TEAMPLAYR SPOTLIGHT: Wilco Ravestijn, Dutch FC

North Texas is home to a thriving soccer community that is constantly working towards improving the sport and the experience for players and fans alike. From coaches and players to organizations and volunteers, there are so many individuals and groups that have inspiring stories to tell. Through their passion, hard work, and dedication, they are making a positive impact on the North Texas soccer scene.

In today’s post we introduce the first of a series of “TeamPlayr Spotlight” interviews – where members of our community have graciously taken the time to sit down with us to share their stories and give insights into what their doing to better the North Texas soccer experience.

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Our first guest is Wilco Ravestijn – a former pro player and founder of Dutch FC in Frisco, TX.

A native of the Netherlands, Wilco began playing at the age of 10, for his local hometown club VFC (Vlaardingse Voetbal Club). At the age of 15 he transitioned to the regional professional club at the time called SVV(Schiedamse Voetbal Vereniging), who’s youth program played in the upper levels of the Netherlands.

In 1993 he was recruited by West Virginia Wesleyan College where he was a four-year starter. During his time there he led the Bobcats to the Division II National Championship and received honors for 1st team All-Conference, 1st team All-South Atlantic, Conference Most Valuable Player of the Year, All-American and was selected to the Collegiate All-Star team of the East. Wilco was signed by the Dallas Sidekicks in ’97 and in ’98 signed with the A-League team the Richmond Kickers before returning to Dallas to play for the Dallas Toros and other semi-professional teams for a subsequent 4 years.

In addition to his playing accolades, Wilco obtained his USSF National “A” coaching license in 2001, and holds a NSCAA Premier Diploma, and a National Youth Coach License. In his 15 years as a coach, he’s helped 54 players reach the collegiate level of play with many receiving scholarships and going on to play professionally.

Now, Let’s hear from Wilco …

Note that the following interview was conducted in person and the following text has been edited for conciseness and clarity.

Hi Wilco, thank you so much for your time today – let’s get right into it. Introduce us to Dutch FC.

Yeah, so we are located at Lebanon and the Dallas North Tollway in Frisco, TX. We have 17 teams.

We started about four years ago when my oldest son was playing recreational soccer. I kind of had the choice of going and sending him off to one of the mega clubs and ending up on one of their twenty teams or coaching the team myself. With my background, I opted for that second choice. We started with three kids and started just adding one or two kids here and there and started building a little team.

My goal was just to coach one team … well, I have a younger son so eventually I would probably have two teams, you know that's kind of what my thinking was.

Then a friend of mine, Clinton Hollingworth, reached out and he’s also had the same idea in mind and he didn’t want his son to be jumping around from team to team, coaching changes every 6 months etc, etc the many things we often hear and experience at the mega clubs. So, he joined us and now have two teams in the club..

Then one of my parents had a younger son who wanted play at a higher level so she put a small group together and now we’ve got 3 teams. And before you know it, I’m sucked back in to the club business.

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That’s awesome, so tell us about the Dutch FC mission and development philosophy.

The reason we call ourselves the Dutch Football Club is because Holland is known for developing an incredible amount of talent relative to the size of the country. The country only has 16 million people in it and is about the geographic size of Dallas To Fort-Worth metroplex down to Waco.

Even though DFW only has a population of 6 million people, there are countries that can still compete on the world stage with these small numbers. Could you imagine DFW putting together a national team to compete in the World Cup? And the reason this is unrealistic is because US Soccer lacks a soccer culture. But this is the way we should be thinking by compartmentalizing the areas and treating these areas as a microcosm within itself. 

Soccer Cultures thrive in diverse and decentralized environments. In my home town, for example, of 70,000 people alone there are 9 youth clubs that I could get on my bike and cycle to. Each club only has 1-2 teams per age group. These 9 clubs compete at various levels but they all have their traditions and micro-culture within themselves with a Club House and Club History. In DFW, everyone is trying to franchise and be the big dog in town by monopolizing the entire region with their brand. It’s mostly done in the name of development which apparently can only be done if you join an “Elite League” that by the way, only they and the clubs they invite can participate in. This is how they market themselves not just to players but to coaches and clubs so they can compete in the “Status Leagues” that exclusively available to a few clubs. It’s not a merit based system. You can’t compete your way in, you have to be “chosen”.

This is what kills soccer culture and we often see Mega Clubs with 7 or 8 teams within their age groups. When you play on the Top Team or the Developmental team, the club only has a select group of players to work with and when there is scarcity, you tend to be more careful and meticulous with your resources and make the most of them. An abundance of teams and players, creates a reckless and careless environment where everyone is out for themselves, especially when they generate $3500+ per player. 

Our mission is to inspire a passion for the game by developing players to compete at the highest level. 

And we do that by focusing and concentrating on the kids we have. A greater amount of attention and care is given to our coaches, teams and players and this is a major benefit to team building. It can take years to develop a style of play and build a team. Often we hear from parents and kids who end up with us that they had 3-4 coaches in the last 2 years at their previous Mega-Club and the player turn over rate tends to be much higher because players keep moving up and down the 7-8 teams in an age group. 

This is the benefit of a well run small club. You’re not just a number and by implementing that very specific concept that can be found across Holland, combined with the playing philosophy and training methodologies, we feel we can provide a much better experience to our members than most clubs. 

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What makes what you’re doing at Dutch FC unique compared to other clubs in the area?

Well we take a “Low-Cost, High-Value” approach based to running the club. This is the Dutch way.

One of the ways that we’re able to do that is in the way that we attract high quality coaches. With us, in a lot of cases, coaches are actually able to make more than they would at some of the other big major clubs. The reason is because we pay them a percentage of the revenue that they generate from their teams, which is very unique. There's no other team or club that I know that does this. Most clubs are salary based and not commission based. Reality is, coaches earn their own way. They have to build their own teams in most cases

However, our club dues are only $1700 a year for select while most clubs charge like $3000 or $3500, but our coaches are able to make more money with us… and we're able to sustain ourselves because we've delegated various responsibilities to a lot of volunteers… and this is the way clubs are run in Holland.

In fact, I just got back from a trip with my team and I went back to my old club - the dues there are $200 a year and they're playing on turf fields and have amazing facilities. They have sponsors and things like that, but the point is that you can run a club successfully without charging everybody an arm and a leg, you just have to be creative and resourceful, and that's what we're doing.

We're providing great value, in my opinion better value, than you can get and a lot of the mega clubs at almost half the cost.

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You mentioned a trip to Holland. Tell us about what that experience was like.

Well, it was incredible.

I've done this before, and I usually do these trips with kids when they turn 14 or 15 years of age, because the soccer culture here in the Texas just is not what it is in Europe. It's just a whole different deal. Just like American football has a culture here in the United states that it doesn't have in Europe that's the flip side of soccer here. So, to really understand that, you have to go there so we're actually looking at making this a program across the board for the club - where every year we send a team at U15 or U14 to experience the culture there.

So, we played the local club that I played for as well as my dad and we tied them 4-4, it was really good game. We  also went to the KNVB and had a session at the at the Dutch Federation. We went to a Feyenoord game, and we did some sightseeing, checked out some windmills, so we could kind of combine soccer and tourism.

It was a great team bonding experience too.

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That sounds like a great time for the kids. What does the future have in store for Dutch FC?

So just in four years we now have 17 teams – we’ve grown really fast. You know in the beginning when you have a club you kind of need to hit a certain point of momentum, and then the club feeds on itself. They have referrals, they have siblings between the teams, and it just kind of grows through a lot of word of mouth. Then you grow your reputation, you get seen more out there, people start knowing about you, you just develop that presence. So that's kind of what's happening now.

So, now we're actually pivoting - we're going to be talking about transitioning from building quantity to focusing more on quality. So, we want to improve the quality and competitiveness of the teams.

If you look across age groups -  in select you have at 8 age groups, in academy you have four. So we're looking at 12 age groups from U6 to U18.

So, the max we will have on the boys side is 24 teams - because we use what’s called a squad system. We will have an advanced team and will have a developmental team. The reason for that is that some players might be a developmental player on the advanced team, but they'll be a role player on the developmental team and it's better for their development.

You just don't know where players are going to end up. They could be 16 or 17 years of age and be the best kid in all those players that were in that age - and that was me, I didn't start until I was ten and I was just a role player playing on the developmental team at my club, until I hit 16 or 17. Then my abilities just accelerated. I just surpassed all of my teammates and was playing on the first team very quickly. You know, but the first four, five, or six years I was just kind of there not really making that much of an impact.

So we have this development/advanced team squad system that we run in the club – and we will plan to carry a max of 2 teams [per age group] in our club as we grow. First of all we don't have room for it and we don't have time for it – we cannot invest in the resources.

The Mega-Club Franchising concept have the resources because when you charge $3500/player and you have 8 teams in an age group all with 16+ players, you can do the math, you tend to find the space and staff to make it happen because it generateds a lot of revenue for the Mega Clubs. It's very much a money driven business and its just the way it is and thats fine. I'm not against any of that, but we don't want to take that approach. We want to provide a really great service within our community in this location.

All the big clubs in the world invest in their 1 or 2 teams across their youth age groups. Ajax, Barcelona, Liverpool, the program is FREE and it they have limited time to invest in developing only a small group. You don’t  see AJAX (that's in Amsterdam) that has an academy in Rotterdam. It just wouldn't happen. It's located in the community they serve and that's where we're gonna stay and this is what drives soccer culture.

That's the goal - to build quality and develop the players and have a great time doing it.

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