NOS Santos Youth Soccer - Mesa, Arizona

BD A.

This was our first club experience and it was a rough one. I’ll start with the good because 3 stars is being generous and doesn’t reflect our season long frustrations but I don’t like harming small businesses anymore than necessary. The facility they have is awesome, well kept, safe and huge. The coaches we had were very nice, on time and respectful of the kids. Playing time was never an issue for anyone on the team.

The problem was that the coaching they received was very poor. We were easily the worst coached team every game. They never worked on the basics such as corner kicks, offsides (had 15 offsides calls our last game), throw ins, etc. My son received better coaching from his rec teams unfortunately. When you pay the money you do for a club team and commit to 3-4 days a week of practices and games, you should get better coaching than rec level coaching. We didn’t know what to ask, what to look for or what to avoid going into this so we’re a lot more educated on that going forward and thought other parents should know about our experience.

Make sure if your kid makes a team that they already have a coach and you can ask for their playing and coaching experience. We were so excited our son made the team that we didn’t ask any of these questions. A few weeks after he made the team and we paid all our dues up front, they started practicing and we were informed our team didn’t have a coach. From the looks of it, this club will form as many teams as they can at each age level and then find coaches for those teams after the fact. I think they have their ‘A’ coaches locked in and from what I saw of them, those coaches look pretty solid and knowledgeable. But if your child gets on the b/c/etc teams, make sure to ask questions. If they don’t have a coach, you’re really rolling the dice and I’d expect rec level coaching and little support from the more experienced coaches.

They ended up recruiting one of the kids' dads on our team to be our coach for the entire season. I know that’s how rec is done but this is club soccer. We are here cause we want our kids to learn soccer at an advanced level. And if the dad had a lot of playing and coaching experience that would be one thing…but this guy wasn’t that. Super nice guy, but he just doesn’t know much about coaching soccer. I guess his qualifications were that he went out and got his referee certification.

I went to the league multiple times, both in person and through email. I was told early on that it was early in the year and everything they saw looked good and that the coach had went through their coaching curriculum and I need not worry even though many parents were frustrated and wondering what we just signed up for. Months into the year, I reached out to the director of coaching and was told he would work with our coach. There were no improvements whatsoever throughout any of this. There were other families who flat out quit even after paying the full season dues up front because they thought it was doing their kids more harm than good. Other families stopped coming to the games because they were so hard and frustrating to watch. It’s sad when you see a kid have his entire extended family at the first two games cheering and being supportive and then none of them show up the rest of the season and you know exactly why they don’t come anymore. I wouldn't really care that much about our record if we were receiving good coaching, but we got blown out most of our games and 1-8 was probably the most common score. It was just not a fun season and very disappointing. We will not be trying out for Santos again and if you decide to go forward with tryouts with this club, please heed my advice above. There are a lot of clubs out there and while I realize none will be perfect, just make sure they do the thing you’re actually there for well…the soccer!

Lorenzo L.

My son loves soccer and our experience here was beyond below average. Everyone was unprofessional and they just care about money. Our coach had never coached before and was not a great leader. Be aware of their scrimmages where they said and I quote, “During the scrimmage, the kids should not have rules. Let them go offsides, let them go out of bounce and if they hurt one another, that’s part of it. I’M NOT LYING. The players would come up to me and say, why are they allowed to hurt us. No one did anything. The coach would come late, once never showed up. Every practice was another problem that this organization didn’t want to take responsibility for, but only brush it off. You are better off playing soccer with your local recreational team. Plus, their name is NOS—Never on Sunday. They lead u on with that, making you feel they play in tournaments that follow this never on Sunday. NO. As a result, they lose every championship cause they what, Never on Sunday. Other parents wanted to quit, but they paid everything up front. Plus, they say their prices are cheaper than most, another lie, same. We went to a different team, same price and it’s 500% different. Don’t waste your time with unpleasant, unprofessional humans that just want to make a living.

Brendon F.

Great fields great coaches great atmosphere and they never play on sundays which ensures I get to have some me time and watch football in the weekends. Great club soccer!

Adam G.

This was a bad year overall for all soccer associations. I do not put the majority of the blame on this soccer club as the association was making all of the bad decisions this year. The few improvements we would like to see with this particular club is just in the communication of what decisions are being made by the association and how they will affect us throughout the season. We felt like there was room for improvement on the coaching side of the house. To my surprise, shortly after posting my review, this club reached out to me personally and had a very professional, productive conversation with me about how they can improve and what they are doing to get better. Very impressed by their level of customer service and hope that the soccer association does not continue to thwart the efforts of these clubs trying to make it.

Joe H.

So far so good. Just joined with our 2010 son, we were looking for some serious soccer, and I think we found it 👍👍

Amy M.

Best soccer club ever!

Ian C.

Great system and communication.

Brynda B.

Nice fields and clean bathrooms.