Anonymous wrote:How did everyone's tournaments go this weekend? My DS's team was in the South County tournament and the competition was good. Refs missed a few calls and some loud parents but games were competitive and nothing got out of hand. Weather was great.

We went to Battlefield. It was a great experience, good competition. Yeah, refs always miss some calls, even in the pros. I told my son that if you play well enough, a bad call from a ref won't change the outcome of the game. It's tough though.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The MA conference is now well under way. I'm glad to see the boys ECNL league getting traction. The Oklahoma showcase is just around the corner.

"Getting traction" in what sense?

We are in the second year. The competition is good, well organized, and I think each year will just get better and better.

How did everyone's tournaments go this weekend? My DS's team was in the South County tournament and the competition was good. Refs missed a few calls and some loud parents but games were competitive and nothing got out of hand. Weather was great.

Anonymous wrote:The MA conference is now well under way. I'm glad to see the boys ECNL league getting traction. The Oklahoma showcase is just around the corner.

"Getting traction" in what sense?

The MA conference is now well under way. I'm glad to see the boys ECNL league getting traction. The Oklahoma showcase is just around the corner.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Boy's ECNL got started this week-end and showed its potential for exciting competitive games, with McLean U14 beating BRYC U14 11-0.

BRYC living on its reputation and ability to poach other clubs’ players at the older age groups. The club royally screwed up its 05/06 age groups and hasn’t recovered. My kid played rec at BRYC for 3 years, left to play travel elsewhere at U9. I don’t recognize the name of a single kid on that ECNL roster as having gone through BRYC rec.

How did they screw the 05/06s? Aren't the 06s a ton better than the 05s?

I think his/her post implied that they got replaced by kids, who came from other clubs. BRYC has a reputation for poaching players and even whole teams from other clubs rather than developing their own. I personally don't think that recruiting is wrong, if the incoming player can improve the team. But the complaint I hear about BRYC and a couple other clubs is that they recruit so many outside players and teams that players that used to play for the club at younger ages either get moved to lower level teams or go to play for other clubs.

I am not sure how this would explain that their U14 team lost 11-0.

BRYC screwed up that age group a few years back when it left CCL and decided it was going to have the younger age groups ('05 on down, I believe, at the time) be in no league and just do friendlies. Lots of people left because of the uncertainty. No it has put the younger teams back into league play (mostly NCSL, I think), but at the '05 level they barely fielded an "A" team last year (I think they were playing in Division 4 or 5 of NCSL) and have put together this team from that team, plus some recruits from other clubs drawn by the prospect of playing in ECNL.

In general, yes, BRYC's MO is to place itself in "elite" leagues and draw talent from other clubs based on that, rather than developing its own talent. The Elite Academy even at younger ages largely doesn't draw from the club's rec program, and wherever the U9s and U10s come from, the club has no problem taking lots of money from them (fielding as many teams as it can) and then casting them aside when better players come along looking to play on a bigger stage. I guess there's nothing wrong with that if you know it going in, which is why I think it's worth discussing here.

No personal ax to grind; as I said above, my kid left voluntarily at U9 to play elsewhere because he wanted a higher level of competition than ODSL (where most of his fellow BRYC rec all-stars were going) and didn't like the vibe of the Elite Academy. I guess I just think it's a bummer that this is how our "home" club operates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Boy's ECNL got started this week-end and showed its potential for exciting competitive games, with McLean U14 beating BRYC U14 11-0.

BRYC living on its reputation and ability to poach other clubs’ players at the older age groups. The club royally screwed up its 05/06 age groups and hasn’t recovered. My kid played rec at BRYC for 3 years, left to play travel elsewhere at U9. I don’t recognize the name of a single kid on that ECNL roster as having gone through BRYC rec.

How did they screw the 05/06s? Aren't the 06s a ton better than the 05s?

I think his/her post implied that they got replaced by kids, who came from other clubs. BRYC has a reputation for poaching players and even whole teams from other clubs rather than developing their own. I personally don't think that recruiting is wrong, if the incoming player can improve the team. But the complaint I hear about BRYC and a couple other clubs is that they recruit so many outside players and teams that players that used to play for the club at younger ages either get moved to lower level teams or go to play for other clubs.

I am not sure how this would explain that their U14 team lost 11-0.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Boy's ECNL got started this week-end and showed its potential for exciting competitive games, with McLean U14 beating BRYC U14 11-0.

BRYC living on its reputation and ability to poach other clubs’ players at the older age groups. The club royally screwed up its 05/06 age groups and hasn’t recovered. My kid played rec at BRYC for 3 years, left to play travel elsewhere at U9. I don’t recognize the name of a single kid on that ECNL roster as having gone through BRYC rec.

How did they screw the 05/06s? Aren't the 06s a ton better than the 05s?

I think his/her post implied that they got replaced by kids, who came from other clubs. BRYC has a reputation for poaching players and even whole teams from other clubs rather than developing their own. I personally don't think that recruiting is wrong, if the incoming player can improve the team. But the complaint I hear about BRYC and a couple other clubs is that they recruit so many outside players and teams that players that used to play for the club at younger ages either get moved to lower level teams or go to play for other clubs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Boy's ECNL got started this week-end and showed its potential for exciting competitive games, with McLean U14 beating BRYC U14 11-0.

BRYC living on its reputation and ability to poach other clubs’ players at the older age groups. The club royally screwed up its 05/06 age groups and hasn’t recovered. My kid played rec at BRYC for 3 years, left to play travel elsewhere at U9. I don’t recognize the name of a single kid on that ECNL roster as having gone through BRYC rec.

How did they screw the 05/06s? Aren't the 06s a ton better than the 05s?

Anonymous wrote:The Boy's ECNL got started this week-end and showed its potential for exciting competitive games, with McLean U14 beating BRYC U14 11-0.

Add to this, U17 McLean losing to U17 BRYC 0-6.

Anonymous wrote:The Boy's ECNL got started this week-end and showed its potential for exciting competitive games, with McLean U14 beating BRYC U14 11-0.

BRYC living on its reputation and ability to poach other clubs’ players at the older age groups. The club royally screwed up its 05/06 age groups and hasn’t recovered. My kid played rec at BRYC for 3 years, left to play travel elsewhere at U9. I don’t recognize the name of a single kid on that ECNL roster as having gone through BRYC rec.

The Boy's ECNL got started this week-end and showed its potential for exciting competitive games, with McLean U14 beating BRYC U14 11-0.

Anonymous wrote:Tell that to the person who first brought the healthcare false equivalency into the conversation.

Agree. Other than learning the political leanings of the people here, the analogy isn't really a good one. I'd make the case that the environment we had prior to DA was a "free market" product and that was clearly not up to the task of developing the best players for the national talent pool. Trying to compare this country to others, where the soccer culture is not what it is in other countries where soccer is the destination sport (especially for boys), is a non-starter. The reason why the "free market" works in those other countries is because wealthy clubs have a financial interest in developing players to make more money for themselves. Until the culture here closely aligns with those cultures, we will be behind in soccer, especially for the boys. It may never happen, just like the American brand of football will likely never a sport where other countries challenge the US. Same reasoning.

Tell that to the person who first brought the healthcare false equivalency into the conversation.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I do not agree boys ECNL is a bad idea, there is nothing wrong with competition. This country is not good enough at soccer for us to have a top down system where the federation dictates how to develop players. It is a lot like the people arguing for single payer healthcare. I don’t think our government should tell people from the top down how to do healthcare. Same thing for soccer, we should not have a single elite system pushed on us from the top down. The one thing this country is good at is free market competition, if we started rewarding clubs for producing players with money then we would really start developing players and no one would care what league they play in.

I can see why you like the boys' ECNL if you are a fan of the healthcare system the free market has produced in our country. Both systems are excellent for providing profits to the suppliers of the product, I just have a different perspective since I care more about the consumers.

Umm, the "healthcare system," whether you are referring to it prior to or post ACA, isn't a product of the free market. Let's stick to soccer.