Talk to me about TFA
- Thread starter mlx
- Start date
It's a big club with a lot of chapters and affiliates, ranging from Santa Barbara to San Diego, mostly specializing in boys. The central core, where the MLS Academy is located, is in East LA and is legit. Like other affiliates (such as Surf or LAFC) the level and quality varies based on the chapter.
As others here mention, pick the appropriate level for your kid and the coach, not the club. Hope that helps.
If its the group out of San Diego Tierrasanta that you are considering, I know their current DOC showed up at a camp for youngers that was being run by a completely unaffiliated group from TFA and started arguing with some people attending the camp. The President for TFA Tierrasanta was removed from their position as Regional Commisioner from the local AYSO as well not too long ago.
Willy Falcon
SILVER
Highly elite on the Boys side. Lots of great boys teams and a few nationally ranked ones.
The girl teams are an after thought.
The girl teams are an after thought.
TFA is a great affordable choice for competitive soccer across all age groups and levels. They offer top teams in their lower age groups U12 and below and very competitive age groups u13 and older. TFA has been a pathway for many young athletes as a prelude into an academy team or even USYNT as some of there past talent have rostered. There style of play is probably there biggest flaw as they tend to focus there games on the “boot the ball up” style of play with little to no build up. This style of play does produce goals but does nothing for the soccer IQ component of the game. For that reason many players leave for other opportunities once the training and coaching pretty much maxes out and no longer becomes a learning opportunity but an anchor.
maestroFRSM
SILVER
The real deal for boys youngers. 2010 Boys TFA beat Man United U12 Academy at MIC. Lost in finals to Barca. Fast, aggressive, technical at younger ages.
I saw that game! The goal was a beautiful professionally executed cross that not many teams can execute at that age. The goalkeepers performance was also exceptional.
but if you see the various styles of play it’s quite easy to understand why that happened. Manchester’s academy team just started to play together and were trying to execute a possession game but did it slow and poorly. The focus in the English academy system has shifted to possession but the kids coming in from rec are only familiar with English long ball. Manchester struggled to execute a possession based game but has some luck with through balls and longer passes. Tfa was tailored made to defeat a team that can’t possess well: rabid pressing, great defense play and interceptions, faster runners outrunning their opponents penetrating the box, lots of shoving and physical play. That style of play works less well as the opponents age and get more technical. The Spanish though play possession from the early elementary ages and as a result are able to take apart visiting teams. They do this even though their academy teams don’t play 11v11 or 9v9 at these ages and they make up a squad by squishing together their 2 academy teams for the age group. The Spanish commentary is particularly illuminating.
RedCard
GOLD
My son plays with the 05 EA team. It's a pretty solid team that had a rough start to the season but finished stronger at the end (went 1-5-1 before the high school break and 5-1-1 after the high school break). The team recently went through a coaching change and so far, it's been working a lot better. He's happy and when he's happy, I'm happy. It's actually a pretty big club with different chapters throughout Southern California (15 so far).