Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to remember there are 2 pre-DA teams at certain levels (pre-DA 1 and pre-DA 2) So the red team is really now the blue team (what used to be the 3rd team in the age group). This is the reason they didn’t do well against other A teams last weekend. It’s because they are now a third team.

That is u12 only and those are not DA teams no matter what Arlington calls them. U13 is the first boys DA year and over half that team is from outside Arlington. So no, the DA teams are not simply the previous Arlington Red team. And none of this stuff about two DA
Teams appears true for any year other than U12. Let’s see how many of the U12 “DA” players are on the U13 DA next year.

So Arlington at U-12 has
Da1
Da2
Red
White
Blue

Did they kill the remaining teams or they still have them?

How many of DA1 or DA 2 came from the old red or white team?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to remember there are 2 pre-DA teams at certain levels (pre-DA 1 and pre-DA 2) So the red team is really now the blue team (what used to be the 3rd team in the age group). This is the reason they didn’t do well against other A teams last weekend. It’s because they are now a third team.

That is u12 only and those are not DA teams no matter what Arlington calls them. U13 is the first boys DA year and over half that team is from outside Arlington. So no, the DA teams are not simply the previous Arlington Red team. And none of this stuff about two DA
Teams appears true for any year other than U12. Let’s see how many of the U12 “DA” players are on the U13 DA next year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Coach, TD, DOC, Executive Director, who is the worst at the job they pretend to be doing?

Esteban Maldonado, king of social media and recruiting. Will tell anyone anything to get them to play for his club.

Anonymous wrote:Coach, TD, DOC, Executive Director, who is the worst at the job they pretend to be doing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

My only experience with Arlington is in the DA (came up thru another club) and i haven’t seen politics on the DA side.

Their 03 Academy finished last in tournament bracket (BRYC beat them 7-1) and many of their younger teams finished in bottom of brackets this weekend. The Club never seems to do well against MD teams, or outside of the same few CCL teams they play over and over. I think the overall quality in the Club has been going down for quite some time. Maybe some of the things mentioned are the reason why. Or- maybe there are now so many other Clubs with better development/coaching that relying on numbers/largest player pool alone is no longer good enough in this area. They lost many good coaches over the years that couldn’t stomach the system. The reign of the big boys like Loudoun and Arlington really doesn’t exist anymore. That is what is promising, better soccer vs kick and run is becoming more prominent with more options for players and coaches that don’t do politics and are more concerned with individual development. Too big to fail...

Arlington girls does not do enough technical training in the u littles(u12 and below). They are athletic enough but lack the ball skills of some other programs. They seem to work on speed of play before a lot of players have developed enough individual skills need to play that way. In the top brackets in the bigger tournaments every team is fairly close athletically, the difference is usually technical skill. Good technical skills allows faster speed of play.

The Club had major staff changes/leadership over the past 6 years of so. Some of those people took the Club in a different direction and I think the downfall is a direct result of the character of the Club changing and the people involved. They got greedy very fast and it's easy to lose focus of what it really should be all about, e.g., the young kids starting out and developing vs recruitment in later years to earn titles. Not having a feeling of 'one club' given the dynamics and differential treatment which little kids starting out really notice, many of which drop the sport completely due to it. I feel as some of the original members were bamboozled and fooled by fancy resumes without thoroughly checking out their track record or history other places. Some of the exodus a pp mentioned was due to the feeling of lack of investment in young players. Coaching staff was inconsistent with some teams obviously they didn't care about. They also would focus way too young on only 10-12 of the players when they had over 75 in an age group. When those players don't pan out who can they turn to? They have the kids they didn't care about and often didn't even have a coach show up at tournaments---with manager taking over. When you have an enormously sized player pool and very limited geographic/traffic-wise options near you (a monopoly), you can cavalierly choose to just tell people "if you don't like it, leave". That does catch up to you over time and the 'brand' begins to tarnish. The same exact thing is happening over at Loudoun, btw.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You have to remember there are 2 pre-DA teams at certain levels (pre-DA 1 and pre-DA 2) So the red team is really now the blue team (what used to be the 3rd team in the age group). This is the reason they didn’t do well against other A teams last weekend. It’s because they are now a third team.

That is u12 only and those are not DA teams no matter what Arlington calls them. U13 is the first boys DA year and over half that team is from outside Arlington. So no, the DA teams are not simply the previous Arlington Red team. And none of this stuff about two DA
Teams appears true for any year other than U12. Let’s see how many of the U12 “DA” players are on the U13 DA next year.

Anonymous wrote:You have to remember there are 2 pre-DA teams at certain levels (pre-DA 1 and pre-DA 2) So the red team is really now the blue team (what used to be the 3rd team in the age group). This is the reason they didn’t do well against other A teams last weekend. It’s because they are now a third team.

Anonymous wrote:This thread started out about the boys' side and poor results. So it's interesting to hear the take on the girls' side. I think what you can see by hearing both sides is that there is zero cohesiveness. No style, training plan or developmental plan to take players from the lower levels into the higher. If you focus on older years primarily---and mainly recruitment that is why. Chicken or egg, who knows? I also think there is this attention to get fancy names in, but they did not do their due diligence and see how those people managed/coached at other clubs. Sometimes listening to people with direct experience at other Clubs---albeit players, parents, etc. would not get you into the mess of people taking away from the heart of the Club and pushing the Club into a direction the vast majority of base 'customers' were not happy with.

I disagree with solely technical skill until U12 . We have been at Clubs where all of the players have amazing technical skill, but the focus is not solely on technical skill. A lot of touch is built through drills designed to get the most consistent touches on the ball and younger players do need a concept of space on the field and how to move off the ball. Some of the Clubs with the least amount of time devoted to technical skill, ironically had the most technical players. Technique means little if they stay in a place where they never learned how to move, distribute, see the field, when to make a run, and--most importantly--when to pass vs when to dribble. I see on the boys side where technical was a big focus players that do not have that vision---and you can't suddenly get it at U14, U15, etc.---you aren't going to get it. It should be second nature by then. So you have created very one-dimensional players. They may have speed and physicality---and even technique--but without a knowledge of what it is all for and the bigger picture you have not created a well-rounded player.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All of Arlington soccer. The club is run on politics.

Really?

The DAs (meaning the actual DA, not what they are calling U12 “DA” teams) appear to run independently of the club at large and well. The rest of the club reflects exactly what its members want. So yes, hacks, but very responsive to their parent members.

Are you saying Arlington DA is mostly free from politics, but the rest of the club is politics driven?

My only experience with Arlington is in the DA (came up thru another club) and i haven’t seen politics on the DA side.

Their 03 Academy finished last in tournament bracket (BRYC beat them 7-1) and many of their younger teams finished in bottom of brackets this weekend. The Club never seems to do well against MD teams, or outside of the same few CCL teams they play over and over. I think the overall quality in the Club has been going down for quite some time. Maybe some of the things mentioned are the reason why. Or- maybe there are now so many other Clubs with better development/coaching that relying on numbers/largest player pool alone is no longer good enough in this area. They lost many good coaches over the years that couldn’t stomach the system. The reign of the big boys like Loudoun and Arlington really doesn’t exist anymore. That is what is promising, better soccer vs kick and run is becoming more prominent with more options for players and coaches that don’t do politics and are more concerned with individual development. Too big to fail...

Arlington girls does not do enough technical training in the u littles(u12 and below). They are athletic enough but lack the ball skills of some other programs. They seem to work on speed of play before a lot of players have developed enough individual skills need to play that way. In the top brackets in the bigger tournaments every team is fairly close athletically, the difference is usually technical skill. Good technical skills allows faster speed of play.

The Club had major staff changes/leadership over the past 6 years of so. Some of those people took the Club in a different direction and I think the downfall is a direct result of the character of the Club changing and the people involved. They got greedy very fast and it's easy to lose focus of what it really should be all about, e.g., the young kids starting out and developing vs recruitment in later years to earn titles. Not having a feeling of 'one club' given the dynamics and differential treatment which little kids starting out really notice, many of which drop the sport completely due to it. I feel as some of the original members were bamboozled and fooled by fancy resumes without thoroughly checking out their track record or history other places. Some of the exodus a pp mentioned was due to the feeling of lack of investment in young players. Coaching staff was inconsistent with some teams obviously they didn't care about. They also would focus way too young on only 10-12 of the players when they had over 75 in an age group. When those players don't pan out who can they turn to? They have the kids they didn't care about and often didn't even have a coach show up at tournaments---with manager taking over. When you have an enormously sized player pool and very limited geographic/traffic-wise options near you (a monopoly), you can cavalierly choose to just tell people "if you don't like it, leave". That does catch up to you over time and the 'brand' begins to tarnish. The same exact thing is happening over at Loudoun, btw.