LSA U13 RPL team

They have improved. Some as individuals and as a team. Several of those girls were already thinking of leaving (several that used to be on that team have already left). Their coach is good, but he is not fair. LSA has ALWAYS struggled to keep players. The Tophat alliance may actually help them retain players, at least at the younger age groups.

What I would like to see happen is for Tophat to impose their style of play on LSA. That club has always relied on speed and played kick ball. The complaint I have heard about this team is that they still do rely too much on kickball. Those girls that are not fast on that team would benefit a lot from playing possession soccer. Even the fast ones would benefit.

As an aside that team also lost several players from the fall Athena A team that were not involved a lot in playing in games and gained 2 2005 players that were playing up with the U14 team. That probably helped improve them a lot too. But the coach deserves a lot of credit because as a U12 team they were good but couldn't beat any top club (UFA, TH, Concorde, GSA, AFU or SSA). As a U13 team they have beaten UFA's top team twice and beat TH's second team once.

Like you, I've never understood the penchant for parents using the term "steal"  Last I checked don't the parents of the players or the players themselves always have to be willing participants in this colossal theft that is occurring.

Top clubs attract good players, again I don't understand why people say "steal", just like when people say when good players go to NTH, CF, etc the same refrain is "they were developed somewhere else", so people just assume that there's a cap or age that players stop developing? It is entirely possible that players outgrow their environment, want to be surrounded by better players, or play at a higher level.

Let's put it this way, if we are plugging away at a middling job at Comcast and Google knocks on your door and says "we've had our eye on you for a while and you're a promising talent" I bet just about all of us would accept Google's offer in a New York minute. Don't begrudge the same opportunity for the players.

I have seen that team play for years and there are maybe 2 players that would have a chance at Tophat U14 DA next year, but even those would likely play U14 ECNL next year and with some refinement could move up to DA in the future. We have a close friend on the 05 TH ECNL team now and they are a very very good team. There are some weaker players on that team that likely won't make DA next year either.

I have found that even when a club has a philosophy of play there are still preferences that coaches have for a certain type of player. Another post (about the monitors) talked about the "eye test" which is real. Coaches might like a speedy kid with less technical (bit still decent) ability over a super technical kid that is slower or smaller. Other coaches vice versa.

Tophat doesn't need to steal. People flock to them for good reason. I would rather my child be on the third team at Tophat than the top team at a lot of other places. Unfortunately the drive is too much for us though.

I’ve watched them a couple of times on the RPL circuit and chatted to their coach a couple of occasions. They seem to be a team that play to their strengths and understand that they are not the most technically gifted team. They are very aggressive in winning the ball back and press teams with a very high intensity.

I watched the second half of tophat vs LSA RPL game and tophat couldn’t get out of their own half. Then they played against SSA and sat in very deep with 5 at the back, to try and neutralize our attack, and made the game one of our toughest of the RPL season. This tells me that their game changes based on who they are playing against.

It’ll be interesting to see what happens with that team, especially with the alliance with tophat.

Tophat couldn't get out of their own half with any of the Georgia RPL teams. Yes, LSA plays to their strengths which is not technical skills (although they have several that are technically skilled). Problem is that LSA bleeds talent generally. The Tophat alliance may stop that, but it may not. Even the boys teams eventually bleed talent. One of their teams that was SRPL lost a couple top players to NASA and Concorde. The issue is that for kids that want to play at strong colleges (academically or athletically) LSA does not have a track record and the bigger clubs do. It is a vicious cycle because if you always bleed talent then your teams get weaker which means fewer people will stay and so on. If LSA was further away (like CFC Red Star) they would probably do extremely well. People just don't have patience or in some cases don't like the coaches so they leave.