Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competition is good. Armour has coasted for the past few years as the only MLS Next team in the Baltimore area. Their coaches are known to phone it in sometimes. They will need to improve to remain competitive.

Coppermine has a larger travel program, more fields, and coaches that are more involved. They will surpass Armour in a few years.

You all are crazy if you think that many people are driving up to Copperplex.

Armour is more centrally located in Columbia and feeds from players in the Germantown, Potomac, Bethesda, Silverspring, rockville, Chevy chase and north.

Most of those cities aside from silver spring are not driving to Copperplex in rush hour traffic.

The only competition are families that live north of the dmv.

Right? You have to be local to understand how inconvenient and dreadful a drive this truly is from Baltimore and further south.

This seems to be fundamentally missing the point of this discussion. It’s obviously unlikely that anyone from the Maryland suburbs of DC would drive to the Copperplex.

But aren’t there kids currently at BA who come to Columbia from Baltimore and would be ok with the Copperplex? There must be players in the Coppermine area who went to BA in the past even though it was a long drive because it was the only possible MLSN team. Despite what people think, there is not a big pool of players who want to play mls next and are truly high level.

In the DC area you have a lot of MLs next options already, including NoVa clubs. But in Baltimore the only MLSN option was BA. Now that changes, which potentially changes BA, which changes the equation for families in the DMV who are weighing BA against their other options here.

Both pipeline and BA are much easier commutes to Baltimore, probably half the commute. I live in north Baltimore and the drive to Copperplex is an hour. The 95 stretch is usually bumper to bumper. It would be more convenient for families that live around Bel Air and North. There are some very good kids there but it’s obviously a smaller population base.

My kid is aged out now but has played for both Pipeline and Coppermine (before Copperplex when they still practiced around the city). With a few exceptions, the coaching is just better at Pipeline. The Coppermine model has a few coaches with many teams.

I just don’t see this causing a sea change. Pipeline may be limited to ENCL but their teams tend to make and sometimes win nationals. Their top players are getting seen by scouts and the college recruiting is definitely, at a minimum, on par with BA, if not better.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competition is good. Armour has coasted for the past few years as the only MLS Next team in the Baltimore area. Their coaches are known to phone it in sometimes. They will need to improve to remain competitive.

Coppermine has a larger travel program, more fields, and coaches that are more involved. They will surpass Armour in a few years.

You all are crazy if you think that many people are driving up to Copperplex.

Armour is more centrally located in Columbia and feeds from players in the Germantown, Potomac, Bethesda, Silverspring, rockville, Chevy chase and north.

Most of those cities aside from silver spring are not driving to Copperplex in rush hour traffic.

The only competition are families that live north of the dmv.

Right? You have to be local to understand how inconvenient and dreadful a drive this truly is from Baltimore and further south.

This seems to be fundamentally missing the point of this discussion. It’s obviously unlikely that anyone from the Maryland suburbs of DC would drive to the Copperplex.

But aren’t there kids currently at BA who come to Columbia from Baltimore and would be ok with the Copperplex? There must be players in the Coppermine area who went to BA in the past even though it was a long drive because it was the only possible MLSN team. Despite what people think, there is not a big pool of players who want to play mls next and are truly high level.

In the DC area you have a lot of MLs next options already, including NoVa clubs. But in Baltimore the only MLSN option was BA. Now that changes, which potentially changes BA, which changes the equation for families in the DMV who are weighing BA against their other options here.

The problem is you all think that kids would come from DC suburbs of MD. There a kids further north of Baltimore that will come. As someone said, an entire coppermine team went to Pipeline. Those kids can play locally. It wouldn't surprise me if Penn Fusion or Keystone loses players.
There's a big hole between Baltimore and the ECNL teams in PA. This is going to be good for Coppermine.

This is a solid point. Southern PA and even Western MD players may make the drive. We were playing FC Delco and one of their players was driving in from Harrisburg. FC Delco is definitely a much better club than Coppermine, but the point is the same. Provide a quality platform and people will make all kinds of drives to get there if their player is decent and doesn't have a better option close by. Trust me, I'm no fan of Coppermine for various, longstanding reasons, but I do think this is good for their club and good for MD soccer players.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competition is good. Armour has coasted for the past few years as the only MLS Next team in the Baltimore area. Their coaches are known to phone it in sometimes. They will need to improve to remain competitive.

Coppermine has a larger travel program, more fields, and coaches that are more involved. They will surpass Armour in a few years.

You all are crazy if you think that many people are driving up to Copperplex.

Armour is more centrally located in Columbia and feeds from players in the Germantown, Potomac, Bethesda, Silverspring, rockville, Chevy chase and north.

Most of those cities aside from silver spring are not driving to Copperplex in rush hour traffic.

The only competition are families that live north of the dmv.

Right? You have to be local to understand how inconvenient and dreadful a drive this truly is from Baltimore and further south.

This seems to be fundamentally missing the point of this discussion. It’s obviously unlikely that anyone from the Maryland suburbs of DC would drive to the Copperplex.

But aren’t there kids currently at BA who come to Columbia from Baltimore and would be ok with the Copperplex? There must be players in the Coppermine area who went to BA in the past even though it was a long drive because it was the only possible MLSN team. Despite what people think, there is not a big pool of players who want to play mls next and are truly high level.

In the DC area you have a lot of MLs next options already, including NoVa clubs. But in Baltimore the only MLSN option was BA. Now that changes, which potentially changes BA, which changes the equation for families in the DMV who are weighing BA against their other options here.

The problem is you all think that kids would come from DC suburbs of MD. There a kids further north of Baltimore that will come. As someone said, an entire coppermine team went to Pipeline. Those kids can play locally. It wouldn't surprise me if Penn Fusion or Keystone loses players.
There's a big hole between Baltimore and the ECNL teams in PA. This is going to be good for Coppermine.

For current Coppermine families: if your kid is in the top team for their age group, how many times per week do they practice? how many of those are at Copperplex?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competition is good. Armour has coasted for the past few years as the only MLS Next team in the Baltimore area. Their coaches are known to phone it in sometimes. They will need to improve to remain competitive.

Coppermine has a larger travel program, more fields, and coaches that are more involved. They will surpass Armour in a few years.

You all are crazy if you think that many people are driving up to Copperplex.

Armour is more centrally located in Columbia and feeds from players in the Germantown, Potomac, Bethesda, Silverspring, rockville, Chevy chase and north.

Most of those cities aside from silver spring are not driving to Copperplex in rush hour traffic.

The only competition are families that live north of the dmv.

Right? You have to be local to understand how inconvenient and dreadful a drive this truly is from Baltimore and further south.

This seems to be fundamentally missing the point of this discussion. It’s obviously unlikely that anyone from the Maryland suburbs of DC would drive to the Copperplex.

But aren’t there kids currently at BA who come to Columbia from Baltimore and would be ok with the Copperplex? There must be players in the Coppermine area who went to BA in the past even though it was a long drive because it was the only possible MLSN team. Despite what people think, there is not a big pool of players who want to play mls next and are truly high level.

In the DC area you have a lot of MLs next options already, including NoVa clubs. But in Baltimore the only MLSN option was BA. Now that changes, which potentially changes BA, which changes the equation for families in the DMV who are weighing BA against their other options here.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Competition is good. Armour has coasted for the past few years as the only MLS Next team in the Baltimore area. Their coaches are known to phone it in sometimes. They will need to improve to remain competitive.

Coppermine has a larger travel program, more fields, and coaches that are more involved. They will surpass Armour in a few years.

You all are crazy if you think that many people are driving up to Copperplex.

Armour is more centrally located in Columbia and feeds from players in the Germantown, Potomac, Bethesda, Silverspring, rockville, Chevy chase and north.

Most of those cities aside from silver spring are not driving to Copperplex in rush hour traffic.

The only competition are families that live north of the dmv.

Right? You have to be local to understand how inconvenient and dreadful a drive this truly is from Baltimore and further south.

Anonymous wrote:

Yes, but 75% of the team is homegrown at other MD MLS Next I clubs. I don’t know about BA though and their history.

Turnover is not that significant. Most of the kids came at U13 to BA. About 5 from SAC as the above poster said and the rest from other clubs ( not mlsn1 because they are u12 at that time they come to armour). Over the years they do drop the weakest few players but not half the team.

* from a younger armour parent