Youth soccer club
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Update: Tufts Blue and Boston U tied 0-0 yesterday. They came back and beat RIT 2-0. Tufts and BU had to go to a PK tie breaker to see which one would go to the knockout stage as the group winner and which would go in as the wild card. They were tied in every category as they each beat the Rochester schools 2-0 and tied 0-0. They were the only two schools to not concede a goal in the group stage of play out of 24 teams.
BU won PKs 4-3. Tufts GK made a save in the 1st PK but my son said two of his teammates shanked their tries and missed the goal completely.
Tufts played Delaware in the quarters and lost 1-0 on a late counter. My son likened the way they played to the way Jenks and BA played the state championship last year not sending anyone forward and kicking it long to see if they could get a forward to run onto it. He said his team started pressing an attack late trying to find a goal not wanting to leave it to PKs. They got caught in a counter and Delaware scored on its only SOG of the game. Tough break. I think he gets a break for a bit before they pick it up for a Spring season.
BU won PKs 4-3. Tufts GK made a save in the 1st PK but my son said two of his teammates shanked their tries and missed the goal completely.
Tufts played Delaware in the quarters and lost 1-0 on a late counter. My son likened the way they played to the way Jenks and BA played the state championship last year not sending anyone forward and kicking it long to see if they could get a forward to run onto it. He said his team started pressing an attack late trying to find a goal not wanting to leave it to PKs. They got caught in a counter and Delaware scored on its only SOG of the game. Tough break. I think he gets a break for a bit before they pick it up for a Spring season.
My kids team played well this weekend in Austin in the Texas Cup Final Four. We played #6 Real Colorado to a scoreless draw in regulation then won in PKs 8-7. The girls made 8 of their 9 PKs against on of the best U15 keepers in the country.
That win set us up in the finals against #4 Solar. The girls played well but fell 1-0 on a header which floated just under the crossbar. The positive was one goal allowed in two games against two of the top ten teams in the country. The negative is we still can’t score.
That win set us up in the finals against #4 Solar. The girls played well but fell 1-0 on a header which floated just under the crossbar. The positive was one goal allowed in two games against two of the top ten teams in the country. The negative is we still can’t score.
I refereed some games at MTSC this weekend. Handed out 2 yellows, 1 in a U12 game for SPA (Stopping a promising attack), and 1 in a U14 game for SPA. The U14 game was interesting because I went in with the mindset that one team was just not going to be competitive at all but was wrong, sort of. Team lost 5-0 still but missed a number of chances on goal and also missed 2 PKs they were awarded. 1st was for a handball in the box, pretty clear and even the coach of the defending team told his player to move past it, those things happen. 2nd one was a hard foul in the box by the keeper. Came out to clear a ball and whiffed and cracked the attacker in the shin. Everyone saw it and everyone heard it....luckily in rec the kids aren't trying to wear the micro shin guards so the contact was with the shin guard but it still hurt...kid went down.
1st game was a u12 girls game and one team had some players who, with proper coaching, could probably play at one of the competitive clubs and be really good.
1st game was a u12 girls game and one team had some players who, with proper coaching, could probably play at one of the competitive clubs and be really good.
They tried a couple of years ago but it never caught on. They had a couple of good people running that program too. Unlike BASC, they didn't force their best U11 and up teams into the BA Express competitive program to help build/sustain it.
I know they hired Simba from WSA several years ago to get it up and running. I would consider having something like the BA Express has done to be a success for Metro.
An academy/competitive set of teams like you would find at TSC and Blitz and competing in OPL. BASC has used the BA Express as a natural lure to keep kids from leaving their rec programs to go to the other clubs in town once those players felt they outgrew the rec level. My entire U9 team in BA left to move to different competitive clubs after that season. With Express, BA can now say stay here, play at those same competitive levels as those other clubs and pay a fraction of the cost in addition to playing at the best complex in OK. (It's still the best complex in the state although I suspect Scheel's will be on par or pass it in the next couple of years with the rapid improvements they are making). Both BASC and MTSC sort of were feeder programs into TSC prior to that and Barry somehow undid those relationships.
BA Express has been growing there base as well. And they've got a couple of pretty good teams. They aren't on the level to be playing ECNL, ECNL-RL, or even NPL yet but they aren't completely overmatched in their OPL games any more. Simba was trying to create the same thing at MTSC but they could never convince enough of the good players at Metro to make that extra monetary and time commitment for that level and they couldn't convince enough kids from other programs to come over either. I do know some TSc kids who did go over...but the problem eventually was having combined age group teams to make a team. I think my son's group there was combined 06/05/04 the first year so you have 16 year olds playing against U18/19 teams because you have 1 or 2 04s. Don't get me wrong, Simba is a great coach and soccer mind. He was just tasked with something that was unsustainable without a significant investment by MTSC into pushing or forcing certain teams and kids into that level.
This year's tryouts with the impending birth date change (not official but official) is going to be wild. I wasn't around in 2017ish when it went to birth year. Try outs will be crazy...... What will clubs let kids do? It's all the talk at practices, texts, etc.......
The following is the policy of a certain Dallas based club.
U16 and above will have the option of staying with current team
My daughter is an August 2010 birthday but is a freshman. For players with August birthdays who are in the older grade they will have the option to play for with the older team or play correct age grouping. So she can play with either the 2009-2010 or 2010-2011 group.
The have always been players who play up. My understanding is the change won’t affect this option for players.
My declaration that my son's club fall season was over was premature. The Tufts A club team received an at-large bid to the national tournament Nov. 21-23 in Round Rock, TX.
Just made that drive this past weekend. I’ve never made it through Dallas and Waco without issues.
Or US soccer just says no changes.
It seems like The ECNL director has a real hardon for this change.
Club soccer is not for friendship teams. There are always "trapped players"
Lots of other sports do birth year. Why is this so hard?
ECNL does not like that the player’s final year of club soccer is a pieced together team of kids who haven’t played together. They also don’t like all the “opt outs” and believe kids would be more likely to continue to play in club if they were playing for their “team”. The change would also make it easier for colleges to scout as the players would all be in the same graduating class. The recruiting argument is probably the most persuasive to me
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I used to make the drive between Tulsa and Waco all the time when I worked at Baylor and my future wife was still in Tulsa. Never had issues and the Czech Stop in West is $ for kolaches
The only question to ask yourself...Did this go one before? Yes. Okay next. Why cause chaos?
My son's academy team will break into three age groups because of kids who play up, stay the same, and move up.
Academy soccer isn’t being considered when making this change. To be fair, soccer doesn’t really get serious until U13. My belief is it’s being done primarily due to recruiting. Having recruiting classes playing together makes a lot of sense. Kids will still play up if they are capable and the club approves. The number of kids playing up does decrease once they hit ECNL. There will be issues initially but I do believe having recruiting classes play together is beneficial to the kids and the colleges.
You will still have trapped kids at U13 and U19. Think of all the parents who hold their kids back a year because they have a late June/July birthday. Around here they do it so they'll be bigger for football when they get to school ball. But that's still going to put them playing soccer with the wrong grade of kids. And the clubs all want to say not to play up because there is a difference, especially early on (u13/u14), with lots of kids and growing at different stages. I was never a fan of the school year age groups and my son was part of the 1st group for birth year. His best friend, 32 days older, was moved to the 2005 age group while my son was a 2006. At least with birth year there is no doubt which age group you belong to.
There’s really not much you can do about kids who are either started late or held back. This is very rare on the girls side but more common on the boys. The advantages of playing with your recruiting class far outweigh the negatives imo. Recruiting from both the college and player standpoint just go a lot easier. There will be some chaos initially with both clubs and parents. This will subside as the teams are worked out.
This goes on.
Quit calling it the school year. It is August - July based. You will still call it by year, as we did before. You will again.
WSA 14's and TSC 14's going to play in the TSC Tournament. Should be a great game. Good chance they play twice. Kudos to Waylon for playing the game.
Sucks for Waylon knowing you’re only going to have a number of those girls for another year or two.
Absolutely. Would love to get her and her two best friends who play at Energy back to Tulsa before they graduate and help TSC make a run at nationals. Hoping she can commit to a college at the end of her sophomore year and take some of the pressure off.
Why don't you start a Technico10 team and let her and her best friends play for them? Aren't you a part of them?
No. My kid has never played for a Technico team nor do I have any affiliation with the same. She does train with JM but that relationship dates way back to when he was with Blitz.
There are elite Tulsa area girls in the 09, 10, 11 and 12 age groups who play for clubs other than TSC. One of the reasons those age groups are really struggling. I don’t see that changing until there’s a change of ownership at TSC
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That's interesting you would say no "affiliation with the same" since your wife is the registered agent for them and their corporate mailing address is your office........
My wife is a lawyer. She was hired to file their paperwork with the SOS. We have organized hundreds of entities with the SOS and are listed as the registered agent with a significant number of them. We have absolutely no affiliation with Technico…period. Unless you consider the lawyer - client relationship an affiliation.
Fun fact….my wife is the youngest person to ever graduate from TU law.
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I think this ownership thing is hilarious. While I think there could be better things, many of these people have acted like children deserved to be fired many times over. They use the for-profit as a cudgel to badger the club while extracting money from kids' parents on their teams. WSA and Blitz are prime examples of this. Wilbert Maximore has never made this much money in his life. But it is a "non-profit" Get out of here.
The only difference is how you file your taxes. You can pay yourself anything. "Reasonability" is a joke, and the IRS never does anything to go after it. If they did, Kenneth Copeland and Osteen would be in jail.
It's going to take some time since the coaches hijacked TSC (Almost none still coach ECNL(RL) ). I have no idea if TSC deserved it or not. Younger girls are strong. Both the 13's and 14's going to Norman this Saturday to play Sting and Solar's top teams on the OU soccer field. Energy is playing as well. They get to tour the locker rooms etc. 14's have to play on the practice field. (Which is still nice). Also, Adidas Cup is up 20 teams over last year, even with the cancellation issue. Blitz put in less than 5 teams, WSA about 10. Play local they say......
I have nothing but love for TSC. I have many close friends whose kids play there and remain close with a number of the coaches on the staff. I’m not sure where the hostility toward me is coming from?
Do what you can to keep those 13s and 14s together. Things change once you hit ECNL. The Dallas clubs pool their kids together on their top teams. The top kids from the Dallas area non-ECNL clubs migrate to the ECNL clubs. Those Texas teams will be stronger once they hit U12-U13.
You’re entering a really fun time. Soccer is about to get serious for those teams. Look forward to following your kid’s progress. Please post updates. With TU_Bla kid’s off to college there aren’t many of us left on this board with kids playing high level club ball.
So the truth about the TSC tournaments and why Blitz and WSA don't send a lot of teams...it's too damn expensive. $1200-$1500 for 11v11 teams with the promise of all games video'd and stats compiled along with having 4th officials on every game. It all sounds great until it doesn't happen. Rarely do they have 4th officials, maybe the 1st couple of slots on Saturday but then you have refs get injured and even fewer who want to come back on Sunday (natural for every tournament that refs will work Saturday but not Sunday, I don't know why; a lot of tournaments have resorted to cash bonuses for referees who work 8 games over the weekend with at least 3 games on Sunday, I got $75 for the Blitz tournament, on top of what I got paid for each game). The game video and stats sounds great...until they start getting behind on games because the VEO's are programmed to start at specific times and when you get behind, you miss the last 10, 15, 20 minutes of the game. And I still haven't seen any of the compiled stats for a team although I was listed as a contact as the team manager. The tournament still holds an attraction to a lot of out of state teams and high quality ones at that. It has a wider appeal than most regional tournaments. It also promises a certain number of college scouts and teams represented. They do get a fair number but they're rarely D1 coaches, maybe the local schools send a coach or two but I haven't seen the list include a wide array of D1 coaches.
But the expense is the primary detriment to some of these local teams. It's about $300-400 more just to enter plus the extra $100 parking fee assessed to every team. I don't get to referee the even this year as I will be in Round Rock. My son's Tufts team got grouped with SLU and Virginia Tech for Round Robin play. I was hoping they'd be paired with the Tulsa team. That would have been fun.
I am doing some games this weekend at Scheel's for TSC. I've been told some games are NL, some are RL, and some OPL.
The variety of competition is quite high compared to playing six other WSA teams, which most of their tournaments are these days.
Yes the level on this tournament is elevated, I never said it wasn't.
No reason why we can’t start seeing higher level tournaments now with Scheels on board. Exciting times for Tulsa area soccer
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