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Post by soccerdaddy on Feb 15, 2017 15:50:57 GMT -5
1) Why do we have all of these different leagues and why is travel so "important" to play on a higher level? How is this a higher level? Please help me understand on a youth soccer level U13 - U15 all of the traveling to get better?
2) Obviously, families that can afford to travel will say "that's where the competition is". Is it really? I think DA is the TOP. I see the logic in traveling for that. a) Are we just advertising for the clubs/coaches and now we have created this persona that there is no competition in GA? (If your not in DA)
3) It seems like everyone is being forced to travel or else your not even considered anymore.
Why can't we have good competition in GA?
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Post by mightydawg on Feb 15, 2017 16:33:50 GMT -5
I guess that the theory is that you don't know what being the best in Georgia means unless you see how you compare to the best from other states.
The truth is that with the number of elite teams in Georgia you can get pretty good competition just playing locally if everyone actually played locally.
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Post by soccerdaddy on Feb 15, 2017 16:50:49 GMT -5
Yes I understand the theory. It still doesn't make sense to me. Also, I don't think most 12 - 15 year old athletes are dragging their parents to let them travel every other weekend just to play the other state's "Best".
I thought that DA was the highest level of competition or the state's best? Am I missing something?
Thanks for your opinion :-)
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Post by Soccerhouse on Feb 15, 2017 17:13:50 GMT -5
I think youth soccer evolved nicely into thinking of more regional play for top teams, hence the premier leagues like RPL etc. Promotion and relegation into the league and offering top teams the most competitive schedule possible and they had the best intentions.
I won't go into the history lesson with ECNL, DA and now girls DA and boys DA expansion and boys EPNL --- I always bring up the girls u13 year as the greatest example. Unreal competitive year, all the top teams play georgia soccer in the fall and play in state cup. Its the best of the best -- no ecnl yet, no rpl yet, and they fight it out. Truly a great competitive season. Unfortunately it all stops there and now the future is even bleaker.
The state organization have lost their grip on youth soccer, its all US Club Soccer and DA for sure. I feel bad for the Dacula's, interatlanta's and I'll even say the KSAs that are now left out of this new hierarchical structure. Players will be spread out so widely, that the Georgia Soccer tables will look very unfamiliar. Heck take clubs like Tophat and Concorde, your talking about 3rd teams that will play in the Georgia Soccer structure.
This doesn't answer your question, but this phenomenon isn't just soccer. Competitive youth sports is very expensive.
and to answer your question yes for most ages their is plenty of competition in Georgia. I would compare it to Texas and California, this city is loaded with talent and quality coaches.
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Post by soccerdaddy on Feb 15, 2017 17:24:51 GMT -5
Thank you! I don't want to feel like I'm not providing the best opportunity for my child because we are not traveling....Yet. We do a lot of indoor throughout the year and during the season we've been very busy with at least 4 - 6 days a week training/playing. He's still young and don't see the light for traveling at this time. He can't stand a 30 minute drive to Marietta :-)
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Post by Soccerhouse on Feb 15, 2017 18:25:50 GMT -5
If your happy and the kid is happy don't get in the rat race.
I saw a few Georgia u11 boys teams are traveling up to Jefferson cup. That's a long way for a weekend tournament at that age. Probably not as expensive as Disney but still expensive.
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Post by spectator on Feb 15, 2017 22:20:42 GMT -5
For competition, you are correct - there are enough high level clubs in metro Atlanta to avoid heavy travel. Problem is those teams are too busy travelling to play each other in Georgia. And then the RPL teams will gripe that they have to travel to play each other so it's this vicious cycle. The other argument is why enter a local tournament to pay to play the teams you play during the season anyway - be it Classic/Athena or RPL? So teams travel and how ironic when the same teams travel hundreds of miles to end up playing each other. Again vicious cycle.
HOWEVER - travel to college showcases and key tournaments from U15-U17 is key if you are wanting to get noticed by college coaches. Whether an ECNL event or major tournament, coaches show up at these events and it's the best way for a player to be seen and make contact.
But extensive travel U12-U14 is a money grab and waste of time unless you really have a phenom - so you have to ask yourself is your kid 'that kid' or are you falling into the trap?
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Post by soccerdaddy on Feb 15, 2017 23:21:59 GMT -5
Thanks for the information. Hopefully, my son will be ready in 3 more years for the college showcases. I just don't want him to get burned out when we get to that point. So far, he still drags me to practice & games early. Every Sunday, it's indoor or ODP and everything is local. He didn't want to miss any opportunities for practice at the Atlanta United Training facility. They have scouts at every practice. It's nice being local and getting plenty or as much training as he desires. I am truly grateful.
Our club team voted an overwhelming NO for RPL this spring and it allowed another team to enter RPL. I looked at the schedule and GA Teams will play Back to Back in either Jacksonville FL or Charlotte NC for 4 games and then 4 games in GA. Not too bad but why only the 8 game season? At least GA Soccer is having 11 games for the season in Classic 1 and we can negotiate the entire schedule. This gives us plenty of regular season games, attend ODP and do indoor every weekend.
I think we are in great shape and have a lot of options. I'm sure we will qualify next Fall and decide whether or not to do it as well. Competition is getting scarce in Classic/Athena, especially next Fall. GA Soccer needs to change something.
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Post by greenmonkey on Mar 2, 2017 18:25:47 GMT -5
I love travel soccer because of the travel ... I think it's a primary reason a player (or their family) plays or pays for travel soccer. The opportunity to travel, out of state, around the region, and hopefully even out of the region is in theory the point behind travel soccer. Notice I didn't say competition soccer. Yes there is plenty of competitive soccer locally. And certainly enough teams and "talent" that you can stay local and play competitively at just about any level at any age and it would likely be less expensive to do so. Unfortunately my player is not on the top team at their club and therefore is not scheduled to travel to tournaments or games out of the local area. In youth sports it's impossible to make everyone (or sometimes to make anyone) happy. Too much travel or not enough travel? I guess it comes down to what are you trying to achieve? You are right competitive soccer at any level can be accomplished without travel but it seems for us travel soccer can not be accomplished without being on a top level team.
Bottom line as with anything else in parenting is you just make the decision that works best for your family! Have a great spring season regardless of how far or close to home field you play!
Cheers,
GM
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Post by SoccerMom on Mar 3, 2017 8:46:31 GMT -5
I won't go into the history lesson with ECNL, DA and now girls DA and boys DA expansion and boys EPNL --- I always bring up the girls u13 year as the greatest example. Unreal competitive year, all the top teams play georgia soccer in the fall and play in state cup. Its the best of the best -- no ecnl yet, no rpl yet, and they fight it out. Truly a great competitive season. Unfortunately it all stops there and now the future is even bleaker. I heard that ECNL is panning on doing Pre-ECNL now and that the U13's will have their own thing like the older ages, so now the clubs that have ECNL wont be sending their best kids anymore.
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Post by Soccerhouse on Mar 3, 2017 9:05:35 GMT -5
Dang, that is not good news!! Maybe good news for them, but bad for Georgia Soccer and youth soccer as a whole.
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Post by SoccerMom on Mar 3, 2017 9:07:38 GMT -5
I agree, hopefully it doesn't happen and then DA will turn around and do the same
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Post by novicebutajunky on Mar 3, 2017 10:14:40 GMT -5
Well I can speak for my experience that I guess dates back now 4 years maybe? It was my daughter at U14 and she was on the top team at a top club here in GA. We played RPL and NL this particular year and we also played the fall local circuit against other GA teams. I can say thank goodness we had RPL but more importantly NL to see "good" competition. Her fall season was not competitive at all as they consistently beat up on the local GA teams with one exception being UFA's top team. So unless she was going to play them every week it was not competitive to stay local. RPL was more competitive but still there were more than a few games that weren't. State Cup was not very competitive. The NL competition was much more competitive and enjoyable as a result this clearly helped the girls become better. There certainly are times that traveling will absolutely lead to playing much more competitive games at U13-15. It's probably not for a majority of clubs but certainly for a couple it will be. I would agree for younger ages probably is not needed but as you hit U12 (where doing more regional travel could start) and into U13 and beyond it certainly is warranted but again not for all but a top couple yes.
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Post by novicebutajunky on Mar 3, 2017 10:17:57 GMT -5
Maybe it was the U13 year??
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Post by soccerdaddy on Mar 3, 2017 10:18:57 GMT -5
Thank you all for your valuable feedback and knowledge. I'm pretty sure we're going to be playing travel soccer in the future whether it's for RPL or the ENPL or DA. I don't think we can stay in Georgia soccer to stay competitive, unless they make some drastic changes and soon. I think it's already too late for US Youth Soccer in GA.
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Post by touchlinedad on Mar 3, 2017 10:46:01 GMT -5
DA is definitely the top level, especially Atlanta United's DA. However, the other DA programs aren't fully funded and and from what I've seen, the DA fees are very expensive. So that begs the question: Are those players high level or are they just the high level players that can afford to pay for it? I've read a lot of negative commentary about pay to play but it seems to be getting worse instead of better. And now with the introduction of ENPL, is that just U.S. Club Soccer's attempt to make money off the boy's game?
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Post by soccerdaddy on Mar 3, 2017 10:54:01 GMT -5
Oh well, time to get another job to support my Son's soccer habits :-) ENPL sure does sound expensive if you travel 50% of the time. So far, the clubs that are in are the ones that play in RPL and NL.
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Post by Soccerhouse on Mar 3, 2017 11:12:57 GMT -5
DA is definitely the top level, especially Atlanta United's DA. However, the other DA programs aren't fully funded and and from what I've seen, the DA fees are very expensive. So that begs the question: Are those players high level or are they just the high level players that can afford to pay for it? I've read a lot of negative commentary about pay to play but it seems to be getting worse instead of better. And now with the introduction of ENPL, is that just U.S. Club Soccer's attempt to make money off the boy's game? I believe it is the case for all of Concordes DA teams >=u13 and know for sure GA Uniteds 13s and 14s do not pay for travel. No expenses for hotels and transportation nor food (concorde might charge for food, always forget). Not bad, I also believe the cost was ~1900 an includes everything (uniforms etc). So in sense, its basically the same cost as non DA at the clubs, but you don't pay any travel related expenses -- no additional coaching fees, no per diem etc. (if travelign to a non US soccer event, there are costs involved) I'm not as familiar with the older Concorde Group, but I'm not aware of any kids that turned down spots on either of GA Uniteds u13s/14s or Concordes squads. So my take home its not just the kids that can afford to pay, US soccer also offers scholarship opportunities based upon need. Yes --- there are handful of kids out there that live to far or can't afford to pay, but that would be the case with any club and hence the problem with pay to play on every level from youth academy to Classic 1 or Classic IV to RPL. Dalton is the perfect example -- mostly Hispanic players and they live in Dalton, which would be a challenge to make training 3 or 4 nights a week. The 2003 Dalton team is probably right now the best team in the age group. I don't know how they fared against concorde, but they are good. They rely a bit on size and speed, but its hard to argue when they are beating opponents so badly. I also know for example the UFA eagles turned down a spot in RPL a year ago to avoid the extra expenses of RPL etc.
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Post by touchlinedad on Mar 5, 2017 14:44:24 GMT -5
Soccerhouse, my perception is there are more than a handful of kids out there who can't afford to pay these fees. I really think U.S. Soccer is missing out on identifying players who come from low-income communities. I wonder how many players or potential players don't play simply because they can't afford these fees or have trouble getting rides to practice/games.
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Post by allthingsoccer on Mar 6, 2017 17:28:37 GMT -5
Most clubs will have financial assistance when it comes to DA. I know under very special circumstance offer it for free. If you have a good team manger you can raise a lot of the fees. We raised over $6000 for our team before season even started. (Yankee Candle) This was around $260 per player (23 players on roster). This has covered all extra tournaments, indoor for rain-outs, had our own 3v3 party etc..
I think you can find ways to raise the money if you need it. You can have a family member sponsor the your kid. We did. My son wanted to do the ODP keeper camp so we had him think of as to raise money. He wrote a thank you letter and signed a ball and sent it to his grandma. She covered some of the cost and then he mowed lawns for extra money. 60 days of hard work earned him the trip.
he saw great value in this. Had ownership of his training. Not bad for a 11 year old (at that time)
As for traveling to practice... we travel over an hour one-way. Car pool. Parents are always looking for a break.
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