Anonymous
Post 09/22/2019 01:07     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Looks like Barca’s competition is back to muddy the waters. Let people ask their questions in peace.


There are Loudoun soccer rec parents here?


Loudoun- where you can’t tell the ref from the travel because they all play kickball.
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2019 19:46     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:Looks like Barca’s competition is back to muddy the waters. Let people ask their questions in peace.


There are Loudoun soccer rec parents here?
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2019 18:03     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Looks like Barca’s competition is back to muddy the waters. Let people ask their questions in peace.
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2019 12:31     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:Looks like the advertising wing of this venture is back after a several month hiatus, under the guise of the sister Barca venture with the same SportingGlobal ownership in Tennessee.

How predictable. Might be more beneficial to take out TV ads, as folks here have figured out that the “grass roots” narrative pushed on this forum is full of bunk.


Thanks Captain America
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2019 12:16     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Looks like the advertising wing of this venture is back after a several month hiatus, under the guise of the sister Barca venture with the same SportingGlobal ownership in Tennessee.

How predictable. Might be more beneficial to take out TV ads, as folks here have figured out that the “grass roots” narrative pushed on this forum is full of bunk.
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2019 10:32     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The amount of training is relative. If your kid is on a high level team, the player will get more training than at Barca. If you compare Barca's training to a b or c level team training, then, yes, Barca would be an upgrade and offer more training. If you think that 3 practice per week from late August through mid-December is an unusually large amount of training, your kids probably have not played soccer at a high level.


High level soccer? My kids are 10 and 12 years old.


Given the age of your kids, I understand now why you thought that 3 practices per week August through December is more training than other clubs offer. Three practices per week is a norm at most clubs even at younger ages and many clubs train in winter and summer months too. Your kids are probably playing in ODSL or lower divisions of EDP, so they might face some teams that practice less than 3 times per week. An ODSL team from a big club will normally be their 5th or 6th team best team so they might not get the same quality of training as the best teams from the same club.


The 12-year old plays all first teams from Maryland in EDP. They have beat many top area teams in tournaments. Do you have kids at Barca?


Barca's top U12 team plays in the 5th premier division of EDP. Barca's top U13 plays in the championship division of EDP, which is below all premier level divisions of EDP. Sorry about breaking it to you, but the top teams from Maryland do not play in division 5 of EDP or below it. I don't have a problem with Barca's teams playing in the lower divisions of EDP and facing the appropriate level of competition, but if you really think that the top Maryland teams are playing in these divisions, I have the Brooklyn bridge to sell to you.
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2019 07:43     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The amount of training is relative. If your kid is on a high level team, the player will get more training than at Barca. If you compare Barca's training to a b or c level team training, then, yes, Barca would be an upgrade and offer more training. If you think that 3 practice per week from late August through mid-December is an unusually large amount of training, your kids probably have not played soccer at a high level.


High level soccer? My kids are 10 and 12 years old.


Given the age of your kids, I understand now why you thought that 3 practices per week August through December is more training than other clubs offer. Three practices per week is a norm at most clubs even at younger ages and many clubs train in winter and summer months too. Your kids are probably playing in ODSL or lower divisions of EDP, so they might face some teams that practice less than 3 times per week. An ODSL team from a big club will normally be their 5th or 6th team best team so they might not get the same quality of training as the best teams from the same club.


The 12-year old plays all first teams from Maryland in EDP. They have beat many top area teams in tournaments. Do you have kids at Barca?
Anonymous
Post 09/21/2019 00:51     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The amount of training is relative. If your kid is on a high level team, the player will get more training than at Barca. If you compare Barca's training to a b or c level team training, then, yes, Barca would be an upgrade and offer more training. If you think that 3 practice per week from late August through mid-December is an unusually large amount of training, your kids probably have not played soccer at a high level.


High level soccer? My kids are 10 and 12 years old.


Given the age of your kids, I understand now why you thought that 3 practices per week August through December is more training than other clubs offer. Three practices per week is a norm at most clubs even at younger ages and many clubs train in winter and summer months too. Your kids are probably playing in ODSL or lower divisions of EDP, so they might face some teams that practice less than 3 times per week. An ODSL team from a big club will normally be their 5th or 6th team best team so they might not get the same quality of training as the best teams from the same club.
Anonymous
Post 09/20/2019 21:12     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:The amount of training is relative. If your kid is on a high level team, the player will get more training than at Barca. If you compare Barca's training to a b or c level team training, then, yes, Barca would be an upgrade and offer more training. If you think that 3 practice per week from late August through mid-December is an unusually large amount of training, your kids probably have not played soccer at a high level.


High level soccer? My kids are 10 and 12 years old.


Ha. I was thinking the same thing.

FWIW, quality over quantity. 3 practice nights with excellent trainers that plan each and every session with a purpose will always be better than 4 nights of mediocre training with lots of just free scrimmage or stand in line drills and/or a coach that is just dialing it in.
Anonymous
Post 09/20/2019 20:50     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:The amount of training is relative. If your kid is on a high level team, the player will get more training than at Barca. If you compare Barca's training to a b or c level team training, then, yes, Barca would be an upgrade and offer more training. If you think that 3 practice per week from late August through mid-December is an unusually large amount of training, your kids probably have not played soccer at a high level.


High level soccer? My kids are 10 and 12 years old.
Anonymous
Post 09/20/2019 20:27     Subject: Re:Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is the Nova club growing from one year to another?


They had a big growth from year 1 to year 2, but I don't think there was much growth between years 2 and 3. In fact, their player numbers may have shrunk a little after year 2, at least in the older age groups.


Not sure of the breakdown between age groups but overall they continued to grow in year 3.

I've never seen them have the kids do footskills. Not at any age, and not even in warm-ups. That sort of individual technical work would need to be done outside of team practices at this club. On the other hand, I've hardly ever seen any kids standing in lines either. Their practices are very active. All of the kids get lots of touches, and you can really see the technical improvement over the course of the year.

As far as cost, one thing I'll add is that they do give you 4 days a week. Because of the way the club is structured - with centralized control over all the teams - it's really easy for them to set up internal scrimmages. So even when you don't have a league game or friendly with another club, you can pretty much guarantee that your kid is going to be playing a game every weekend.


Is game day the 5th day or 4th day? Most clubs have 4 days from late August through early November .


Most clubs practice 3 days a week plus a league game. DA will practice 4 days and some ECNL clubs may practice 4 days but 3 is pretty standard for travel soccer.
Anonymous
Post 09/20/2019 18:36     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
The amount of training is relative. If your kid is on a high level team, the player will get more training than at Barca. If you compare Barca's training to a b or c level team training, then, yes, Barca would be an upgrade and offer more training. If you think that 3 practice per week from late August through mid-December is an unusually large amount of training, your kids probably have not played soccer at a high level.
Anonymous
Post 09/20/2019 18:13     Subject: Re:Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
The season is longer. Practices continue until December 15th - as well as weekend internal games once regular season is over. They start back up 4 days per week (3 practiced&internal weekend game until regular season games) in mid-January and they end mid-June. I find it a longer season/amount of training than other Clubs we’ve been with.
Anonymous
Post 09/20/2019 17:34     Subject: Re:Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Is the Nova club growing from one year to another?


They had a big growth from year 1 to year 2, but I don't think there was much growth between years 2 and 3. In fact, their player numbers may have shrunk a little after year 2, at least in the older age groups.


Not sure of the breakdown between age groups but overall they continued to grow in year 3.

I've never seen them have the kids do footskills. Not at any age, and not even in warm-ups. That sort of individual technical work would need to be done outside of team practices at this club. On the other hand, I've hardly ever seen any kids standing in lines either. Their practices are very active. All of the kids get lots of touches, and you can really see the technical improvement over the course of the year.

As far as cost, one thing I'll add is that they do give you 4 days a week. Because of the way the club is structured - with centralized control over all the teams - it's really easy for them to set up internal scrimmages. So even when you don't have a league game or friendly with another club, you can pretty much guarantee that your kid is going to be playing a game every weekend.


Is game day the 5th day or 4th day? Most clubs have 4 days from late August through early November .


The game day is the 4th day. They practice 3 times a week about 1 to 1.5 hours per practice depending on the team or age group.
Anonymous
Post 09/20/2019 17:20     Subject: Barca Academy Question (outside NOVA area)
One thing about Barca is the team roster isn't static. They will move players around to a certain degree. So to my knowledge, no player sits without a team to play on any given weekend.