It seems like once the teams go 11v11 that local clubs have a hard time competing due to lack of depth. The top players then decide to head to a club that pulls talent from multiple communities. A lot of times the top teams at u10 & u11 are down several divisions by u13 or completely gone after the serious players head to big clubs.
Heard rumor today the NK from the Fire south is heading back to the Eclipse and bringing a lot of the talent from the south with him. Eclipse have been very aggressive this spring.
Go to Google Maps and punch in Summit and Kingsport Schaumburg. Once it pops up, switch to Satellite View. Directly East of where Kingsport Dr. dies into Summit Dr., there's a large, open piece of property that lies between Summit Dr. and Plum Grove Rd. That property was purchased in the 60's by District 211 with the intention of locating another high school there. The need for that school never arose and so District 211 has been sitting on that property for 50 years. Last September, the school district announced that it had decided to part with that property and would be investigating their options. From what I've been told, about 10 seconds after that announcement was made, Eclipse tendered an offer to purchase the property with the intention of building their own soccer park on the site.. So yeah...aggressive.
https://www.dailyherald.com/article/20170317/news/170319039/ Palatine-Schaumburg High School District 211 board members hope an evaluation and appraisal of the 60 acres of vacant land the district owns in a Schaumburg neighborhood will help them further narrow the options for the site's future use. In a letter to the district, Schaumburg Village Manager Brian Townsend wrote that the village would be open to single-family homes or recreational, educational or other public uses, but would not support commercial uses or multifamily housing.
Will be interesting how the classify the Eclipse. They are clearly a commercial enterprise. Recreational use to me would be the park district purchasing and developing the land
I can't see how they have enough $$$ to even think they have a shot. Unless they have corp bux coming in.
Saw some potential signs of that just this weekend on my son's 2005 team, as their season ended. If it happens, it would take some of the air out of what is a pretty good team that could get better in the years ahead. We live in an area that just doesn't have the depth to fill roster spots that open by the best players leaving with anything close to the same level of talent. Related, it was interesting to go this season to big tournaments and see teams my son's team used to play against (and not always beat) who are now at much, much lower levels.
I was reviewing the Memorial Day Tournaments. I was shocked by the declining numbers in some of these tournaments especially Oswego and Soccers. Soccers had only 3 Girls age brackets (Age 11 14 15) with 13 teams: Oswego had only 3 age brackets. 12 13 15 : 21 teams
Seems to be a company with no affiliation. I guess the company used to run it for Grove for a fee. Same awful schedule to maximize the number of teams and minimize the number of games. Groups of 4 with only round robins and no finals.
First time in 13 years between 2 players that we had Memorial Day weekend off. Many teams had played last mont as well in a tourney out of state already this Spring however. Also there were teams which were slated to play at Camptons tourey this past weeekend. Sockers as a whole pulled out and lodged a formal complaint over heavy recruiting tactics from Campton. I was led to believe that 2 other clubs pulled out as well. Apparently Campton has a deal to send high end players to Chicago Fire now.
Kings Knights or something have run this. However there are rules - something like the organizer must be a club and they were not - just going through Grove United. As someone already said they will be Rush next season so we'll see how that goes
Hopefully outside companies do not take over soccer like I have seen in many other travel sports. They are all about money and the quality really drops down.
I meant more involved in organizing event. Sponsorship dollars are a different matter. More money for the sport should be a good thing as many kids should benefit from another quality facility
I heard a former Fire player coaching in Oak Brook was throwing punches at the conclusion of the presidents cup final today in Rockford.
@VolklP19 Didn't a club director up there recently have a warrant out for his arrest because he swerved his vehicle menacingly towards an opponents player/family in a parking lot after a match? Isn't that the same club that had a coach get caught "acting inappropriately" towards HS girls players during a travel event, even threatened with legal action unless said coach resigned? That Northwest Highway corridor north of Palatine is full of this kind of drama...it's sad, really.
Looks like Magic is not going away. Bato has his Serbian buddies all coiled ready to rebuild. Cannot say its a bad idea. I imagine that over the course of the next 2 years the dream of playing DA on the boys and girls sides - and not quite getting there, will send players back to Magic. There is that - and a lack of any decent clubs out there to begin with (IMO).