Sounders for Boys? What am I missing?

[Unregistered]

I think it really depends on so much... like which club your kid is currently at, which age group, current coach and a whole bunch of other factors.

If your son is on a team that they like, strong competition within the team, good practices, good coach, opportunities to play good teams, then the sounders are less appealing.

And its really not just about a club, or about a team. Its a mix of all of that.

If you are on a good team, but the club doesnt promote travel to good tournaments or you cant get into good tournaments, then the sounders are more interesting.

I think Crossfire is brought up a lot in this thread because its really the most similar in terms of the competition that happens at practice (stacked with great players) but it still matters which team and which coach. This year at XF, some teams traveled around and had great opportunities to play in really good tournaments, others didnt. Either parents didnt want to travel, or the team/coach wasnt into it. So all of these things matter.

If my son played at Pac, and I knew that the top 3 players would go to sounders, i would consider going for sure (if my son was selected ofcourse).

At eastside, they have a couple of good age groups, and a bunch that are not so good. If your son is in a solid age group, then maybe the sounders is less appealing. But if the age group is bad, then playing with a team full of good players at sounders makes a lot more sense.

At SU, they have had a bunch of really good groups over the years, good coaches/players, so maybe its less appealing to go to sounders.

Ultimately, i think the answer is more about the particulars than the generalities. Im not a big fan of sounders academy, but at the same time, if my son was on a bad team/club/coach i would consider the risk/reward or cost/benefit. however you want to put it.

Now, if your son plays at an ECNL team in LA or San Diego, then i really dont get why they would go to academy because there are sooooooo many good players and teams down there that they get all of the great competition in practice and in games, so i dont see a compelling reason to leave.

My son plays at XF, and i personally think they have a great mix of playing a ton of games (tournaments locally, nationally and typically internationally). They play more games than sounders for sure (sounders 06 team played 4 games this year, we played closer to 40+/-), and against as good or better competition (in tournaments/friendlies) and the practices are great since the team is stacked with incredible talent. And i really like the team/family dynamic in the non academy clubs. Families travel and hangout, etc. Its a lot of fun. But again, if your son is at Snohomish United... yeah, it would be touch to maximize their potential playing for a club that doesn't win, doesn't travel, cant get into good tournaments et cetera. Generally though, i think most kids would be better off in a solid non academy program vs entering the environment at sounders.

[Guest]

Wondering what the original poster ended up deciding to do - Sounders Academy or something else?

[Guest]

Interesting conversation.
IMHO this really changes based on the state you are in and the club you could be playing at and what the academy looks like.

Take Colorado Rapids, you can join at u12 (or sooner) and play every year in until college/pro. U12-19. Just like a regular club. When you are in, you stay in until you can't cut it, which is the same experience as almost every other premier club in the US.

Sounders is a bummer, in my opinion because they take kids from a club at u15, then they don't have a u16, so only the best u16s will stay and play (sit on bench) for u17 and the rest go back to no mans land. This alone is one of the biggest problems with the sounders, there isn't a path to being part of a team indefinitely as kids eb and flow in development. Having only 2 teams is a recipe for disaster.

I get the impression that the teams are created to give the 1-2 stars a team to play on, and then they willfully discard kids that don't help with that agenda.

To the point of the OP, if your kid is the star, why would you want to lock into a homegrown contract? And if he isn't the star (for 95% of the kids) then prepare to be used, discarded at will and treated like a means to an end. It's fine if you are willing to subject your kid to that risk/reward, but you should full well know that at 16u they are probably going to get cut (no 17u and doubtfully good enough to play up) and if they manage to survive that, they are certain to get cut at 18u if they aren't going pro, which they aren't. Let's be honest. :)

With all of the debate in Seattle of whether it's smarter to play at crossfire or sounders, I think they should have regular matches to eliminate the question if whether sounders are better. If they are in fact the premier club, they should have no problem playing crossfire, beating them up, proving they are better and the pillaging their best players. But, they won't do it.

My son plays at XF for the record, and I know every age group is different from a talent perspective, but the 17u crossfire team is not a super strong team, and they would hang with Sounders for sure. I saw them scrimmage last summer when the boys independently put together a scrimmage without coaches and xf won 6-1 I believe. That's the 05s... and again they aren't special and they were better when I watched.

Now, the 07 XF team is hands down better. No comparison.

Would be nice if Sounders and XF were willing to put friendlies on. XF plays Portland Timbers regularly, but Sounders won't do it. That's a shame.

If it was me, if I lived in Colorado I'd definitely consider the rapids, if I lived in salt lake I'd definitely consider RSL, but sounders are a disaster and wouldn't consider. They haven't always been so bad... So I don't discredit what some parents have said in this thread... But the current sounded, with two teams... Is a terrible idea.

my two cents.

[Guest]

Interesting that the sounders U15 team this year has some over age kids that were born in 2006. Any idea why they did that? Maybe to train but not play in competitions?

[Guest]

Interesting conversation.
IMHO this really changes based on the state you are in and the club you could be playing at and what the academy looks like.

Take Colorado Rapids, you can join at u12 (or sooner) and play every year in until college/pro. U12-19. Just like a regular club. When you are in, you stay in until you can't cut it, which is the same experience as almost every other premier club in the US.

Sounders is a bummer, in my opinion because they take kids from a club at u15, then they don't have a u16, so only the best u16s will stay and play (sit on bench) for u17 and the rest go back to no mans land. This alone is one of the biggest problems with the sounders, there isn't a path to being part of a team indefinitely as kids eb and flow in development. Having only 2 teams is a recipe for disaster.

I get the impression that the teams are created to give the 1-2 stars a team to play on, and then they willfully discard kids that don't help with that agenda.

To the point of the OP, if your kid is the star, why would you want to lock into a homegrown contract? And if he isn't the star (for 95% of the kids) then prepare to be used, discarded at will and treated like a means to an end. It's fine if you are willing to subject your kid to that risk/reward, but you should full well know that at 16u they are probably going to get cut (no 17u and doubtfully good enough to play up) and if they manage to survive that, they are certain to get cut at 18u if they aren't going pro, which they aren't. Let's be honest. :)

With all of the debate in Seattle of whether it's smarter to play at crossfire or sounders, I think they should have regular matches to eliminate the question if whether sounders are better. If they are in fact the premier club, they should have no problem playing crossfire, beating them up, proving they are better and the pillaging their best players. But, they won't do it.

My son plays at XF for the record, and I know every age group is different from a talent perspective, but the 17u crossfire team is not a super strong team, and they would hang with Sounders for sure. I saw them scrimmage last summer when the boys independently put together a scrimmage without coaches and xf won 6-1 I believe. That's the 05s... and again they aren't special and they were better when I watched.

Now, the 07 XF team is hands down better. No comparison.

Would be nice if Sounders and XF were willing to put friendlies on. XF plays Portland Timbers regularly, but Sounders won't do it. That's a shame.

If it was me, if I lived in Colorado I'd definitely consider the rapids, if I lived in salt lake I'd definitely consider RSL, but sounders are a disaster and wouldn't consider. They haven't always been so bad... So I don't discredit what some parents have said in this thread... But the current sounded, with two teams... Is a terrible idea.

my two cents.

there is no way king Bernie wasn’t given an mls next opportunity. He was right to be pissed at the DA debacle, but hes the one that took his ball and went home and right into the lap of ecnl.

[Guest]

there is no way king Bernie wasn’t given an mls next opportunity. He was right to be pissed at the DA debacle, but hes the one that took his ball and went home and right into the lap of ecnl.

Wouldn’t the Sounders have not allowed that?

[Guest]

Wouldn’t the Sounders have not allowed that?

Could be, but more likely King James’ ego was hurt when his teams were forced into second division.

[Guest]

Could be, but more likely King James’ ego was hurt when his teams were forced into second division.

Could be that he is too smart to join a league that didn't play any games. To join a league that will be gone in 12 months as the MLS creates it's own again. Crossfire has done nothing but beat MLS next teams in Tournament after Tournament. The league outside the MLS teams (many of which are average) is below par in many cases. On your point about second division, is that not a clear message that non-MLS teams will be second class? The Sounders just couldn't take getting beat and MN cried so loud that they caved and in 12 months the league was gone.

[Guest]

Could be that he is too smart to join a league that didn't play any games. To join a league that will be gone in 12 months as the MLS creates it's own again. Crossfire has done nothing but beat MLS next teams in Tournament after Tournament. The league outside the MLS teams (many of which are average) is below par in many cases. On your point about second division, is that not a clear message that non-MLS teams will be second class? The Sounders just couldn't take getting beat and MN cried so loud that they caved and in 12 months the league was gone.

Dude, stop sounding like an a-hole. I don’t disagree with much you said, but do you have any friends?

[Guest]

Could be that he is too smart to join a league that didn't play any games. To join a league that will be gone in 12 months as the MLS creates it's own again. Crossfire has done nothing but beat MLS next teams in Tournament after Tournament. The league outside the MLS teams (many of which are average) is below par in many cases. On your point about second division, is that not a clear message that non-MLS teams will be second class? The Sounders just couldn't take getting beat and MN cried so loud that they caved and in 12 months the league was gone.

Poor crossfire

[Guest]

Could be that he is too smart to join a league that didn't play any games. To join a league that will be gone in 12 months as the MLS creates it's own again. Crossfire has done nothing but beat MLS next teams in Tournament after Tournament. The league outside the MLS teams (many of which are average) is below par in many cases. On your point about second division, is that not a clear message that non-MLS teams will be second class? The Sounders just couldn't take getting beat and MN cried so loud that they caved and in 12 months the league was gone.

Keep believing Bernie is “too smart”. You know who he is smarter than? Parents that act like sheep.

[Guest]

Keep believing Bernie is “too smart”. You know who he is smarter than? Parents that act like sheep.

Oh you think believing your son is going to be a Pro at the Sounders Academy isn't acting like sheep? Gotcha.

[Guest]

Oh you think believing your son is going to be a Pro at the Sounders Academy isn't acting like sheep? Gotcha.

Shoot, my kids aren’t good enough to play Sounders. I hope they can enjoy playing “premier”!

sorry, guess we just aren’t at your “level”…

[Guest]

Oh you think believing your son is going to be a Pro at the Sounders Academy isn't acting like sheep? Gotcha.

Love that you took that as some personal assault. It wasn’t.

[Guest]

It's hard to argue with the Sounder's developmental model when they have a pretty fair history of players elevating to USL & the First Team. They don't need to offer a product from below U14 because they can recruit their catchment area (which includes Crossfire) and their scouting program seems to be as good, if not better, than much of the MLS. If they have a kid at U16 that can't make a U17/18 roster, it's likely that player isn't going to make the professional jump.

Sounders seem to better understand the math about how many players make it to the professional level. I would argue that Colorado, Salt Lake, even our neighbors to the South, are not as well structured. Simply taking over youth programs is more of a money grab since it's still pay-to-play. Salt Lake has nearly cut their entire academy program (but that's more of a crappy ownership issue).

The truth is that professional clubs are not in the business of making community soccer better. They are about talent identification, putting those players most likely to make the professional jump into an environment that helps cultivate that player's ceiling, and "hoping" it works. If one can make the first team each year, the investment is worth it.

So to think that the Sounders care about what local amateur clubs are doing (other than to help create a huge base at the bottom of the pyramid to support the catchment area) would be folly.

Now if you want a game-changer...the amateur clubs need to get behind solidarity payments so that when the Sounders grab a kid, they pay!