Exaggeration based on a negative bias!Where on earth is the figure of $12-$15K coming from?
Exaggeration based on a negative bias!Where on earth is the figure of $12-$15K coming from?
Right, your not a lunatic, but the sky is falling. Wait, or is it potential snow. ALEXA...Finally some rationale thought.
Maybe GDA is like Harvard after all. Apparently some parents at both think writing big checks entitles them to go around pretending their kid got where they are on merit when they probably didn't. It's hard to believe anyone would defend a policy of selecting YNT players based on anything other than merit, especially when the "other" requires parents to pay upwards of $12-15K per year in fees and travel as a prerequisite. But that's USSF for you. Bringing soccer to the masses by excluding those who can't come up with 15 grand and aren't willing to just STFU and do exactly what they're told.
I'm no lunatic, but @Avanti is surely a lemming. You who should enjoy the exhilaration of free fall while you can, because the brutal reality of your decision will be upon you sooner than you think.
Those are your opinions. You have been around for a while, think pretty well, and may be into something, I give you that. On the other hand, I have a tendency to value more the opinion of professionals (US Soccer) that are around the problem full time, have most of the information and plenty of resources; and hire professionals from Belgium/France to help build US Soccer. The men side is a lost cause, but the women side still can be fixed. It is obvious that the development system in place before GDA was not going to help (see failure of younger teams in the last few years), and US Soccer needed to do something (GDA).By not inviting anyone from a top club that clearly has a large number of talented players to their camp, who exactly is "abandoning their top players?" I would claim US Soccer.
The DA and ECNL have given us choices, so that is an improvement from the state of affairs 10-15 years ago. But we can be critical of the choices the US Soccer makes, including within the DA, as they do not always seem to be in the best interests of soccer in the US, but rather in the best interests of US Soccer. Unfortunaely, the two are not the same.
Sorry, I did not finish and somehow the post went through ...
Now, put yourself in the shoes of US Soccer: you believe that the GDA program is the best/a good solution to the development problem. One of your main carrots to get clubs on board (these teams are more expensive for clubs, for a proof see what $lammer$ did) are calls to national team camps; why would US Soccer call players from a club that is trying to screw your development program? Note that those players have the option of moving to a conforming club, it is not like the players are leaving in Las Vegas.
Why would I take my girl to practice four days a week (although I know it is good for her development), when one that goes two days a week also gets the calls? Maybe my girl could play AYSO for the next two years, and still be better than most of the girls that get the call. Should US Soccer call my AYSO player? Obviously not, because she wont have reached her full potential.
At the end of the day we have choices (at least in SoCal): you can follow the directions of the federation (by the way, I am a soccer person and it is lunacy to say that the GDA program is not better than what we had before) and have the option to get the calls; or you can follow your own program (say futboldad1's) and be happy playing HS. But even for futboldad1 there is light at the end of the tunnel: once your futbolda1's program daughter gets to be 20 years old, if she is better than the players in the national team, she will get the call.
Appreciate the additional thoughts. A few observations:
1) You are trusting the same professionals who implemented the boys DA 11 years ago, resulting in what you claim is a "lost cause", to do better with the girls DA. Our men's team not only failed to qualify for the world cup, but we have far fewer impactful players in major European leagues than we had pre-DA.
2) The girls program was doing fine -- look at how deep the talent the current team has, which has nothing to do with DA nor US Soccer (I believe mostly to do with college). The rest of the world is/was "catching up" because of increased investments by countries in women's soccer, and increased participation by foreign players in the NCAA. Most of our down periods are in part due to US Soccer keeping the roster unchanged for too long, and passing over the young talent to appease the veterans. Changing that culture has helped immensely.
3) You should not generalize so much about how non-DA players train, that is when the argument seems more ad hominem. I have never had a player train fewer than 3 times per week, and none play in the DA. My last remaining club player trains with her team 2 times per week, does strength training 2-3 times per week, does some form of private, and occasionally some yoga is thrown in (which I cannot support enough in terms of injury prevention). Her teammates who are committed to top D1 colleges generally train at least 2 times a week in addition to club practices.
I have never claimed to be a soccer person, because I find when I meet a "soccer person" who has played at a higher level, coached at a higher level, had more kids participate, been higher in club mamagement, or had kids who played at what they percieve to be a better club or a more prestigious league, they seems to have no interest in their opinions. I have had top European youth club coaches (including champions league winning programs) who have expressed more interest in my opinions, with my limited expereince in soccer, than a single US Soccer official ever had. I have been fortunate through this journey to get those experiences, and it has colored my views.
It really comes down to you trusting the federation a lot more than I do. I think a freer market promotes more creativity and innovation, and produces those outliers who become the elite players we need to succeed.
Wrong wrong wrong. You take the best player whether they play for the Legends of the Blues or AYSO Podunk. The better player. Even if that player only practices once a week because of who knows what. Just because a person pays a lot of money, practices 4 days a week, washes the coaches car, and keeps all the stats of every kid on the team they don't deserve it over a better player.Why would I take my girl to practice four days a week (although I know it is good for her development), when one that goes two days a week also gets the calls? Maybe my girl could play AYSO for the next two years, and still be better than most of the girls that get the call. Should US Soccer call my AYSO player? Obviously not, because she wont have reached her full potential.
Those are your opinions. You have been around for a while, think pretty well, and may be into something, I give you that. On the other hand, I have a tendency to value more the opinion of professionals (US Soccer) that are around the problem full time, have most of the information and plenty of resources; and hire professionals from Belgium/France to help build US Soccer. The men side is a lost cause, but the women side still can be fixed. It is obvious that the development system in place before GDA was not going to help (see failure of younger teams in the last few years), and US Soccer needed to do something (GDA).
Now, put yourself in the shoes of US Soccer: you believe that the GDA program is the best/a good solution to the development problem. One of your main carrots to get clubs on board (these teams are more expensive for clubs, for a proof see what $lammer$ did) are calls to national team camps; why would US Soccer call players from a club that is trying to screw your development program? Note that those players have the option of moving to a conforming club, it is not like the players are leaving in Las Vegas.
And I do not understand your faith on how soccer college can help the level of a national team, especially moving forward. I guess it is better than nothing (it was nothing in other countries up to this point), but think about how an American men team, mostly formed in college, would do against international competition ... A high level player is formed way, way before 18 years old. After 18 you can improve your trade somewhat, but you cannot do miracles. As soon as girls in certain European countries begin to follow the training diet of boys, and they do it with a sufficiently large pool of players (the first thing is already happening, the second is on its way and indeed pool size is the only advantage of the US at this point), you can stick the fork on the American women soccer team.
We were up in Nor Cal for a tournament this summer and the DA Teams there said DA costs between $8-10k all in between fees and travel to Oregon, Washington, Utah, and Showcases. I think the costs vary by region and the spread of teams. Lucky to be in So Cal where it is pretty compact.
Thank you. You do not need to justify yourself to EoftheOtotheL. They no matter what you say or share will be arbitrarily spun and be made into a negative experience.My daughter will travel 7 times this year (flying some, driving some) for GDA. In 6 of those cases, some players need not miss school at all and others a couple class periods each time. Two days must be missed by all for the first showcase. In her specific case she’ll miss 6 days total for the year (not 10-20) which does require some planning ahead on her part but will not impact her grades negatively at all.
Travel costs will total about $3400 for the year (not $12-15k). Some of that we would have spent on any normal team for travel tournaments. Some is excess for GDA.
EOTL, try arguing without exaggeration.
Thank you. You do not need to justify yourself to EoftheOtotheL. They no matter what you say or share will arbitrarily spin this experience in a negative fashiom.
My daughter will travel 7 times this year (flying some, driving some) for GDA. In 6 of those cases, some players need not miss school at all and others a couple class periods each time. Two days must be missed by all for the first showcase. In her specific case she’ll miss 6 days total for the year (not 10-20) which does require some planning ahead on her part but will not impact her grades negatively at all.
Travel costs will total about $3400 for the year (not $12-15k). Some of that we would have spent on any normal team for travel tournaments. Some is excess for GDA.
EOTL, try arguing without exaggeration.
Your posts are becoming bi-polar. You attack and criticize, praise, warn, say it was good for your kid, but bad for ours. You can afford the cost, but we can’t. Your all over the place.Good for you that your daughter's schedule only requires flying 3-4x, and she will only miss 6 days of school given her light travel schedule compared to other regions, but try having to fly 9x in one season and get back to me. In some regions, you can multiply your travel costs by 3 to account for the additional 5 or 6 extra flights and lodging costs, plus another $2,500 for a typical decent club's GDA fees, and now you're talking. Then you get to $12-15K when you're forced to accompany your kid to one of the showcases after she had to fly separately because, go figure, her school doesn't exactly revolve around USSF and we aren't home-schooling our daughter as part of a master plan to make her the greatest female soccer player in history (as an aside, you should read this article when you have the chance if you haven't already. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/05/sports/soccer/uswnt-bayern-munich-olivia-moultrie.html). Presto, you're right there in the $12k-$15k range.
It's swell you've gotten off so cheaply, and cute that you think your costs are exactly the same as everyone else's despite playing in the region with the least travel. Your daughter played in what, four states last year, including a quick AZ trip that hardly counts? What do you think it cost Nationals to play in 9 states, or 8 like the rest of the teams in their division? How much does it cost La Roca in the NW which only played in 5 states but flew at least 9x (4x to CA, 2x to WA, OR, FL, NC)? Or Quakes playing in 7 states, plus two trips to SoCal.
The irony here is that high cost elite soccer has been great for my daughter, and it seems to be going great for yours too. I can afford it, and it significantly reduced the number of kids against whom my daughter would otherwise have competed for scholarship dollars and even admission to her dream school. But just because it was good for my daughter doesn't make it good for youth soccer overall. To the contrary, USSF has created a structure that runs thousands of kids out of the sport (or at least its highest levels) every year due to the ridiculous unnecessary travel costs, and runs more off because the rigid commitments and inability to grasp that kids stop doing things that are no longer fun. Why does it do this? Because of the 1000+ girls who play in each age group, on average the two best will become WNT regulars and hopefully will be slightly better than if they played elsewhere (which is highly debatable). That's great for .2% of the kids in GDA, and bad for 99.8%. It's probably also bad for the .2%, because I'm pretty sure we are going to find that GDA put the US behind where it should have been, just like it already did with the men.