My son is on a YDP team and it’s not been good. Games are out of hand, directors don’t show up for training, coach feels like club is not helping him at all. Older boys teams seem to be a little better since they dropped out of ECNL and are at least getting competitive games now.
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The games are now more competitive, but the league is not. Feel for the few kids that could hang at ECNL. Playing lower level RCL is only making them fall further behind.Originally posted by Guest View PostComment
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This is the Spokane conundrum, we all know that the Sounders and Surf boys need to join forces to compete at a meaningful level but it will never happen because of the egos involved. It seems like they are all actually doing okay on the girls sides so it may actually make sense to have two GAL teams in town.Originally posted by Guest View PostComment
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It is the only thing that would make sense and they still wouldn't compete at the top. From the ages I see, I think (on the boys side) the Sounders teams seem to be stronger. Are there ages where you feel it's the opposite?Originally posted by Guest View PostComment
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I think it’s relatively close at most ages. We have the edge at the older groups but Surf seems decently strong with the younger teams. The problem with both groups seems to be depth which is why they need to combine. For ECNL, we were regularly traveling with 8-9 players and backfilling with a bunch of lower level guest players. A team from Spokane is never going to beat Crossfire or even Seattle United, but if you took the best 8 from us and the top 6 from Surf, I think you would get pretty respectable results.
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3 Rivers are a good clubComment
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Spokaloo has always been a fractionated mess. Not sure what the current state is, exactly, with the demise of the old WPS forum and information posted to TS being much less reliable and credible. But the history dating back a decade or so has been a patchwork of bitter rivalries, reluctant mergers, coaches forking teams to start their own clubs, recycled rumors, accusations both founded and unfounded, clubs jumping their affiliations and playing USSF Organization Members against each other, and the occasional lawsuit just for fun. It's been a multi-sided civil war; everybody hates each other, but everybody hates Spokane Shadow even more. It all comes down to supply and demand: not enough players and too many coaches looking to youth soccer as a source of income.
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My favorite is 90+ trying to peddle this bull**** like they are some community focused diety meanwhile the big, bad evil mega clubs like Sounders and Surf have completely free programs for every single kid under age 8.
“Soccer is becoming, in essence, a cost-prohibitive venture. 90+ carries the noble intention to do all we can to identify and eliminate the barriers that obstruct youth participation. We endeavor to achieve this through a financial sliding scale for soccer costs contingent upon family income.”Comment
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-Soccer is becoming, in essence, a cost-prohibitive venture
Really? Never seen so many kids playing the sport in my life.Comment
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“Noble intention”
Is that seriously from their social media or website? Good gosh, get over yourselves.
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Bingo. And in Spokane, its only going to get worse. The better kids see through it and start switching sports. Why play on a team with a bunch of non-athletes. Only thing that would save it is one club and there would still not be enough talent in town. It's just not part of the culture here. Even the kids who love it and do well at a young age just aren't exposed to the game enough over here.Originally posted by Guest View Post
The clubs preach development and "playing the right way", but the only kids developing are doing it on their own (of course they will take all the credit). Training at every club in Spokane is awful.Comment
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Disagree. There are good coaches in town. Kevin Moon, Jay Vela, and Chad Brown absolutely develop players. Every club has awful coaches but the two top clubs in Spokane have plenty of good options too.Originally posted by Guest View PostComment
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I agree with Kevin Moon. Not saying the other two can't, but don't feel like it's the main focus for most coaches and clubs in town. I feel like Moon kind of does his own thing and the girls are lucky to have him. Don't think there is anything comparable on the boys side.Originally posted by Guest View PostComment
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Chad is the boys equivalent for sure. Vela made those Sounders ECNL at least mildly more competitive although that was probably just smart coaching tactics vs. development. We’ve been very impressed with the Surf teams we’ve played at the young ages and they seem to have some really good coaches that are developing players. Sounders definitely has at least a couple that are really good too so we’ll see what the coaching assignments end up being. Jason B. seems to do really well with the younger kids. I do agree that development does drop off as they get older though. Once they hit 11v11 it seems to be a recruit and retain focus over actual player development.Originally posted by Guest View PostComment
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John Palladino seems to be doing a good job developing his players. His 2010s did well in RCL 2 and are still in Presidents Cup. I watched his 2012s play a nice match of 11v11 against a 2011 team that went home licking their wounds. From what I've seen, he's doing pretty good with them considering Surf seemed to pick up more of the faster/stronger kids leaving him to truly develop a smaller team.Comment
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