Anonymous wrote:McLean in a boatload of trouble right now. Forced ECNL merger with Brave; NM departs for TD position with GFR, JF takes TD position @ AC Milan; one of their better young coaches DB departs for NVA to coach ECNL, and now JW (a fairly legendary boys coach @ MYS) is open in arms about not being consulted on the MYS-Brave ECNL merger. What a mess. The irony here is the ED @ MYS, LW just got recognized by United Soccer Coaches for her stewardship of the program. Puleeze. What a joke. Two girls programs that were legendary 6-8 years ago — FCV & MYS — are coming apart at the seams. Gotta be some champagne flowing at VDA, NVA & Arlington these days. Three clubs sure to benefit long term from this mess. Maybe just Prosecco @ Revolution. Too new for the good stuff.

Ha! At Revolution they serve Dom, young man!

There is no McLean at the nl level anymore. Only Union. Hasn’t been for two years now.

McLean in a boatload of trouble right now. Forced ECNL merger with Brave; NM departs for TD position with GFR, JF takes TD position @ AC Milan; one of their better young coaches DB departs for NVA to coach ECNL, and now JW (a fairly legendary boys coach @ MYS) is open in arms about not being consulted on the MYS-Brave ECNL merger. What a mess. The irony here is the ED @ MYS, LW just got recognized by United Soccer Coaches for her stewardship of the program. Puleeze. What a joke. Two girls programs that were legendary 6-8 years ago — FCV & MYS — are coming apart at the seams. Gotta be some champagne flowing at VDA, NVA & Arlington these days. Three clubs sure to benefit long term from this mess. Maybe just Prosecco @ Revolution. Too new for the good stuff.

I had a son who played for the top vienna team (2008) a while ago. Kids from that team have gone to start for Arlington ECNL, Alexandria MLS Next and I am sure a number of other clubs. There is plenty of talent in that area (including McLean and Fairfax/Burke as well), but the clubs have had challenges retaining it. Anybody remember Bethesda South planting a flag right in the middle of Vienna/McLean? In any event, folks, try to have some faith in your kids and the organizations. They will try their best; if you don't think that's good enough, you were in the wrong place from the outset.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[

Fairfax Union should consist of a team with 6/7 good players from BRAVE, 6/7 good players from Union, plus the 6-7 good players that are going to try out. ECNL will have a better product.

See you at tryouts! FxU Forever!!

No they shouldn't. They should consist of the best 20 players who try out regardless of where they come from.

Sounds great in theory but coaches have bias towards the players they know and have trained. Entirely new coaching staff would wipe the slate clean and allow this. Girl coaches switch to boys and vice versa.

Anonymous wrote:[

Fairfax Union should consist of a team with 6/7 good players from BRAVE, 6/7 good players from Union, plus the 6-7 good players that are going to try out. ECNL will have a better product.

See you at tryouts! FxU Forever!!

No they shouldn't. They should consist of the best 20 players who try out regardless of where they come from.

Anonymous wrote:Here's the TLDR- Email is sent saying Boys program sucks so Union has to merge with BRAVE. Boys are just mad because they can't handle the truth and they don't want to play with BRAVE players/fear they are going to get cut and there is no ECNL program for them to go to. The reality is a lot of these boys will have to end up playing ECNL RL or that level of play. There's no money boys program for these boys to go to now.

BOYS ECNL for Union and Brave was literally just paying $$$ to be treated like a top player when in reality they all sucked

First off, all of these kids don't suck. Some do; some don't.

But I do love the self-importance of some people to send a letter like this. This is why this merger is happening. Because parents like this; they feel like they paid all this money and should have a spot for their boy and/or girl on the top team. This is not how the world works. You perform and develop or you loose your place. ECNL wants teams that develop players. For years, Union/Mclean has acted like their teams were filled with 30 amazing players and our bench players are as good as our starters. When in reality, there are only 4 or 5 decent to good players on any boys team at Union

I personally know 4 boys who have gotten offers from Union, but choose other clubs because of the lack of "good" players on Union. I've also known boys who have left because they knew they were better than the boys who were getting the predominance of playing time. So, they decided to tryout for other teams and they are now playing on Arlington ECNL-N, Arlington MLS Next, and SYC MLS Next

My boy is a player of one of the higher age groups and this merger affects him. Will he make the new team? Yes, he will because he is a top player. If he wasn't at one of the oldest age groups, he would push harder to get onto Arlington, NVA or SYC. But since he knows his playing time would be limited on these other teams, he doesn't have the convenience of much time to fight to become a starter, and he realizes college coaches recruit players and not teams. So, he will start for Fairfax Union and get seen by college coaches because he wants to play D1.

And this whole merger doesn't affect any player that was being recruited by any big D1 soccer schools. In fact, it helps those players. They can prove they beat out another whole group of players to be a starter on a new team. A team that is pulling from one of the largest soccer population pools in the country.

For the players that aren't being recruited by the big schools, they never were going to be. They aren't good enough and never were. But they do have options as they are good enough to play on a team at a D2 or D3 school.

Fairfax Union should consist of a team with 6/7 good players from BRAVE, 6/7 good players from Union, plus the 6-7 good players that are going to try out. ECNL will have a better product. And maybe, with time, Fairfax Union will be thought of like Arlington, Pipeline, Richmond United, and NCFC.

See you at tryouts! FxU Forever!!

Anonymous wrote:This is probably a stupid question, but my kids only play regular travel and we are in McLean.

For these ECNL teams if Mclean, Vienna, and Braddock are merged does that mean kids from all three areas have to travel to practice together? For example, kids from Braddock have to drive to Lewisville Park to practice 2-3 times a week through rush hour traffic?

They will likely choose a central location (probably Vienna fields).

Anonymous wrote:This is probably a stupid question, but my kids only play regular travel and we are in McLean.

For these ECNL teams if Mclean, Vienna, and Braddock are merged does that mean kids from all three areas have to travel to practice together? For example, kids from Braddock have to drive to Lewisville Park to practice 2-3 times a week through rush hour traffic?

Possibly. Not clear yet.

This is probably a stupid question, but my kids only play regular travel and we are in McLean.

For these ECNL teams if Mclean, Vienna, and Braddock are merged does that mean kids from all three areas have to travel to practice together? For example, kids from Braddock have to drive to Lewisville Park to practice 2-3 times a week through rush hour traffic?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you all feel that you should have been consulted? This crap only happens in affluent communities where everyone feels that their fees comes with a vote.

Ignorant comment here. It is exaclty the way it's supposed to be (Board of directors is elected by the members to make decision on their behalf. The board made a decision that the members don't approve, hence the resulting and quite to be expected chaos).

I don't like the merger but I understand its done and I am over it now. What I am not over is the lack of current communication from a club that we have been with for years at a cost of at least $30k. Just tell me who the coach is and when ID sessions will be so we can make the best decisions for our family and move on with our lives.

- Parent of not a top player

30k a year?

Reading comprehension.... "for years at a cost of at least $30k "

Most people don't read here. They just want to react.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you all feel that you should have been consulted? This crap only happens in affluent communities where everyone feels that their fees comes with a vote.

Ignorant comment here. It is exaclty the way it's supposed to be (Board of directors is elected by the members to make decision on their behalf. The board made a decision that the members don't approve, hence the resulting and quite to be expected chaos).

I don't like the merger but I understand its done and I am over it now. What I am not over is the lack of current communication from a club that we have been with for years at a cost of at least $30k. Just tell me who the coach is and when ID sessions will be so we can make the best decisions for our family and move on with our lives.

- Parent of not a top player

30k a year?

Reading comprehension.... "for years at a cost of at least $30k "

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you all feel that you should have been consulted? This crap only happens in affluent communities where everyone feels that their fees comes with a vote.

Ignorant comment here. It is exaclty the way it's supposed to be (Board of directors is elected by the members to make decision on their behalf. The board made a decision that the members don't approve, hence the resulting and quite to be expected chaos).

I don't like the merger but I understand its done and I am over it now. What I am not over is the lack of current communication from a club that we have been with for years at a cost of at least $30k. Just tell me who the coach is and when ID sessions will be so we can make the best decisions for our family and move on with our lives.

- Parent of not a top player

THIS!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do you all feel that you should have been consulted? This crap only happens in affluent communities where everyone feels that their fees comes with a vote.

Ignorant comment here. It is exaclty the way it's supposed to be (Board of directors is elected by the members to make decision on their behalf. The board made a decision that the members don't approve, hence the resulting and quite to be expected chaos).

I don't like the merger but I understand its done and I am over it now. What I am not over is the lack of current communication from a club that we have been with for years at a cost of at least $30k. Just tell me who the coach is and when ID sessions will be so we can make the best decisions for our family and move on with our lives.

- Parent of not a top player

30k a year?