Dipping my toe in the blog pool.

Welcome to the first entry in the Cincinnati Soccer Parent Blog. If you have somehow stumbled across me, thanks very much for your time.

We just finished all the tryouts for the season. This was quite an adventure - the new Cincinnati United club, Warren County, Ohio Elite, the new Loveland/MTSC club and the Classics Hammer all had their tryouts in the same week. Thunder United got a jump on everyone by holding tryouts a week before everyone else, but rumor had it that the top players weren't making any commitments until this week was over.

I suspect we ran up the GDP of a small third world nation in gas money driving from Metalex to McClure to Four Seasons to Miami Meadows to the Ohio Elite fields this week.

U14 Boys Premier seems to be particularly exciting this season. In years past, all the CUSL (Cincinnati United Soccer League) clubs sent their best and brightest (in theory anyway) to Cincinnati United Premier (CUP) starting with the U14 age bracket, in the hopes of building a "superteam" that could compete beyond the Ohio South area. While a noble idea, they have had mixed success in years past. Now with the CUP / Lakota / Arsenal merger complete, the rest of the CUSL clubs seem to be working hard to develop their own programs, particularly on the boys side. Cincinnati clubs have a history of developing terrific girls teams, but have not had the same level of success with the boys. So clubs like Warren County, Classics Hammer, and others are now working hard to convince their premier players that staying with their organization is as good (if not better) an option than going to CUP. The fees are certainly quite a bit less. And I imagine some club bylaws are being amended to remove references to CUP support. It does make the continued support of CUP by CUSL an interesting question - should make for some interesting discussions at the next board meeting.

Another source of some acrimony with the other clubs is the rumored three premier teams that CUP is (possibly) fielding, at least in some of the age groups. Taking 45 - 50 of the (theoretically) top players in Cincinnati off the table makes a pretty big dent in the talent pool for the other clubs. Of course CUP will need to perform in the Fall if they want to keep all those players (and parents) happy. No one wants to spend a lot of money to be on a team that can't win, and you have to wonder how good the third teams will be.

All things considered, this should be an exciting year for Cincinnati soccer - change is always interesting.

Ciao!