville, etc.)

Clubs need to find ways to keep the competition level for the 2-4th teams close enough to preserve player and or a team’s actual and often times “perceived” development. The most common strategy is coaches entering their team into lower level events and requesting lower tiered brackets. Often times unless it’s very clear a team doesn’t belong in the requested tier tournament directors (TD) will go with the request.

Once the TD is forced to move teams review requests based on their need to move teams around based the needs of scheduling or convenience of the TD. More often than not, nothing changes based on the request so usually the initial request is honored and the coach is able to preserve the player, parents, perception of development, growth, etc. by continually being in lower tiers.

Until the TD’s start doing a better job of sniffing it out this registration strategy (which most clubs engage in) it’s not going to change. The times when the TD’s are really doing there job you see a difference. The real challenge is TD’s have hundreds of team to bracket. Unless it’s clearly obvious it doesn’t get adjusted unless other coaches bring it up when draft brackets are released to coaches only where coaches/admins have 24-48 hours to request changes. By this team it becomes more difficult to argue moving a team up because this forces TD’s to move another team down.

At this point spring can’t come soon enough. Valor’s bad reputation is catching up with it and now any parent with a decent player my kid’s age knows not to go there. They can’t even put together one good team in the age group. It’s incredibly frustrating for the kids who can play. I don’t even think the best coach ever could turn it around. It feels like a lost year.

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Good to know we are not the only parents who feel this way. Our daughter is on this team as well and I can’t disagree with what I’ve read here regarding the Coach. Last season we saw the growth not just in our daughter but the entire team. Parents were way more into it than now and the team was fun and exciting to watch with lots of close tourney matches where they won and lost. It is a completely different vibe and tone all around from last season.

Anyone have any popcorn DCUM never fails to deliver. I think I’m caught up but not sure if I missed something from the above.

So daddyball coach with 2 kids on the team got fired for being abusive to players but it was a “completely different vibe and tone all around” where “the parents were way more into it”, ??

No, the daddyball coach with 2 kids on the team was a DIFFERENT team than the OP team with the bait and switch parent coach with one daughter who screams at her the whole time. Two separate garbage money grabs.

OP team is 2014 White it’s not a different team another PP already confirmed it earlier in thread. By now I hope the coach has read this. It will be confirmed when his kid sits the bench this week for the first 5 minutes, he stops texting during the game, and says nothing but positive things to his kid while she’s on the field. Problem solved. Moving on.

No. OP said their team had a real coach last year and dad coach this year. 2014G white (formerly silver) had a dad coach last year with 2 kids on the team, but I think (?) that team has a “real” coach this year.

I saw the dad coach talking to that 2014 team after a game last spring. I think they had lost. The only way I can describe what he was doing is bizarre. He was being pretty mean but somehow also weird at the same time. I have never seen anything like it can can’t really describe it. Glad to hear he isn’t coaching anymore.

Valor needs to stop being so greedy and accept that they should only have no more than 3 teams at the younger ages and 2 at the older ages. Stop worrying about social media posts and start worrying about lack of player development.

Agree. 3rd, 4th and 5th teams are all money grabs. Look at the divisions your in and the level of play. Are the clubs teams really playing competitively in the tournaments they've registered for? You can medal up all day in a low level bracket or tournament, but that does not do much for development. This is on brand for Valor and they wonder why they get crushed playing in real tournaments. Its somewhat sad and pathetic. This kids are the ones that suffer.

Not all 3rd and 4th teams are money grabs. As far as tournaments go, take a look for your self, below is a link to the tournaments for each team in the division below from last season. Are they competitive, how many blowout losses are there?

https://home.gotsoccer.com/rankings/results.aspx?Level=National&Country=USA&Gender=Girls&Age=11&search=Virginia+Valor&pos=

Yes. They are all money grabs. The 40-60th best players at tryouts? GMAB

OK let's think about this. If you want 2 teams at 11v11 you need about 36.
At 7v7 your average team size is 10-12. How many teams do you need to have 36 stick with it by time you get to 11v11. Probably 4 to 5
At 9v9 your average team size is 12-14. You need 3 teams. And this assumes you don't lose many.
It sure would be nice if at the younger ages and small team sizes more than the top team had a quality coach.

QFT. My DD started on a 5th team and spent 2 years on a 3rd team. She’s now an ECNL starter.

Love this! Great story. I am sure you guys invested in private training, etc?

Better yes, but I wouldn’t say good.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here’s the real question

Why do CYA and SYA allow this to happen? They are the board of directors for valor. Maybe this combined experiment has gone too far and SYA and CYA should go back to doing their own club teams.

What is the history of this combined effort gone bad?

Were CYA and SYA really any better? In theory this was a good idea there are way too many small clubs within short distances of one another.

SYA was way better. Problem is most SYA coaches have left valor. Now we have legacy CYA coaches who have legacy of losing and bleeding good player. 3 age groups on boy side now destroyed. PE this happened under your watch.

It’s not even a SYA vs CYA thing…it’s a coaching thing. The club as a whole has lost GOOD coaches ,both from SYA and CYA and replaced them with “lesser ones”. There’s a reason year after year the better coaches have left since the merge. I agree though it starts from the TOP and those coaches who have left would agree.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So here’s the real question

Why do CYA and SYA allow this to happen? They are the board of directors for valor. Maybe this combined experiment has gone too far and SYA and CYA should go back to doing their own club teams.

What is the history of this combined effort gone bad?

Were CYA and SYA really any better? In theory this was a good idea there are way too many small clubs within short distances of one another.

SYA was way better. Problem is most SYA coaches have left valor. Now we have legacy CYA coaches who have legacy of losing and bleeding good player. 3 age groups on boy side now destroyed. PE this happened under your watch.

Anonymous wrote:Small clubs are better for players than these giant money making soccer factories

+1000

Small clubs are better for players than these giant money making soccer factories