DA expands to 4 teams per club for U12

Lonestar SC officially announced it days ago, anything locally?

That would give South Texas a total of 14 u12 teams vs 6 in North Texas, if no more expansion in north texas. Too many talented players in N.Texas for that few of teams.

DA expansion kinda blows a hole in the recent theory of moving all non-MLS DA clubs to Tier 2. No idea if it will reach to NTX. Agree it should happen...need a presence in Tarrant County.

Explain how expanding the player pool at U12 blows a hole in Tier development in DA.

Only U12 is expanding.

Wouldn't more teams per club increase the viability of 2 tiers? i.e. more teams of kids within each tier to play each other.

https://www.lonestar-sc.com/news/post/u-s-soccer-development-academy-awards-lsc-with-u12-expansion

"The decision by U.S. Soccer and the Development Academy Technical staff to award Lonestar another set of U12 Boys DA teams (total of 4 teams for 2018-19) speaks volumes to our continued development of top talent here in Austin and Central Texas,”

This doesn't sound like everyone is getting an expansion.

Interesting....their U12 teams aren't competitive with North Texas so far this year.

You can't expand one club and not the rest... Who would the extra teams play....

Sure you can - just put them out as Lonestar and Lonestar Youth - like Houston Dynamo does. Look through the U12 DA map - there are multiple examples of clubs having more than 2 U12 DA teams.

Look at regions like Carolina, Chicago, Great Lakes, Washington....

http://www.ussoccerda.com/2017-boys-u-12-club-map

Dallas Texans Fort Worth and Solar Soccer Club West just awarded u-12 DA.

Article hit the US Soccer DA Facebook page 4 minutes ago.

Looks like 4 more u12 teams coming to NTX.

So why not addition at fcd...

It looks like doesn't give clubs additional teams unless the additional team serves a different geographic area. So Solar and the Texans who are Dallas area get to add teams on the west (Fort Worth) side. Lonestar get to add on the south side of Austin. And so on.

Perhaps the reason FCD does not get addtional teams is because all their Academy activity is centered on Frisco????

So, at U-13, you are going to have approximately 24 kids from Solar and Texans each that are “cut” from the DA team?  (I am simplifying the question for the sake of brevity.)  If that is the case, I am sure that will go over well with parents.

Surprised they gave two teams to Ft.Worth instead of one to Ft worth and add another to Dallas. While it’s good that Ft. Worth got representation, do they really have 52 U12 DA caliber players? Also striking is the number of teams now in South Texas vs. NTX. Finally, classic league is going to now be heavily diluted with 130 of the best (or big or well connected) players out of classic.

Uncleof05AP wrote:So, at U-13, you are going to have approximately 24 kids from Solar and Texans each that are “cut” from the DA team?  (I am simplifying the question for the sake of brevity.)  If that is the case, I am sure that will go over well with parents.

Looks like it....unless they add U13 next year for Texans FW and Solar West......

Theory is that Solar West and Texans Fort Worth will add u13 next year, u14 the year after, etc. etc. etc. Such that you'll have 5 u18 teams in the metroplex at some point.

But who knows what'll actually happen.

Where is Solar West?

I cannot find “Solar West’s” website. Will someone please post the link?  Thank you.

I think it's safe to say that Solar West only exists on paper right now. Good question of location for both new teams. I do believe US Soccer was keen on getting more Tarrant County representation into the academy.

Other questions:
1. Solar has 2 top 10 D1 teams now. Does McKinney (based in Southlake) form the core of Solar West and Kennington (based in Allen) the core of Solar "East"?

2. TXNs have 2 top 5 D1 teams now. They're both based in the "East" though. Seems more difficult to build a TXN West team with the limited existing core?

3. Anyone else surprised that FCD was left out of this round of expansion?

It would be interesting to see if “Solar West” and “Texans Fort Worth” applied as new clubs or existing clubs.  They are listed as “new clubs” on the announcement.  If they are considered “new clubs,” it would be interesting to see if they only applied for “U-12 only” rather than the “U-12 to U-14” or “full academy” options.  

I am guessing that FCD did not apply for it.  Depending on the situation, I can totally understand why it did not apply.  

http://www.ussoccerda.com/20180309-news-16-new-clubs-added-for-2018-2019-season

From the link you can see that both Solar West and Texans Fort Worth are only u12 for the 2018-2019 season.

From my knowledge Solar's request was only for the u12 in 2018-2019. I don't know what Texans requested but I assume it was for u12 only at this time.

Unless Solar and the Texans plan to add “developmental” kids to these u12 DA rosters, they are both going to have to bring in a TON of kids from outside their clubs. From what I’ve seen, Solar is having problems filling out two highly competitive teams presently at certain positions. Adding two more teams will only make the situation worse. Texans should have similar issues creating a 3rd and 4th team and they have even less competitive teams to draw from than Solar.

Do we see more than a handful of 08’s rostered?

So where do these additional players come from that will pony up the cash to play DA next year?

Allegiance? Already getting 4 practices+ per week plus video breakdown of every game. And for significantly less money. Why leave other than prestige?

Rebels? Are any of those parents going to stomach the greatly increased cost?

Liverpool? Few kids there could easily make the teams but realistically how many make the drove to Allen or beyond?

Rush? Also have more than a few that would be additive to the teams (some already coming out from what I’ve seen/heard). Do more make the jump?

Individual players from elsewhere?

It may take the addition of an existing team core w/ coach combination to jump start the western movement. If one of the clubs could get a rebels or allegiance w/ the coach (possibly in an “apprentice” role in order to offset the lack of a B license) to get on board l, that might be the incentive. Similar to what Texans had to do to get 2 top teams in the east. If one of the 2 clubs actually did get an operational center in the Arlington area, I’m sure they would have interest. I’m not familiar with the Arlington club landscape, but Solar might bring in a whole club to get it going.

I’m not sure how far west Solar West is trying to be. McKinney’s team might be far enough, then they just fill out the “B” teams for a year until they can recruit better players.

For the 07 age group, Arlington has the following teams playing in classic divisions 1 and 2:
Dallas Rebels
Dallas Texans South
Texas Lightning
Liverpool Carragher

Other 07 “west” teams in Classic:
Fc Legends
Allegiance Fc
Solar Mckinney
Solar Mckinney/Lanier
Solar Martinez
Triumph FC
Tigres Ft. Worth
Fever United

I'd guess Solar West would be Grapevine/Southlake based. This is where they currently have a footprint with younger teams (McKinney, Martinez, Oglesby) and where they play many of their DA games.