I recently wrote a blog post summarizing key changes in our Bay Area soccer club landscape.
In this post I wrote about Barcelona Bay Area and the possible reasons for merging with Force.
My comments were based on information I had picked up from various third party sources these last twelve months and my own interpretations of motivations for the changes at the club.
To be clear, the comments in that blog post were not based on any information from any of the principals involved with the changes at Barcelona Bay Area. They were purely third part and my own interpretations.
Today I received credible information that what I wrote wasn’t accurate and I therefore decided to immediately delete the blog post and write this public apology. I will re-post it in modified form to reflect my latest understanding of the merger.
Barcelona Bay Area and the coaches have done a lot of great work furthering soccer and youth development in our area. My blog post should not take away from that hard work and passion.
My sincerest apology for any inconveniences that this might have caused.
To be clear, I believe that the merger between the two clubs is in the best interest of both clubs and the stakeholders such as the youngsters and parents, given the changes in our youth soccer landscape.
Change doesn’t come without disruption for some, unfortunately, but that shouldn’t prevent leadership from making brave changes.
My ONLY goal for this blog is to help our local soccer community grow through helpful posts about topics such as the laws of the game, player development topics such as encouraging futsal, parents’ perspectives, soccer topics from around the world, and great examples of entertaining soccer.
I failed with that post. This has been a lesson learned in how and when to post third party information and/or personal observations and interpretations in public. And a lesson learned in responsible writing.
Wishing you all a successful 2016!
NorCal Soccer Dad 
Never saw the original post, but there are some litigious folks in youth soccer in the Bay Area so best beware. The forces (no pun) at work on that merger are active all over the Bay Area. There was recently a merger of Evolution/Glens in SF as well. Have you heard of any more?
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Thank you for letting me know about the Evolution/Glens merger in SF. I’m not surprised and I predict there will be more in the coming months and years. It’s simply too fragmented here (compared to SoCal, for example) and there is increasing pressure to keep up with the ‘big boys’.
The USDA now starts at U12, but the best players often want to switch at U10 or U11 already to get into the USDA club to be well positioned for U12 Academy tryouts.
And the USDA will almost certainly extend to U10 soon.
This in turn sucks players away from surrounding non-DA clubs, who have to merge to keep competitive teams going.
And as the USDA clubs expand they attract the best coaches too. Those coaches leave other non-DA clubs.
Many of these non-DA clubs and coaches have to either merge with/join the big boys or focus on a subset of the youth soccer market…less competitive probably.
And there will soon be the USDA clubs for girls too, of course. Probably the same clubs that have ECNL status now (with some case-by-case exceptions).
The next five years are going to be very interesting.
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