U16 Pilot team is now U16 DA

Football and basketball are much more reliant upon unique physical gifts than soccer. Also we have the best football and basketball coaches in the world as they are the big sports in our culture. If our society was invested in soccer at a similar level and it was the first choice sport among our most gifted athletes we would definitely do better.

Regarding the incentives being the same I disagree. In the US the big 4 sports have much clearer paths to professional careers and much more community support. Soccer is a country club sport in the US at the highest levels. Christian Pullisic is amazing but he’s nowhere near a Lebron or a Khalil Mack....
Agree that the best athletes are not always picking soccer in the US and that’s a legitimate obstacle to developing world class players on par with the rest of the world but the coaching incentive to win is no more a barrier to soccer than it is to others sports such as basketball and baseball where the US develops world class players at least on par with everybody else in the world.
 
Football and basketball are much more reliant upon unique physical gifts than soccer. Also we have the best football and basketball coaches in the world as they are the big sports in our culture. If our society was invested in soccer at a similar level and it was the first choice sport among our most gifted athletes we would definitely do better.

Regarding the incentives being the same I disagree. In the US the big 4 sports have much clearer paths to professional careers and much more community support. Soccer is a country club sport in the US at the highest levels. Christian Pullisic is amazing but he’s nowhere near a Lebron or a Khalil Mack....

Agree but the topic here is girls soccer & DA!
 
Congratulations all you 2003 parents!! You should be produd of yourselves!! You drank sooooooooo much DOC/DA KoolAid that you did the Clubs Marketing for them. What happens two years from now when some 2002's take a few of your precious spots? Do you demand a U18 only team?

Let's face it, the DA had to do this to compete against ECNL. In a lot of markets DA won, just by being the endorsed path to the national team by the USSF. However, in competitive markets like SC, TX, etc... where there are lots of players and lots of options, the DA had to make this move to compete with ECNL they could not risk alienating so many parents. So congrats 2003 parents!!

To take it a step further, I think we should have more DA teams in SoCal not less. I mean look at the results of even the bad SoCal DA teams at the showcases. Eagles U15 the dormat of the SWC, has a winning record at showcases? We need more teams, we want more teams!! Please feed us we are starving for opportunity!!

The pay for play system just got a little bit stronger.
 
Games are scheduled for FC Dallas U16 DA and other U16 teams in their conference. Lets give it time so DA came schedules Southwest U16 games.

Dedicated GU16s dates are now up on DA site for the southwest conference. Dates are up but not game times or locations. Missing northern California dates for September 29/30 and missing games vs Blues but confirms stand alone '03s in southwest conference is a done deal.
 
Does anyone know the status of the g2003 teams as far as # of players and strength of the teams?
Because they announced the DA sanctioning so late I would imagine a lot of the 2003 players that were selected for pilot left to other DA clubs or ECNL.
I would expect Beach to dominate the 03’s though.
 
02/03 rosters of teams that have posted them on Academy website, shows many teams decided to keep the majority of the 03's teams together. Makes me wonder what the Pilot teams are made up of. No club was willing to give up there star players to Pilot and risk them leaving. Looks like 02's didn't get a fare shot at academy as it was full with 03's.
 
02/03 rosters of teams that have posted them on Academy website, shows many teams decided to keep the majority of the 03's teams together. Makes me wonder what the Pilot teams are made up of. No club was willing to give up there star players to Pilot and risk them leaving. Looks like 02's didn't get a fare shot at academy as it was full with 03's.
Every club did it differently. Some are mostly 02s with only the stud 03s, some are 1/2 and 1/2, some are mostly 03’s with a few 02’s, some are 03’s and youngers, and then there are clubs with all the 02s and 03s on one roster making a crazy amount of girls on the team (Dallas Texans). It’ll be a very uneven playing field this year at the U16/17 level and the U16 Pilot age groups because of the various ways the clubs are dispersing their players. 02’s probably need to play up at some clubs due to the lack of 00’s.
 
02/03 rosters of teams that have posted them on Academy website, shows many teams decided to keep the majority of the 03's teams together. Makes me wonder what the Pilot teams are made up of. No club was willing to give up there star players to Pilot and risk them leaving. Looks like 02's didn't get a fare shot at academy as it was full with 03's.

Only 6 teams have full rosters up which equals 106 players so far. Out of the 106 players 68 are 02s, 35 are 03s, 2 are 04s, and 1 is an 05. I would wait and see when the other teams post their complete rosters and expect the 02 margin to continue to grow as it stands now its almost 2 to 1 over the 03s. Not sure where you are getting your data from but it sounds like the 02s got a fair shot. Also some 02s are rostered on the 00/01 teams because those clubs don't have a lot of 00s.
 
Only 6 teams have full rosters up which equals 106 players so far. Out of the 106 players 68 are 02s, 35 are 03s, 2 are 04s, and 1 is an 05. I would wait and see when the other teams post their complete rosters and expect the 02 margin to continue to grow as it stands now its almost 2 to 1 over the 03s. Not sure where you are getting your data from but it sounds like the 02s got a fair shot. Also some 02s are rostered on the 00/01 teams because those clubs don't have a lot of 00s.

Yeah those numbers will continue to go down, Beach has 13 of the 35, 03's on their roster. Galaxy SD has 9 of the 35. Which mean the other 4 have 12 03's combined. I think that is what the numbers will look like, 3 or 4 03's per team at the most.

I actually think that the DA's decision to make 03 a DA Pilot and sanction the 03's as their own age group is going to make things even worse here in SoCal. I have heard that an entire Simi Valley Eclipse 03 Coast Premier team is moving to LA Premier DA. Somehow poaching an entire team from another club is the solution? I think that a lot of these clubs will try to move their 02 DPL players to DA02/03, push their 03 DA players to 03 pilot and promote from within to 02 DPL. Further watering down, the SCDSL, CSL, Discovery, ECNL whatever? But will the 02 DPL players be willing to move to full time DA?

What really sucks is 10-12 years ago we had a nice little soccer pyramid here in SoCal, it was Coast Soccer League, and if you won you moved up, all the way to Premier, and Premier was where it was at. Small clubs could compete, travel was less onerous. There was enough competition in SoCal for this too succeed. Instead we made SCDSL, ECNL, USSDA and now, we have to travel to god knows where to play games, North Carolina, Phoenix, Florida, etc... when we could have just stayed here. All this travel is stupid, to watch a bunch of kids play kickball.
 
Yeah those numbers will continue to go down, Beach has 13 of the 35, 03's on their roster. Galaxy SD has 9 of the 35. Which mean the other 4 have 12 03's combined. I think that is what the numbers will look like, 3 or 4 03's per team at the most.

I actually think that the DA's decision to make 03 a DA Pilot and sanction the 03's as their own age group is going to make things even worse here in SoCal. I have heard that an entire Simi Valley Eclipse 03 Coast Premier team is moving to LA Premier DA. Somehow poaching an entire team from another club is the solution? I think that a lot of these clubs will try to move their 02 DPL players to DA02/03, push their 03 DA players to 03 pilot and promote from within to 02 DPL. Further watering down, the SCDSL, CSL, Discovery, ECNL whatever? But will the 02 DPL players be willing to move to full time DA?

What really sucks is 10-12 years ago we had a nice little soccer pyramid here in SoCal, it was Coast Soccer League, and if you won you moved up, all the way to Premier, and Premier was where it was at. Small clubs could compete, travel was less onerous. There was enough competition in SoCal for this too succeed. Instead we made SCDSL, ECNL, USSDA and now, we have to travel to god knows where to play games, North Carolina, Phoenix, Florida, etc... when we could have just stayed here. All this travel is stupid, to watch a bunch of kids play kickball.



CSL wasn’t perfect and how many different Alpha Beta and Zeta legaues would it have now with all these teams?

You aren’t forced to travel to NC, FL or AZ. You choose to sign with a team in a league that has those schedules. There’s no secret in what the commitment is before you sign up.

Pick a CSL team. Pick a Flught One team. Play AYSO select and enjoy local games. If a coach will have you, the choice is yours on how many miles this will be for your season.
 
Openning day for the DA. The Pilot U16 teams have no team pages shown on the USSDA site. I guess the U16 Pilot will be an invisible league for all players? No college coaches will be able to look up the players? If so, wasted year for those talented players at the 03 age group.
 
All the games are on HUDL and these coaches are very familiar with teams and players now. This really isn’t a big deal.
 
My post was more of a question and just wondering why the USSDA does not have a page for the Pilot teams. Doesn’t seem to make sense. Will they have a team page with stats like the other teams? Or will the Pilot teams be invisible on the website all season. Hudl is nice, but not sure why the teams are not listed. People can’t even see who is on the teams. Seems odd to me.
 
I think there are a few things here.

First, the Pilot is only new to SWu16. Texas had it last year and it was the same.

Second, realize that US soccer didn’t really want to make this a pilot or adopt it. It was somewhat a forced conclusion. There’s a reason why DA is not a single age band.

Third, if the league is about development, the rosters and statistics don’t necessarily need to be there. Are they fun to look at? Sure. But US soccer probably feels as if it has given enough to the SW16s.

Fourth, college coaches are so much more dialed in than what’s put on that site. Of the people I know at 03 who have committed already, most of it was not due to what was online. There’s a process, and your coach and club are big factors. Most of these kids are already on coaches radars. It’s also up to the individual kid to do the work with the schools they aspire to play for.

It doesn’t bother me in the least whether my kid’s name is on the website or not. The schedule is there. We knew there’d be no standings. I’m sure the really smart die hards with an interest will provide that.

It’s a good season to have measured competition. While it seems like the DPL is a little more structured than it was last year, the SWu16s are fortunate to have what they have.

Just my opinion.
 
The game reports are published for the SW16 pilots, so if anyone is concerned about college coaches, they can see each game log and roster there.
 
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