On the boys side in NorCal, the ECNL map is actually pretty expansive. Definitely not the case on the girls side.
ECNL. The C stands for Cartel
- Thread starter NorCalUSN
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On the boys side in NorCal, the ECNL map is actually pretty expansive. Definitely not the case on the girls side.
There is a not insignificant amount of soccer talent is areas that cannot afford the high end club fees.
It's a fair point. That's why there are whispers around town that some clubs have informal Latino caps (the number of Latino players that can be brought on scholarship for financial reasons, plus if the team gets too heavily Latino to the point where coaching is taking place at least in part in Spanish, it tends to scare the white kids off). LAUFA has allegedly run into some difficulties, hence the disappearance of some C and D teams and the change to Albion. Don't know what's going on over there but perhaps you are right and its the exception that proves the rule (though it still has managed to field its MLS Next squads without missing a beat...will it continue?). I'd be curious to hear how TFA has managed to do it for so long and on top of everything else keeping the TFA name in place without being swallowed up by an Albion or Surf of LAFC affiliation. Maybe because it has all those affiliates? Also not 100% sure expense is enough to save against a claim in a disparate impact jurisdiction (the argument is that scholarships could be pooled to service minority areas....it's a stretch in a red jurisdiction but nothing surprises me in the blue ones these days).
Yours in futbol
SILVER
Not the best example, as she apparently managed to land a roster spot at Fullerton. Playing D1 soccer is a feat that the vast majority of ECNL/GA/NPL girls will not accomplish.
Yours in futbol
SILVER
Not the best example, as she apparently managed to land a roster spot at Fullerton. Playing D1 soccer is a feat that the vast majority of ECNL/GA/NPL girls will not accomplish.
My bad, that was your point - that there is non-ECNL talent that can't afford ECNL dues or travel fees.
You are so correct, that it should be undisputed. In fact, your point is demonstrated at every high level, non-ECNL game.
Truewords100
BRONZE
Man couldn’t agree with you more
Finally someone who speaks it how it is, usually everyone on here are ass kissers to the game and quick to get down on there knees for these clubs
What a joke
WildcatToad
BRONZE
Not the best example, as she apparently managed to land a roster spot at Fullerton. Playing D1 soccer is a feat that the vast majority of ECNL/GA/NPL girls will not accomplish.
For clarification only:
https://socalsoccer.com/threads/wwc-2023.21157/page-13 post #254
She is not on the CSUF roster. Attempted to walk on at Long Beach State. Not on that roster either.
Yes, I was talking about the girl's side.
Completely different situation on the boys side. MLS Next has done a good job of closing any gaps.
Not sure there really are any gaps in the ECNL coverage on the boys side. All those MLS Next teams have ECNL counterparts within range. I think NorCal/ECNL has done a pretty good job here. Perhaps NorCal should run the girls side as well.
Code
GOLD
Comparing the Ratings of the teams, instead of the Ranking will give a better idea of the separation and overlap between teams. The Ranking is just a list; the Rating compares relative strength of the team.
RandomSoccerFan
GOLD
Sure - but the rankings is just a sorting of the ratings, right? They are directly related and can be compared appropriately - but of course the difference in ratings is more telling than the difference in rankings, especially toward the pointy end of the table.
Where is this ratings metric? While I don't think the SR data is the holy grail, I think it gives pretty good insight into matchups, etc. It's right more than it's wrong. I also don't like focusing solely on results, but any other kind of comparison is subjective. I think both MLS Next and ECNL have their place. I just disagree with statements like "MLS Next teams are superior to ECNL teams". It's just a false statement -- and really just falling for the "MLS" branding. This is not to say people should avoid these bespoke MLS Next teams. Just understand the reality of where things are and what you're buying into.
Code
GOLD
It's in the SR app. Open the team, and it shows the Rating of the team. I agree there is only a handful of MLS Academy teams that are superior. Last year this time SR compared the average strength of the leagues in California. The difference metric is Goal Differential. So, last year MLS Next was on average, 0.2 GD better than ECNL; the numbers suggest if the average MLS team played the average ECNL team 100 times, MLS Next would win 1-0 20 times and tie 80 times. Are the MLS teams better than ECNL? Yes. Are the MLS teams playing at a higher level or tier than ECNL? No.
All California including Socal? If so those numbers are being thrown by the fact that at least in SoCal, boys ECNL isn't very broad (just 10 teams). MLS however not only includes the 3 academies but also some of the outlining clubs that struggle to remain competitive. The Delta on MLS Next, at least in Socal, is going to be much more variable. (The same probably true of EA as well, which unlike MLS Next has no academies driving up the number, and has the same regional issue vis-a-vis ECNL, which doesn't, for example, have a team in the Downtown ethnic triangle region or, for the time being, north of the Val). The broader the league, the more chance for variance creep in, which might explain why ECNL has been so reluctant to expand (for example putting in Eagles in Camarillo at ECRL despite that there is no Ventura/Oxnard team to achieve regional coverage).
Ahhh -- I see, I never noticed the word "ratings" in the app. Yeah the ratings are tightly coupled with ranking. You can't have one without the other. These ratings also inform the match predictions. A team ranked 50th will have similar ratings as a team ranked 51st -- a prediction on that matchup would likely lean more towards a draw.
When you say "Are the MLS teams better than ECNL? Yes." what do you mean? Considering that 0.2 number is heavily weighted via the top MLS Next teams, that seems like an inaccurate statement to make. If you took out the academies, what would that number look like?
Ventura or Oxnard to Camarillo is not a horrible drive…Driving from anywhere in the Ventura County to other clubs is a chore…Eagles pulls a lot of kids from Oxnard, Ventura, even Santa Barbara…LAFC has some practices in Ventura County, but has many in Woodland Hills, and North Hollywood. Then consider Breakers or Beach or LA Surf on the GA Side I don’t know that Oxnard, Ventura could support another ECNL Level Club on the girls side. Not as dense population wise IMHO.
If Eagles and LAFC were busting at the seams with the best players north of Downtown LA, getting crazy results, then I could see it. It’s not the case. Both clubs have good talent and have great players here and there, get players to college, etc. Adding another team to Ventura County seems unlikely. Between San Jose and Ventura, and Bakersfield/Fresno there are some really good athletes that are underserved and have to make Herculean efforts to get to top teams.
I do think LA Proper could support another ECNL Club. Commute time makes it untenable for players outside the area unless the parents are crazy.
You're starting to see through all the nonsense.
How "good" is a youth soccer league (boys or girls) when the same 10 teams play in the finals every year?
For boys with MLSN you have acadamies that skew the perception of how "good" the league is. For girls you have ECNL where the same 10 teams play in the finals pretty much every year.
The rankings app kind of addresses who is better through mathematically proposed wins or losses. But for teams that rarely play against each other its just an informed guess.
Yeah, think that's a spot on comparison. MLS Next is very much like the ECNL girls tables.
Surprisingly the match predictor has been pretty accurate from my experience. It's not always going to be right, otherwise teams wouldn't move up or down the rankings.
Eagles is not (yet) a boys ECNL club. They are ECRL. IIUC, LAFC (former Real SoCal) is the only club north of downtown. Boys ECNL in SoCal is a little south heavy. MLS Next (unless you buy the idea that LASC is the Valley team) is a little Los Angeles heavy. At the highest level on the girls side, while the boys in the Downtown triangle are pretty well covered, the girls are absolutely not (as has been postulated here, probably because of the fee).
RandomSoccerFan
GOLD
You can continue to believe whatever you want to believe, but this has been shown to be wrong - to you - over and over again but you either don't want to believe it or hope that nobody else will. Teams from different states that play eachother rarely have a slightly higher predictive value than the data set as a whole. This is calculated. Arguing with it as an informed guess as if it isn't measurably correct is both tedious and wrong. This *does not* mean that every prediction will be correct, of course - but it does mean that a higher ranked team will beat a lower ranked team a measurable percentage of the time. That percentage is much higher than most will admit, and is incongruous with the word "guess".
Comparing leagues by a single rating number poses as many questions as answers, and those who are skeptical will have an unending list of questions no matter how many numbers are provided - it's probably an unwinnable (and unendable) debate. But the slides above are very simplistic, and the rating of the league is just the average of all teams that are determined to be in that league. But saying that the average MLS team is X goals better than the average ECNL team provides some limited data, but there are still a bunch of questions. Mark realizes this, and in the next iteration of league vs. league, he is considering stratifying more to help add context. For example, it might say more if it shows the average rating of the top 10% MLS team, and the top 10% of ECNL teams, then compares those two numbers rather than the average of the entire pool. "How much stronger is a good MLS team vs. a good ECNL team" is probably a good question, and might even be a better question than "how much stronger is an average MLS team vs. an average ECNL team". There probably are a few other ways to split it that would be useful to review as well, and hopefully there is more info to go on. But at the end of the league vs. league discussions, it's always going to be one team vs. another team on the pitch, and the ratings of each predict the outcome of the match. A good team in a lesser league might be rated stronger than a bad team in a top league - and a team in a lesser league might even beat a team in a stronger league, regardless of the ratings prediction.