Youth soccer club
- Thread starter BasPlayr
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I don’t know about that. This is their first year and they don’t live in Tulsa, so who knows.
Smart move if she has any thoughts of playing in college. I can’t imagine TSC will be able to keep many of their current girls given the highest level TSC now has is Frontier RL
Well, she wanted to move before this. She didn’t feel valued and there’s behavior on her team that she wasn’t vibing with.
It sucks. She’s only ever played at TSC. All this is bittersweet for us.
Think a change will be good. New club, new coach, add a some players from WSA RL squad and that team should be improved next season
My daughter has played for Metro, Blitz, TSC and FC Dallas. Every move was a higher level of soccer. Every move challenged her to work harder and improve her game. I’ve found very few players can reach their potential without being challenged. Whether that’s from a coach or teammates competing for PT. Looking forward to hearing updates as her new team comes together this summer and starts competing in August.
My daughter loves to tell the story of moving from Metro to Blitz. Blitz had three teams in her age group. She was the last person on the bench for the third team. Basically the 36th of 36 players. She hated sitting on the bench. Especially for the third team. She was challenged.
I’m hoping we can reach a higher level with this move. She’s talking about soccer like she’s excited again. This last year has been rough.
I think his GA program is several years away from competing in GA. I believe Technico currently has one girl. Lots of work to do building a girls side
That makes more sense. I was like.....With the right coaches I think it could be strong.
I know he has one girl who plays games with the boys but a few girls who train with boys.
It was the same year Barry bought TSC. He basically told Kerry Shubert and a bunch of the other high level girls' coaches that this was the way they were doing things and they all said, ok find some new coaches. And it was probably 7-8 high level TSC coaches who left and promised the girls that left with them that they'd still be playing ECNL. That lasted about 2 years before a bunch of the girls came back to TSC because WSA never got the ECNL they were promised. Troy Tokarchik might have been another one of the coaches that left.
I reffed WSA's Winter Tournament (Stars of Tomorrow or something like that) this past weekend. Yes, they actually played a tournament this past weekend. River Parks wasn't playable so all the games got moved to Scheel's, Titan, and Turning Point/Sports Armory turf fields. Small kids playing 4 v 4 played at Soccer City. Since most of the teams were 7v7 and 9v9, they put 3 7v7 fields on field 1 at Scheels, 2 9v9 plus field 15 (already a 9v9) on field 2 at Scheel's. There was still snow and ice on the fields when I showed up at 2pm on Saturday (1st games at 3pm). They had volunteers shovelling snow off the fields. Basically all this effort to not have to refund any entry fees. I did 4 games on Saturday and was supposed to have 5 on Sunday. The lack of communication or anyone from WSA having a ****ing clue about their contingency plan leads me to believe ECNL will be as much a disaster at WSA as it was the last couple years at TSC. Sunday, I got 4 emails, from 4 different people all saying different things. At first, my games were going to be at Titan...well they couldn't use Titan in the middle of the day. Scheel's was booked for RL games. Got an email saying play would pick up at River Parks at 2pm. Well, it was still covered in ice and a muddy swamp...not playable. They got everyone their 3 games and canceled the playoff portions. I will say the parents didn't say much about anything...they all wanted to go home as they were freezing.
I don't think WSA thought this through. They don't pay rent at River Parks. They had to rent every field they used this weekend, plus pay referees. I think they could have canceled the tournament, refunded money and actually ended up a little ahead of where they ended up.
Its gonna be tough.
I hope they change how dues work over there. I don’t want to go back to making 3 different payments every month lol
Umelo is mostly boys, younger age groups, developmental and very technical. He's good at it and connects with the younger players very well. He was the BTW girls coach and then Kwarteng left the boys side and he took over the BTW boys.
I have never heard of a player or their parent(s) that don't like Umelo.
There are a lot of coaches who are good coaches who could have coached the ECNL groups and been successful at TSc but Barry wanted the big names and to bring them in from around the country because he felt it lent credibility to the program. The problem was none of those names had any loyalty or ties to Tulsa. WSA will hopefully stick with Tulsa coaches. There's something to be said about continuity in coaching to help build a directional program (meaning all the teams with the same technical development philosophy and a cohesive tactical base....that way if a coach leaves and a coach needs to step in, it's not a complete start over.
I wouldn’t mind Umelo coaching my daughter. She’s played for him a few times and always had a good experience.
That was the one good thing that Barry implemented at TSC. TGS (ECNL registration platform) and being able to make a single payment each month that covered your monthly fee with the club plus the extras to cover tournaments and coach's travel was great. Plus it took the team manager out of the equation of having to chase down money.
Speaking of, I saw Eric Edwards coaching a U12 girls team this weekend in this tournament. I also did a couple of games with Technico sides. The U12s coached by Ciaran Winters is really solid. Their technical ability on the ball is superb. And they play a far advanced level of soccer playing back, keeping possession, etc. for that age level. I don't know what league platforms they play in but they are really good.
I think JM and his crew of coaches will make it appealing. He is the best technical coach in the state and he might be the best technical coach of all the coaches at all levels in OK. If he had the people skills to match his ability to train kids he'd probably be the youth technical director for some MLS club to be honest.
Reality bites. It will set in quickly.
The tournament was terrible, anyway. They had 50-60% WSA teams and, in many brackets, 100%. So they were paying themselves, or are they charging all their teams and claiming non-proferito status. I love that stuff. I find it revolting. They have 6-8 bomb diggity tournaments!!!!!
Yo, East Tulsa can I get another 10 rec teams up in this mug? I have to pay for my name on this free field out here. Yo hablo Espanol.
Oral Roberts baby !!! He taught them well.
Eric loves the 13’s. All of my daughters love Eric. He’s always been kind and encouraging to them. Even my youngest, who doesn’t currently play, loves Eric.
He seemed really engaged with that group. There was one girl though, a good player playing up top, who got a little too handsy a lot. Whistled her for a couple of fouls in her attacking box (wise referee once told me, want to keep a game under control, whistle more fouls on the attacking team in the attacking 1/3. Call the little grabs and pushes, etc. They won the game 2-0. They struggled to finish despite having a lot of good chances.
And to Droolz, it was a rough tournament all the way around. There were a lot of Sporting Springfield teams that came in to play, a few NEOFC teams, a couple Blitz teams, a couple Technico teams. Yes, majority were WSA teams as always with most of the local tournaments.
I can say that the general feeling among the referees and assignors is that the 2 TSC tournaments that typically bring in a lot of out of state teams will die and they don't expect TSC to be around too much longer.
If and when TSC loses boys ECNL their business model becomes problematic without a quality platform for boys or girls. Barry should have sold when he had a chance. I jokingly said TSC would become Blitz without NL. In truth they’re likely to fare much worse.
JM could do wonderful things for Oklahoma Soccer but he could also really hurt High School soccer. You can't play both MLS Next and High School. Teams like Jenks, Union, Broken Arrow, and Owasso are really going to take a hit. I understand college scouts recruiting high schools but those kids have a lot of school pride.
it always sucks when the player doesn't feel valued by the coach or the club. Basically the reason why my son decided to move after being at TSC for 6 years (besides the fact that he was a GK and they didn't have a GK trainer for the last 2 years he was there). Try and connect with one of the coaches in her age group.
This is true. There were a couple of high level kids who started playing at Union with my son and they were positioned to be really good and then 2-3 of those kids left to be parts of Mexican and MLS academies. And last year was a disaster at Union because they 100% hired the wrong coach for that program and what had been building there for 6-7 years. I think they've got the right coach, at least as interim, right now but I still think they're going to not be very good this season as they struggle to rebuild the culture. It's amazing at how long it takes to build a culture yet how quickly it can be torn down with the wrong leader in place.
Does anyone know the reason why MLS Next demands no HS? I know Kansas doesn't allow players to play club and HS simultaneously, so the boys play their HS season in Fall and can begin club season Dec. 1. Girls in KS play HS in Spring and play their club season in Fall. And you're right, OK HS soccer plays with the same "brand" passion as HS football in OK, to the point that some of the kids will stop playing club ball altogether and focus only on HS (I know several Union kids who left ECNL at TSC to just play HS soccer).
You mean 6A’s and 5A’s top quality? Overall, to an extent.
Meh, they have lots of non-ecnl NL players at those places. Those people will not be playing MLS Next.
But the ecnl also wind up at weird one off places like 1 player at oolagah, metro, riverfield, bishop kelly etc… 3A and 4A soccer overall is still freakin terrible
Referees are horrible predictors of the future. Too many have never played soccer.
Assignors are blindly loyal to one club.
That kid from Riverfield you speak of just committed D1 to Boston University. He played with my son for a year (playing up with 06s as an 07). He's turned into a really dependable CB although I see him playing more on the outside in college. Weird thing is, 3 years ago you would have never dropped him in the back as he hadn't hit his growth spurt yet...he was a tiny kid.
And the girl at Oolagah must be something because she came up in our EOSSAA referee meeting because they were trying to discourage referees from declining game assignments because they were on a 3A or 4A game and maybe weren't getting all the 5A/6A assignments.
You realize assignors are hired by the club...they aren't independent. The referees are assigned as independent contractors and the assignors are going to assign the referees they trust to do the games. Smaller tournaments like this one are great opportunities for younger refs, like my 13 y.o. daughter, to get important reps without much pressure. I was able to watch her do her thing in 2 games in time slots I didn't work. She did a great job. I have usually stood behind her and coached but I didn't have to this weekend. She got her throw in and corner/goal kick calls correct, she got her offside calls correct, and assisted the ref in disallowing a goal because the attacking team didn't respect the build out line in a U10 game.
And sure, there are a lot of refs who never played the game. And? I would say it's probably better because they can look at it from a fairness standpoint and a laws of the game standpoint vs always trying to look at it from the player's lens.
And a lot of referees who have worked TSC games (assigned by the TSC assignor) know the internal struggle of the club to have any admin organization, and that's the experience they're speaking to.
If he sells to a positive leader, who knows. Clubs come and go. Characters like Keith eddy, Steve Earle, victor moreland, Gary McDonald, and Roy Reiss come and go. I have been around Tulsa a while and seen things.
WSA could fumble this ECNL thing. It remains to be seen. I want something to succeed out of Tulsa.
Continuity is great. I wish we had it. There are lots of idiots that think they know better than others when they don't have a clue. There are lots of egos. There are alcoholics and drug addicts that ruin it for themselves. there are people that don't know how to manage youth sports. There are people that don't understand a particular market’s dynamics (Tulsa vs OKC vs Dallas vs England vs Brazil) it ain't the same
soccer is a journey and there are lots of idiots involved that can muck it up.
A) I concur to your point about smaller tournaments.
B) I couldn't disagree more about this. We need more players as referees.
We’re going to.
I know there have been WSA coaches at some games yesterday, and I know at least one knew that she specifically was playing and at what time, so I think that’s awesome.
They didn’t talk, of course, but it was cool that they came out.
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