Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Spirit struggles because they have no teams below U13. This means they must recruit talent from all the competition (DA / ECNL). Most players who are starters will not leave a team unless the team is terrible. And, if the team is terrible, is terrible players going to Spirit. Yes, McLean 06 is a hot mess. They lost most of their best players to Arlington DA. But, McLean does a good job recruiting at the older ages because they have a history of placing kids in college etc. BYRC, while small, also has a history of doing the same. Both teams identify talent fairly well, and develop that talent well. Arlington has sucked up the rest of the oxygen within the beltway for DA and has plucked kids from DC United, McLean, Bethesda, and Annandale. When you add FCV and Loudoun out west (DA / ECNL respectively), Spirit is pinched out. Its not their fault. But their business model is bad, they don't have younger teams to build an early "base" of players to create legitimacy. Spirit should partner with as many teams around to pluck "guest" players for a showcase team at the U16-19 level. Otherwise, its bad after bad. If you had a top player at any of the teams I have mentioned above, would you even think of going to Spirit? The answer is no. Pretty simple.

DC United has the same situation. So what makes them so successful?

Good question. I would say that they established themselves before the DA / ECNL team explosion, they partnered with ASA to feed their best boys over to the DC United team, and they are a boys program not girls - where DA dominated the landscape. Spirit is the opposite - they did not exist with DA prior, other teams were the powerhouse ECNL and CCL teams, and those teams for the most part flipped to being ECNL and DA - retaining most of their players and using their pipeline to fill the gaps while recruiting.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OK. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Spirit struggles because they have no teams below U13. This means they must recruit talent from all the competition (DA / ECNL). Most players who are starters will not leave a team unless the team is terrible. And, if the team is terrible, is terrible players going to Spirit. Yes, McLean 06 is a hot mess. They lost most of their best players to Arlington DA. But, McLean does a good job recruiting at the older ages because they have a history of placing kids in college etc. BYRC, while small, also has a history of doing the same. Both teams identify talent fairly well, and develop that talent well. Arlington has sucked up the rest of the oxygen within the beltway for DA and has plucked kids from DC United, McLean, Bethesda, and Annandale. When you add FCV and Loudoun out west (DA / ECNL respectively), Spirit is pinched out. Its not their fault. But their business model is bad, they don't have younger teams to build an early "base" of players to create legitimacy. Spirit should partner with as many teams around to pluck "guest" players for a showcase team at the U16-19 level. Otherwise, its bad after bad. If you had a top player at any of the teams I have mentioned above, would you even think of going to Spirit? The answer is no. Pretty simple.

DC United has the same situation. So what makes them so successful?

Anonymous wrote:Guess we’ll have to see about the 2006 and 2007s over the next few years instead of speculating based on a pilot year that they didn’t heavily recruit for last year and one that doesn’t even start until fall.

Why is so much emphasis being placed on a non standard age group anyway? Part of the psychosis of the troll, I imagine.

Anonymous wrote:OK. Let's get to the heart of the matter. Spirit struggles because they have no teams below U13. This means they must recruit talent from all the competition (DA / ECNL). Most players who are starters will not leave a team unless the team is terrible. And, if the team is terrible, is terrible players going to Spirit. Yes, McLean 06 is a hot mess. They lost most of their best players to Arlington DA. But, McLean does a good job recruiting at the older ages because they have a history of placing kids in college etc. BYRC, while small, also has a history of doing the same. Both teams identify talent fairly well, and develop that talent well. Arlington has sucked up the rest of the oxygen within the beltway for DA and has plucked kids from DC United, McLean, Bethesda, and Annandale. When you add FCV and Loudoun out west (DA / ECNL respectively), Spirit is pinched out. Its not their fault. But their business model is bad, they don't have younger teams to build an early "base" of players to create legitimacy. Spirit should partner with as many teams around to pluck "guest" players for a showcase team at the U16-19 level. Otherwise, its bad after bad. If you had a top player at any of the teams I have mentioned above, would you even think of going to Spirit? The answer is no. Pretty simple.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U14: 2-11-3 (heavily recruited team from Mclean)
U15: 1-14-4 (same results for 2 years running)
U16/U17: 1-15 -2
U18/19: 9-9

Goal differential between U15-U19: -76

What's the plan?

Some of those games that are losses or ties are showing a closing gap between teams played in the fall and teams played in the spring. The U15s and the U17s have shown some traction. The U14 team is Spirit's strongest team right now. They too need to tighten that roster and play players the right way, but could easily be a strong team after that. The exception may be the 19s. As with the proceeding year, they have lost players (seniors) from their ranks. I expect the 19s will have a difficult spring.

Let's see if they keep It together into next year, with a few changes that really are about accountability. This is called travel, because it is about competition and being competitive. That means players should be held accountable for winning and for losing. It's harsh, but it's the world high level soccer lives in. Trying hard and running a lot are meaningless if you can't connect a pass. And real possession that matters has to be forward moving and lead to an attack on gaol.

So what's the plan?

Asked and answered. The right question isn't what's the plan, but can they do it? I'm trying to find out myself.

Things considered more plausible:

Finding treasure on oak island.

Happy hunting my friend

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The plan for what? You do realize that the only people on here are a few parents and you, the Spirit troll.

You want a plan, call George and Tom and ask them. Right now the only thing you are accomplish is showing what an ugly person you are.

So the plan is to name call?

The results are posted on US Soccer.

You consider posting results to be trolling?

Anonymous wrote:The plan for what? You do realize that the only people on here are a few parents and you, the Spirit troll.

You want a plan, call George and Tom and ask them. Right now the only thing you are accomplish is showing what an ugly person you are.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U14: 2-11-3 (heavily recruited team from Mclean)
U15: 1-14-4 (same results for 2 years running)
U16/U17: 1-15 -2
U18/19: 9-9

Goal differential between U15-U19: -76

What's the plan?

Some of those games that are losses or ties are showing a closing gap between teams played in the fall and teams played in the spring. The U15s and the U17s have shown some traction. The U14 team is Spirit's strongest team right now. They too need to tighten that roster and play players the right way, but could easily be a strong team after that. The exception may be the 19s. As with the proceeding year, they have lost players (seniors) from their ranks. I expect the 19s will have a difficult spring.

Let's see if they keep It together into next year, with a few changes that really are about accountability. This is called travel, because it is about competition and being competitive. That means players should be held accountable for winning and for losing. It's harsh, but it's the world high level soccer lives in. Trying hard and running a lot are meaningless if you can't connect a pass. And real possession that matters has to be forward moving and lead to an attack on gaol.

So what's the plan?

Asked and answered. The right question isn't what's the plan, but can they do it? I'm trying to find out myself.

Things considered more plausible:

Finding treasure on oak island.

Happy hunting my friend

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U14: 2-11-3 (heavily recruited team from Mclean)
U15: 1-14-4 (same results for 2 years running)
U16/U17: 1-15 -2
U18/19: 9-9

Goal differential between U15-U19: -76

What's the plan?

Some of those games that are losses or ties are showing a closing gap between teams played in the fall and teams played in the spring. The U15s and the U17s have shown some traction. The U14 team is Spirit's strongest team right now. They too need to tighten that roster and play players the right way, but could easily be a strong team after that. The exception may be the 19s. As with the proceeding year, they have lost players (seniors) from their ranks. I expect the 19s will have a difficult spring.

Let's see if they keep It together into next year, with a few changes that really are about accountability. This is called travel, because it is about competition and being competitive. That means players should be held accountable for winning and for losing. It's harsh, but it's the world high level soccer lives in. Trying hard and running a lot are meaningless if you can't connect a pass. And real possession that matters has to be forward moving and lead to an attack on gaol.

So what's the plan?

Asked and answered. The right question isn't what's the plan, but can they do it? I'm trying to find out myself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:U14: 2-11-3 (heavily recruited team from Mclean)
U15: 1-14-4 (same results for 2 years running)
U16/U17: 1-15 -2
U18/19: 9-9

Goal differential between U15-U19: -76

What's the plan?

Some of those games that are losses or ties are showing a closing gap between teams played in the fall and teams played in the spring. The U15s and the U17s have shown some traction. The U14 team is Spirit's strongest team right now. They too need to tighten that roster and play players the right way, but could easily be a strong team after that. The exception may be the 19s. As with the proceeding year, they have lost players (seniors) from their ranks. I expect the 19s will have a difficult spring.

Let's see if they keep It together into next year, with a few changes that really are about accountability. This is called travel, because it is about competition and being competitive. That means players should be held accountable for winning and for losing. It's harsh, but it's the world high level soccer lives in. Trying hard and running a lot are meaningless if you can't connect a pass. And real possession that matters has to be forward moving and lead to an attack on gaol.

So what's the plan?