It's probably just my southside bias. But isn't FC Wisconsin at least 15 minutes from Uihlein? That's what Google Maps is telling me. Uihlein is also an annoying drive from my part of town.
Hahaha nah. A couple of back roads away. Less than 10 for sure. Either way it's a pain in the ass coming from the south. But the bigger point remains. Could you imagine Chicagos biggest soccer club numbers wise not having anything to do with the ECNL in any way shape or form.
Some would say this is a particularly rosy view of the situation. Others may have a different take. I can't reconcile how this can be described as "competing really well", they were outscored in league games 42-4 so far this season, lost 14 of 15, and tied the other. They have both the least number of goals scored, and the most goals given up, of any team in the bracket. That isn't a descriptor of how hard they are playing, how seriously they are taking it, or a value judgement in any way that means anything other than the likelihood of winning the game. But "competing really well" and being "pretty much guaranteed to lose", are not compatible statements.
Google says: "Daddy Ball" is a slang term in youth sports (like baseball/softball) for when a coach (usually a dad) favors their own child with playing time or key positions, even if other players are more skilled, creating unfairness and resentment In this context, it sounds like kids that have been coached by their parents prior and have always been told that they were the next superstar, aren't treated the same way by this coach - who apparently is more likely to assess them differently (rightly or wrongly) than they have been to that point.
At what age bracket are the Bavarians even in the conversation? Or is it on the boys side? I learned about a parent who is driving his kid from Chicago to Milwaukee to play for them. No other connection to Wisconsin. He said it was because they were such an elite club, so I looked it up in the app and couldn't see that they were more elite than two dozen clubs in the Chicago. But maybe I'm missing something? Or do some of their teams play under a different name?
3rd strongest teams for boys in WI. That SR rating would put them 6th for boys in IL. Their top teams on the boys side now play in MLSN HG, the highest tier. They evidently have quite a bit of history, and some of their older teams continue to be quite good (check out their 2009B MLS HD team). There's an argument to be made that as a club they can and should be better - how is a club that is still in MLS AD rated with stronger teams than one that is in MLS HD, for example. But I'm not sure if that says more about the Bavs or EBU. As a club they are much weaker on the girls side.
Thanks. The parent I'm referring to has a daughter, and this thread is mostly girls so I went in the wrong direction. Still don't understand that dad's decision. I was actually hoping you'd tell me what I was misunderstanding. But I really think he must have misunderstood something (likely not recognizing that the Boys-side quality didn't transfer over), at a price to himself and his kid of maybe 9 hours of driving a week. I told my kid I wouldn't do that to her even if there was a better club in Milwaukee. I mean, maybe if they were paying her good money. (But I'd still probably put her on Amtrak and then give her Uber fare, LOL.)
I’m curious as to what you mean by daddy ball. He is currently coaching a team at Eclipse that has had a lot of success. And this year looks a whole lot different. So “daddy ball” must only be a new issue there? I wouldn’t make a habit of making excuses for a coach with NK history. Especially at a club with their history.
This thread started off the spirit of the Chicago Magic vs Sockers threads 1-5. That was all about the boys essentially. Boys discussion is always welcome!
I see. Yes - commuting from Chicago to the Bavs so you can play girls soccer seems crazypants. If that club were plopped in IL, they'd show as 34th out of 48 clubs. Chasing it in hopes of experiencing whatever "elite" means, seems that there has to be a misunderstanding somewhere.
I interpreted the comment differently - that kids (and parents) that have been playing Daddy Ball for years may be coming up against reality now, which ruffles feathers. What shows different about this year - which Eclipse top team isn't seeing success? The one with NK listed as coach continues to show as #2 in state, #41 in the country. Is this considered good or bad?
NK is a bad person who loses to plot when things don’t go his way. But it doesn’t matter because RD is getting band back together. With all the high level ecnl and Ga clubs I can’t believe that parents are ok with him coaching their kid. I thought parents would have learned by now. So Sad…..
OK - but either interpretations or expectations are pretty unique. They are 11-3 in league, 3rd of 16. They show as 2nd out of 120 teams in state, and #41 out of 2726 in the country (%98.5 percentile). If they suck - every other team in IL sucks more barring one - and it's not playing ECNL. Every team in their ECNL bracket sucks more, barring two. If the parents think that they are supposed to be top 10 nationally or something, and it's the coach's fault, I feel for those kids with that type of unrealistic pressure put on them. I see that they, and Eclipse, have declined a bit over the past year. But that team still shows as the strongest in the club for all teams 2012G and older. Anyone can improve no matter where the starting point is - but it gets awful steep as you approach the pointy end.
That 11 team was a top 10 team that finished two years in a row at the national quarter finals. The team has drastically fallen off under NK.
I see they've competed well with top 10 teams, and even competed well against Koge and CF in the not too distant past. But all they have to do is look at every older midwest team ever, and see how hard it is to stay in the top 1% nationally when none of them are usually able to do it. This is the age where it starts to become more obvious. Maybe they'd be the one to beat the odds over time. But it's not likely.
My oldest kid played there (briefly) before quitting soccer, so I have some insight on this one. Bavs has history, it's one of the oldest clubs in the US (1929). Before all the alphabet soup they were a force to be reckoned with and won a ton of national championships. Now, I think they've leaned in too much on their history and were slow to adapt They still have a solid boys program at the top end and have the MLS Next badge. They are blessed with a great location, and as a result, every kid in Whitefish Bay, Shorewood, and Glendale starts playing Rec. soccer at Bavs. It's a massive feeder source for the club. The kids then transition to club and have like 5 teams on the boys team. I have neighbors who have kids who went through the program and it sounds like an S-Show unless you're on the top team. My neighbor's kids were not. The coaching on the lower teams is coaches just out of college without much input or training. They have a ton of turnover of players and coaches. They completely ignored their girl's program to the point where they had a state of the club meeting where they were asking parents to form a committee on how to fix it. Rather than volunteer, a lot of parents just left as they heard the horror stories from the parents of older kids about how the girls got worse fields and coaching than the boys. NSU is just 20 minutes north, and a lot of former Bavs girls are winding up there in pretty big numbers.
If you look at all Bavs teams (boys) of all years, for what it's worth, the difference in play from the top team to the bottom team isn't really that wide. In other large clubs, I've seen a much larger difference between the two. For Bavs: 2015B: ~4 goals 2014B: ~5 goals 2013B: ~5.5 goals 2012B: ~11 goals 2011B: ~8 goals 2010B: ~4 goals 2009B: ~9 goals 08/07B: ~5 goals This can certainly be interpreted in different ways. But it doesn't look like a club that only focuses on the top teams and throws everybody else to the wolves, especially in the youngers. Other successful large clubs can show differences of ~10+ goals in every age group.
Throw is a failed merger between what was once Inter North Shore and Bavarians. That merger was stuff of legend bad. The girls program has t been good since before 2007. But it serves it's purpose for girls not chasing big time soccer in that specific area. That field is 2 minutes from my house, what could have been.
We have a current 2015 female for one of the better known teams and looking to switch clubs. Someone made a comment on here that you should be looking around in the winter instead of waiting until tryouts. How is that done in an under the radar way? The club we are at right now is extremely vindictive and has made it clear that attending (not necessarily participating) another team’s training is grounds for breaking the contract we signed (with no refund). One family was asked to leave last year for doing this exact thing. We aren’t 100 percent certain we would leave after the Spring, but we at least want to actively look around since we have been at the same club for several years. Thanks.
Elite Academy League I see teams from the area are at an event in Florida. What levels of college recruitment can realistically happen at this level? Are these the 3rd level teams for Eclipse,KICS,SCWAVE, Chicago City?