fgug
Jr. Academy
Posts: 68
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Post by fgug on Mar 9, 2022 22:10:31 GMT -5
Thoughts on Odp? I know this is controversial. But what are people thinking with Kostas in 2nd year? Better? Worse? No different?
We are participating at younger girls age. Competition not that great. Seems to be a bit favoritism. Nice opportunity to touch ball more. Not much beyond that.
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Post by baller84 on Mar 10, 2022 0:22:20 GMT -5
Our experience has been nothing but positive and stress-free. The competition in the events we attended was great. Some of us can be a little biased with our own sometimes  but no drama witnessed nor noticed any signs of favoritism. Coaches are calm and composed during games, and seem to know what they're doing. Very talented young players enjoy playing more freely than in club. Don't always click with everyone like in our club team but that's expected since ODP teams are comprised of players from different clubs that don't know each other well and don't get to practice together much. They still look good though. |
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Post by soccernoleuk on Mar 10, 2022 11:02:59 GMT -5
We are part of the 07 player pool on the girls side.
Last year was our first year in ODP and I would give it a C+ grade. There was definitely favoritism given to returning players in our opinion. We don't know if this was due to Covid, player familiarity with coaches, or some other reason. However, it was good to get extra touches, more experience, exposure to different coaches, and to make new friends.
IMO this year has been terrible. We have had 1 event so far, in NC, and only 1 team from our age group attended. Tennessee was cancelled and our age group was not part of the Florida event. We learned yesterday that the Tifton event in April will also only be 1 team from the age group. We have no idea what other events might be on the schedule as there isn't anything in TeamSnap. June has been mentioned, but I find it hard to believe that will be all. There will definitely be players, us included, who most likely will NOT have participated in an event prior to June. So, in other words there will be players that have paid & purchased uniforms so they can participate in a single event in the spring.
I understand it gets more difficult as the kids get older. However, if you cannot bring more than 1 team to events, or schedule enough events for everyone to play multiple times, then don't have a player pool of over 50 players.
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Post by soccerboysmomma on Mar 12, 2022 21:10:32 GMT -5
This is our 1st year in ODP (boys side) and we have been really disappointed truthfully. There seems to be quite a bit of favoritism in playing time and positions. My son plays center mid for his club (in NPL) and for ODP is usually put as a marking back. Then eventually he gets a few minutes at CM where he's very affective and has scored & assisted but they continue to not play him there. And they know the position he plays for his club.
We traveled down to FL last weekend and they had 25 available to go and took 2 teams. Instead of having 2 teams with a couple of players playing as subs for the 2nd game on day 1 then have different subs to help for day 2, which would allow everyone to get a lot of playing time for the 2 games, they decided to have everyone play both games so each game had 9 subs on the bench.
And they put everyone in so many players drove 7+ hours to play a half of a half of 2 games.
I don't get the logic in that.
The talent isn't that good either and I'm not sure of it's bc of the clubs they're pulling from, too big of a roster or what. It doesn't seem that many players from 1st level, top-leagues non-GA Soccer clubs are playing.
We were hoping to get more exposure and touches on the ball but hard to do that with 18+ at each game. I doubt we will do this next year. Huge disappointment.
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Post by Keeper on Mar 12, 2022 23:21:46 GMT -5
This is our 1st year in ODP (boys side) and we have been really disappointed truthfully. There seems to be quite a bit of favoritism in playing time and positions. My son plays center mid for his club (in NPL) and for ODP is usually put as a marking back. Then eventually he gets a few minutes at CM where he's very affective and has scored & assisted but they continue to not play him there. And they know the position he plays for his club. We traveled down to FL last weekend and they had 25 available to go and took 2 teams. Instead of having 2 teams with a couple of players playing as subs for the 2nd game on day 1 then have different subs to help for day 2, which would allow everyone to get a lot of playing time for the 2 games, they decided to have everyone play both games so each game had 9 subs on the bench. And they put everyone in so many players drove 7+ hours to play a half of a half of 2 games. I don't get the logic in that. The talent isn't that good either and I'm not sure of it's bc of the clubs they're pulling from, too big of a roster or what. It doesn't seem that many players from 1st level, top-leagues non-GA Soccer clubs are playing. We were hoping to get more exposure and touches on the ball but hard to do that with 18+ at each game. I doubt we will do this next year. Huge disappointment. This right here has been the boys side since Kostas took over. Last year every event was the same like this. Favorites getting playing time and not enough playing for the others. Then add in practices were 50 players with 30-45 mins of practice then 11v11 so 25+ Kids waiting to get subbed in. Odp is a money grab and Kostas is just continuing the cycle. |
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Post by atlfutboldad on Mar 12, 2022 23:48:52 GMT -5
Last year was our final year. The year prior was better. A system headed downhill was brought farther downhill it appears. Its too bad and speaks to the decline of GA Soccer, which is a failed organization at this point. Any club that doesn't see the writing on the wall...
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Post by soccernoleuk on Mar 13, 2022 10:01:06 GMT -5
This is our 1st year in ODP (boys side) and we have been really disappointed truthfully. There seems to be quite a bit of favoritism in playing time and positions. My son plays center mid for his club (in NPL) and for ODP is usually put as a marking back. Then eventually he gets a few minutes at CM where he's very affective and has scored & assisted but they continue to not play him there. And they know the position he plays for his club. We traveled down to FL last weekend and they had 25 available to go and took 2 teams. Instead of having 2 teams with a couple of players playing as subs for the 2nd game on day 1 then have different subs to help for day 2, which would allow everyone to get a lot of playing time for the 2 games, they decided to have everyone play both games so each game had 9 subs on the bench. And they put everyone in so many players drove 7+ hours to play a half of a half of 2 games. I don't get the logic in that. The talent isn't that good either and I'm not sure of it's bc of the clubs they're pulling from, too big of a roster or what. It doesn't seem that many players from 1st level, top-leagues non-GA Soccer clubs are playing. We were hoping to get more exposure and touches on the ball but hard to do that with 18+ at each game. I doubt we will do this next year. Huge disappointment. I believe you are correct that a lot of the big clubs are not represented within ODP. On the girls side we have not seen a lot of players from AFU, Concorde, GSA, SSA, Tophat or UFA, and those that do play are typically second or third team players. As for the roster sizes, when we started ODP a couple years ago, we were told typical rosters would be 22 players. The first half would have 11 play and the second half would have the other 11 play. Then for a second game of a weekend, the halves would be flipped. This has never fully happened for us, but we have yet to be on a team with less than 18 players. Our coaches last year never subbed in the first half, so if you didn't start the most time you played was half the game. If you started you were able to play extra minutes in the second half. Personally I think roster sizes should be about 15 or 16 with standard subbing so everyone gets to play about equal time. This would also allow players to sub off & return so they aren't running on empty at the end of a half. |
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Post by soccerboysmomma on Mar 14, 2022 21:33:03 GMT -5
I agree that the rosters are way too big. I get they can't predict how many they'll have available for each event so they need a good # of players overall for the age group, but having 22 for each game is ridiculous. It also seems like the same players get chosen for each event when there's only 1 team taken. It's very strange. Wouldn't they want to try to see how everyone plays at some point instead of the same 18?? Why even bother having such a large age group pool of you're not going to try to see them play??
We play at a big club (one of the big 5) and on the top team in the age group. I think most on our ODP roster are lower teams & mostly smaller clubs and the talent isn't great in my opinion. One of my son's buddies on the roster plays ECNL at a very large club here in ATL and gets very little playing time (similar to our experience) and hasn't been chosen to play unless there's a 2nd team going to each event. He's very good too.
To me this is a complete waste of time and a really poor experience. What a shame.
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Post by unitedwestand on Mar 15, 2022 10:25:55 GMT -5
I agree that the rosters are way too big. I get they can't predict how many they'll have available for each event so they need a good # of players overall for the age group, but having 22 for each game is ridiculous. It also seems like the same players get chosen for each event when there's only 1 team taken. It's very strange. Wouldn't they want to try to see how everyone plays at some point instead of the same 18?? Why even bother having such a large age group pool of you're not going to try to see them play?? We play at a big club (one of the big 5) and on the top team in the age group. I think most on our ODP roster are lower teams & mostly smaller clubs and the talent isn't great in my opinion. One of my son's buddies on the roster plays ECNL at a very large club here in ATL and gets very little playing time (similar to our experience) and hasn't been chosen to play unless there's a 2nd team going to each event. He's very good too. To me this is a complete waste of time and a really poor experience. What a shame. Easy answer. ODP is about money. Bigger pool equals more money. Most of the big 6 aren't aligned with Georgia Soccer anymore. Hence, playing more lower level/smaller club kids. They're still aligned with GA Soccer. It's all about business. Most top level players don't play ODP after u 13. |
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but no drama witnessed nor noticed any signs of favoritism.
