LA Surf is born

RedCard said:
Heard that the DA tryouts/ID event yesterday had a very low turnout for the 04s and 05s...
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"Heard That"...?

Isn't your kid on the 2005 Hazell team? you're not a unbiased 3rd party here.

How about YOU explain why you and some of the members of your team decided to not attend the DA try outs?
 
OCsoccerMANiac said:
"Heard That"...?

Isn't your kid on the 2005 Hazell team? you're not a unbiased 3rd party here.

How about YOU explain why you and some of the members of your team decided to not attend the DA try outs?
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No need to be so confrontational. Yes, “heard that” is correct as I was not there.

Our coach told all our 05 families that is up to you if you want to go to the Premier tryouts and to just to let him know. We spoke with our daughters and independently made the decision to stay with a coach who has been loyal to our team and developed our daughters immensely. The girls and families love each other on and off the field.

He even advised one of his players to play for Chavez at 04 as she will be attending his high school in the fall.

I’ll politely bow out of this topic at this point as I don’t want my input to be misconstrued.
 
RedCard said:
No need to be so confrontational. Yes, “heard that” is correct as I was not there.

Our coach told all our 05 families that is up to you if you want to go to the Premier tryouts and to just to let him know. We spoke with our daughters and independently made the decision to stay with a coach who has been loyal to our team and developed our daughters immensely. The girls and families love each other on and off the field.

He even advised one of his players to play for Chavez at 04 as she will be attending his high school in the fall.

I’ll politely bow out of this topic at this point as I don’t want my input to be misconstrued.
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Thank you for sharing even though you have every right to ignore the request. There is no need for you to avoid this topic just because you have an interest in it. Nobody else does, and there wouldn’t be a forum if they did.

Good luck to your daughter’s team. Kids only get one childhood - club soccer isn’t worth doing unless you are surrounded by kids and families that all love each other on and off the field (and guided by a quality coach that cares about players as people).
 
RedCard said:
No need to be so confrontational. Yes, “heard that” is correct as I was not there.


I’ll politely bow out of this topic at this point as I don’t want my input to be misconstrued.
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@RedCard
You don't need to bow out of this thread. If anything you provide first-hand info from someone with SCA. And you don't owe ANYONE an explanation about ANYTHING. It's your money and your kid. You do what you think is best for you and yours. Good luck to you/team.

@OCsoccerMANiac
There are better ways of going about trying to solicit info from people. Being a D!<k isn't one of them.
 
RedCard said:
No need to be so confrontational. Yes, “heard that” is correct as I was not there.

Our coach told all our 05 families that is up to you if you want to go to the Premier tryouts and to just to let him know. We spoke with our daughters and independently made the decision to stay with a coach who has been loyal to our team and developed our daughters immensely. The girls and families love each other on and off the field.

He even advised one of his players to play for Chavez at 04 as she will be attending his high school in the fall.

I’ll politely bow out of this topic at this point as I don’t want my input to be misconstrued.
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Thank you for sharing. What’s the plan then? Since you disagreed with the DPL rumor, does the team plan on playing SCDSL discovery still?
 
Mystery Train said:
Well, let me preface this by saying that what a club preaches and what they actually end up producing are often different things. LA Premier is a perfect example. Go through their promo and pr stuff and you will see all sorts of references to “development” and “pathways” yet the best players on their best teams are all recruited from other clubs while players they already had at younger levels moved to other clubs and went on to bigger success.

As for soccer philosophy, LA Premier again talks a good game. They preach technical emphasis and possession style. Once they went DA, they really promoted that aspect. Some of their coaches do an honest job of it too. But watch their teams top to bottom and it’s hard to see any consistency of philosophy. To be fair that is pretty normal for all mega clubs. It’s hard to control that when you have 3-4 coaches in every age group.

SoCal Academy started with just two teams total, and from the start Esteban openly modeled his philosophy on Anson Dorrance (UNC women’s coach) which is more like what the USWNT played like in the early 2000’s: an attacking, aggressive, direct style that also emphasizes individual skill. Again, results may vary depending on the individual coaches, but that’s what their website promoted.

I’m not saying one philosophy is better. What I am saying is that Barry and Esteban preached entirely different things when trying to sell parents on their clubs. So their merger (and their absorption into the Surf kingdom) is the perfect display of why every parent must understand that club soccer, no matter if it’s DA, ECNL or whatever, is only a business. Not a pathway. Not an academy for development. If you know that going in and are a smart, informed consumer, you can find places where your money can purchase a good soccer experience for your kids and that’s good enough. Just don’t buy the BS in those press releases.
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MT your posts are all well put and thought out and so it's worth pointing out in all fairness that when M Martins was the girl's DOC, LAPFC fielded several excellent/top teams and their players got great looks from top colleges in the US. Also there were at least 2 players who played in the Youth national teams/pool. Since he left to be a college coach I have not followed what has developed there but their players did have success in the not too distant past.
 
Since they became a DA club it doesn’t look they have had much success recruiting and performing at the elite level with the competition from the other clubs that have more of that experience and reputation.
 
Soccer43 said:
Since they became a DA club it doesn’t look they have had much success recruiting and performing at the elite level with the competition from the other clubs that have more of that experience and reputation.
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Not true. Their trajectory (although slower than I think anyone would like, was growing in the right direction in some age groups. LAPFC weren’t strong from ‘02 down thru ‘06 prior to the age split. They actually started putting a Coaching staff and program together once they became A DA club. The ‘04’s although didn’t get the results that team gave everyone they played a battle.
 
soccerobserver said:
MT your posts are all well put and thought out and so it's worth pointing out in all fairness that when M Martins was the girl's DOC, LAPFC fielded several excellent/top teams and their players got great looks from top colleges in the US. Also there were at least 2 players who played in the Youth national teams/pool. Since he left to be a college coach I have not followed what has developed there but their players did have success in the not too distant past.
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You are 100% correct. Manny was the real deal and a total class act as well. Unfortunately the current leadership is clearly more about generating more income streams their business model than investing in players. They tried to become “LA Premier Sports” adding their own volleyball club, and any parent there can tell you about the exorbitant uniform packages, club “fundraising” requirements, multiple desperate (and often failed) mergers with other clubs, adding as many teams as they can with no thought to quality, all the while shuffling teams around crappy and limited practice space, and a never ending coaching carousel (they recruit good coaches with promises they can’t keep and lose them). These things aren’t unique to LA Premier. I’ve met Barry and had a few brief conversations with him and I think he’s simply stretched too thin by his own ambitions. If they invested as much attention in their players and individual coaches as they do marketing and making deals and partnerships they would have a great thing going because he’s creative and has good ideas. But then, they would just be a smaller club and that’s not what they want.
 
Mystery Train said:
You are 100% correct. Manny was the real deal and a total class act as well. Unfortunately the current leadership is clearly more about generating more income streams their business model than investing in players. They tried to become “LA Premier Sports” adding their own volleyball club, and any parent there can tell you about the exorbitant uniform packages, club “fundraising” requirements, multiple desperate (and often failed) mergers with other clubs, adding as many teams as they can with no thought to quality, all the while shuffling teams around crappy and limited practice space, and a never ending coaching carousel (they recruit good coaches with promises they can’t keep and lose them). These things aren’t unique to LA Premier. I’ve met Barry and had a few brief conversations with him and I think he’s simply stretched too thin by his own ambitions. If they invested as much attention in their players and individual coaches as they do marketing and making deals and partnerships they would have a great thing going because he’s creative and has good ideas. But then, they would just be a smaller club and that’s not what they want.
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Ain't that the truth for just about every club out there?
Imagine how much "player development" would really take place if everyone at a club was focused on making the players better?
 
timbuck said:
Ain't that the truth for just about every club out there?
Imagine how much "player development" would really take place if everyone at a club was focused on making the players better?
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I think it happens to a degree, but the vision is limited to State Cup.
 
timbuck said:
Ain't that the truth for just about every club out there?
Imagine how much "player development" would really take place if everyone at a club was focused on making the players better?
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Exactly.

@soccerobserver , we’ve talked about this same phenomenon on the westside. It’s that “bigger is better” mentality that plays out all over the club soccer scene and is sadly eliminating all the small clubs. I wish I could put all the blame on the DoC’s, but they’re just riding the wave of parents with big dreams for their kids and even bigger pocketbooks.
 
Mystery Train said:
Exactly.

@soccerobserver , we’ve talked about this same phenomenon on the westside. It’s that “bigger is better” mentality that plays out all over the club soccer scene and is sadly eliminating all the small clubs. I wish I could put all the blame on the DoC’s, but they’re just riding the wave of parents with big dreams for their kids and even bigger pocketbooks.
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Back in the day when CSL was the big gorilla, Celtic would have two boys teams in each age bracket that were so well-balanced that a lot of tournaments ended up with them facing each other in the Final.
 
Mystery Train said:
Exactly.

@soccerobserver , we’ve talked about this same phenomenon on the westside. It’s that “bigger is better” mentality that plays out all over the club soccer scene and is sadly eliminating all the small clubs. I wish I could put all the blame on the DoC’s, but they’re just riding the wave of parents with big dreams for their kids and even bigger pocketbooks.
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MT maybe I am a little optimistic...I think there are some entrepreneurial DOC’s and coaches at the small clubs who are pushing kids’ development, and who are soccer purists as you have described. However these soccer purists develop great kids and teams only to find that the socal soccer club behemoths exclude them from the best tournaments or exclude them from chances to prove that they are the best by playing teams in closed leagues like DA and ECNL. Many give up and align with the bigger clubs in order to gain access for the teams they have worked so hard to develop. I am not sure it’s all motivated by the pursuit of money only.

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that when the 8 club oligarchs defeated the imperial CSL, they paved the way for the final consolidation of their hegemony over socal club soccer. The End Game...
 
soccerobserver said:
MT maybe I am a little optimistic...I think there are some entrepreneurial DOC’s and coaches at the small clubs who are pushing kids’ development, and who are soccer purists as you have described. However these soccer purists develop great kids and teams only to find that the socal soccer club behemoths exclude them from the best tournaments or exclude them from chances to prove that they are the best by playing teams in closed leagues like DA and ECNL. Many give up and align with the bigger clubs in order to gain access for the teams they have worked so hard to develop. I am not sure it’s all motivated by the pursuit of money only.

With the benefit of hindsight, it seems that when the 8 club oligarchs defeated the imperial CSL, they paved the way for the final consolidation of their hegemony over socal club soccer. The End Game...
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Who are the “8 club oligarchs?”
 
Kicker4Life said:
The ‘04’s although didn’t get the results that team gave everyone they played a battle.
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I do like that idea of keeping stats on “lost but gave the other team a challenge” or “dominated the game even though we lost” or “looked good out there, just unlucky”
 
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