Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to be imprecise - I did not mean to imply Arlington overcharges at all, just that they would be a stock with little upside since they are at the top right now - that's all. On ECNL, no doubt they are better than CCL, but the local teams playing in ECNL (other than VDA and Arlington) are not better than other top teams in this area in the U13-15 range, including SYC. Hope to see Arlington and VDA in MLS Next. Probably not both but at least one of them.

Rumor is that Arlington will put their Academy Teams into MLS Next and their Red Teams to take their ECNL slots next year.

Just mls not ecnl

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to be imprecise - I did not mean to imply Arlington overcharges at all, just that they would be a stock with little upside since they are at the top right now - that's all. On ECNL, no doubt they are better than CCL, but the local teams playing in ECNL (other than VDA and Arlington) are not better than other top teams in this area in the U13-15 range, including SYC. Hope to see Arlington and VDA in MLS Next. Probably not both but at least one of them.

Rumor is that Arlington will put their Academy Teams into MLS Next and their Red Teams to take their ECNL slots next year.

Not gonna lie I stopped at “rumor is”

Just going to have to wait and see.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to be imprecise - I did not mean to imply Arlington overcharges at all, just that they would be a stock with little upside since they are at the top right now - that's all. On ECNL, no doubt they are better than CCL, but the local teams playing in ECNL (other than VDA and Arlington) are not better than other top teams in this area in the U13-15 range, including SYC. Hope to see Arlington and VDA in MLS Next. Probably not both but at least one of them.

Rumor is that Arlington will put their Academy Teams into MLS Next and their Red Teams to take their ECNL slots next year.

Not gonna lie I stopped at “rumor is”

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to be imprecise - I did not mean to imply Arlington overcharges at all, just that they would be a stock with little upside since they are at the top right now - that's all. On ECNL, no doubt they are better than CCL, but the local teams playing in ECNL (other than VDA and Arlington) are not better than other top teams in this area in the U13-15 range, including SYC. Hope to see Arlington and VDA in MLS Next. Probably not both but at least one of them.

Rumor is that Arlington will put their Academy Teams into MLS Next and their Red Teams to take their ECNL slots next year.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I would say that SYC turned it around for sure. They took the best coaches from LMVSC and the players followed. They upped their Social Media game which helps for player recruitment. They got themselves back into CCL and now have teams in MLS Next. It was a complete 180. I wish we had left LMVSC to follow their progression but we decided to stick out another year and now left this past season due to LMVSC poor academy implementation. Regardless of performance per team I think they have a solid approach and training program.

Even if they dominate recruiting in lmvsc’s area, they have to compete with Bryc in the same area and are bordered by Arlington, McLean, st James, without anything that really sets them apart

1. They already have dominated LMVSC’s area
2. People are leaving BRYC; their pipeline of players is never used and they’re not competing well in ECNL
3. Is TSJ open yet?

1. They dominate because coaches left with teams, whether or not that translates in to getting them as ulittles after Rex (no one is driving it Springfield form rose hill for Rec) is yet to be seen. It’s more likely Alexandria feasts in the corpse of lmvsc since its fields are largely an easier drive for practice and home games

2. Maybe, but it’s still another club in the same geographic footprint that fields high level teams (and that has more recent relevance than SYC)

3. Yes

Correction: players followed their coaches.

I guess the academy system isn’t producing European-level talent?

I saw a couple of state cup games (2005 and 2006) against Arlington - and the SYC teams appeared to me (and admittedly I am far from an expert) to be outplayed and outcoached. The OP asked for a comparison to the top clubs in the area. Based on those games - right now I would say that they are not on the same level.

We can’t base it on 2 games, those two arlington age groups are very strong and dominate the dmv area.

Syc younger age groups are very good on both sides boys and girls, some of them are so dominant that they have to play tournaments on older age groups. They have good B/C level teams as well with great coaches. My son is having a great experience there and that’s all I want for my kid during these times of Covid.

Need to state that Arlington might be good for boys, but girls they aren't even close to dominate in the DMV.

Anonymous wrote:http://www.gotsport.com/asp/directors/tournament/vieweventteamscleanb.asp?EventID=79960&Group=Boys_14

OK so YSR has the wrong team ranked it appears. Link to Bethesda brackets above.

Sorry, I just checked that link and it's blank. I think they took it down to maybe move some people around. Not sure. It was working.

http://www.gotsport.com/asp/directors/tournament/vieweventteamscleanb.asp?EventID=79960&Group=Boys_14

OK so YSR has the wrong team ranked it appears. Link to Bethesda brackets above.

Anonymous wrote:I saw that SYC 07 boys Blue are in the bottom division of the Bethesda Tournament. I looked on Youth soccer rankings and it's showing that the MLS Next's team's ranking dropped steadily recently. Is this the same team or is there just a mix up with the team names?

Where were you able to see the Divisions posted? Can you post a link?

Thanks

Anonymous wrote:I saw that SYC 07 boys Blue are in the bottom division of the Bethesda Tournament. I looked on Youth soccer rankings and it's showing that the MLS Next's team's ranking dropped steadily recently. Is this the same team or is there just a mix up with the team names?

The MLS team and the Blue team are not the same team. Two different groups of players. A good number of players moved from to MLS once SYC was accepted and they filled the rest of that team with players from other clubs. They had tryouts to fill the MLS team with stronger players than they had on Blue. The blue team is still solid though.

I saw that SYC 07 boys Blue are in the bottom division of the Bethesda Tournament. I looked on Youth soccer rankings and it's showing that the MLS Next's team's ranking dropped steadily recently. Is this the same team or is there just a mix up with the team names?

Anonymous wrote:Arlington has a lack of competition from the rec level up in Arlington itself. That gives them an enormous player pool from U9 and it seems to carry though. Them being a good organization is just gravy.

True. But if they failed to provide good coaching at U13 and above then
(a) the top 5 or 6 kids would almost certainly leave looking for better coaching
(b) they would no longer draw kids from all over the region.

So not only would the coaching not be as good, but the talent would drop off considerably as well. The end result would probably look very like Loudoun.

Arlington has a lack of competition from the rec level up in Arlington itself. That gives them an enormous player pool from U9 and it seems to carry though. Them being a good organization is just gravy.

Anonymous wrote:Sorry to be imprecise - I did not mean to imply Arlington overcharges at all, just that they would be a stock with little upside since they are at the top right now - that's all. On ECNL, no doubt they are better than CCL, but the local teams playing in ECNL (other than VDA and Arlington) are not better than other top teams in this area in the U13-15 range, including SYC. Hope to see Arlington and VDA in MLS Next. Probably not both but at least one of them.

Yes agree that McLean, Loudoun, BRYC are no better at younger ages than the other clubs in the area. Whether VDA and Arlington can preserve a gap is an open question. Obviously it will be harder without the DA brand, and per my previous message I think this will depend on how well they can continue to differentiate themselves through superior coaching and customer service - which is exactly how it should be.

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Thanks for the info.

I would expect MLS Next to be better in future years. This is not a good year to organize a national youth competition on short notice.

Yes indeed.

I'm actually working on a club directory project that will include a comparison of MLS and ECNL, along with GA and ECNL. On the boys side, I'd say it's about 50-50. For girls, ECNL is clearly stronger.

Agree on the girls side, although locally FCV and Arlington are both on a par with the ECNL clubs.

On the boys side, the MLS clubs themselves basically guarantee that the overall level of competition is higher in MLS Next, but as a platform it's struggling to deliver a reliable weekly soccer game. As you suggest, this should improve next year. And ECNL is definitely stronger than it was before although this varies geograhically. For example, north of DC few teams left DA to join ECNL: Bethesda, Baltimore, PDA, PA Classics, Lehigh Valley, FC Delco, Cedar Stars all stayed with MLS Next. I suspect this had to do with how well the local MLS team was able to articulate its own plans and give the surrounding clubs a good sense that it would support them. Unsurprisingly DC United failed to convince anyone that it had a clue what it was doing, so Richmond, VDA and Arlington left. Quite a few clubs moved to ECNL in the Carolinas, and in Georgia Atlanta United itself joined ECNL (although it is also in MLS Next - not quite sure how that works), so the mid Atlantic and South East ECNL regions got significantly stronger.

Also worth noting that a few weeks ago there were rumors DC United were going to try and play their U16 boys in ECNL although that seems to have gone nowhere.

(And it's really weird that MLS threw its weight behind the GA. Why?)

I haven't counted, but I suspect that a disproportionate number of the ex-DA clubs now in MLS Next had their girls teams in DA as well, and they are now in GA. These clubs need a platform for their girls, and it appears that the MLS has concluded that their half baked idea for an MLS-only league won't work and are probably realizing that they actually need MLS Next to be successful and those clubs to thrive. Therefore they need to make sure that those clubs have a solid girls platform as well - otherwise they might face a steady trickle of further defections to ECNL. This is pure speculation on my part - I have no inside knowledge whatsoever - but it makes sense to me .

Anonymous wrote:Why do people assume that the MLS name will mean anything to girls' soccer? Unless they are funding the league, I don't see what the MLS association does (and knowing MLS, they are probably charging a licensing fee rather than injecting money)

I have not seen assumptions like that and would not make them myself.