ECNL vs. DA turf war has created a 'toxic environment'

offtopic said:
Mohammed (Lamorinda) is pretty much identical. Deza is a better recruiter and has significantly more resources at his disposal.
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I agree with you to a great extent though I’m not sure he commits to such a degree (or maybe it’s just that LAMO teams do not quite get to the same level so you never see them fully turn the corner of applying that style against top teams). I do like watching LAMO teams play but when I see them execute it is usually against good but not great teams.
 
Blank95661 said:
It looks like a tourney in the Bay Area has a pretty cool showcase of ECCL/DA teams https://rageshowcase.org/2019/07/13/ecnl-da-matches-during-rage-college-showcase/
I hope we see more of this in the future.
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I hope Pleasanton Sportspark has had a major redo because those fields can be pretty rough for a showcase. My guess is that Fields 10 and 11 are the "best" that that venue has to offer but Rage uses two other venues that are better - I'm surprised they did not have these marquee games at those locations.
 
MakeAPlay said:
Sounds like high school soccer and the social benefits mattered to them. I know that it mattered to my daughter and most of her friends that played at a similar level.
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To contrast, the two Mustang teams closest in age - 01(/00) and 02 - had nearly all play HS soccer and have nearly all graduating seniors from the 01 group committed (I know of a couple who were not planning on playing in college) and 13 or so of the 02s committed. The Quakes have had better YNT representation than Mustang and Deza teaches them how to play some nice soccer but I do think the college representation will be quite similar and the ones from Mustang who did not play HS got to make their own choices not to play.
 
Kicker4Life said:
Sounds like they played DA until they committed then left to play in their final year of HS now that the pressure was off.
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The pressure is never really on the top players. They are going to get identified because they can help a team win. They just have to be playing at a sufficient level for a top coach to see them play. Let me give you an example. Hallie Mace for my daughter's team wasn't on anyone's radar until her junior year of high school because she was a multi sport athlete (she is one helluva volleyball player too). She started playing U18 ECNL her junior year and got an offer from UCLA when they saw her when they came to check up on one of their committed recruits.

The kids for the most part want to represent their school. I was against it initially but my daughter wanted to do it and for me if it was important to her then that is all that mattered to me.
 
What parents need to realize is that US Soccer isn't the one with the power. They aren't paying anybody's bills and they don't really care about what is best for the holistic development of your player. All they care about is whether your player is a commodity that they can benefit from. They try to slant it so that it seems like a top player won't have the chance to be seen when the truth is that in order to get on the national team you other than two players you had to have been a star in college. Talent and desire is the key. Not a particular league. The vast majority of coaches are simply talent aggregators and not talent developers.

Get a good coach on a good team that gets into the good showcases and let your player do the things that make them happy. They will last a much longer time in the sport.
 
MakeAPlay said:
The pressure is never really on the top players. They are going to get identified because they can help a team win. They just have to be playing at a sufficient level for a top coach to see them play. Let me give you an example. Hallie Mace for my daughter's team wasn't on anyone's radar until her junior year of high school because she was a multi sport athlete (she is one helluva volleyball player too). She started playing U18 ECNL her junior year and got an offer from UCLA when they saw her when they came to check up on one of their committed recruits.

The kids for the most part want to represent their school. I was against it initially but my daughter wanted to do it and for me if it was important to her then that is all that mattered to me.
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In all fairness, you are talking about a very small number of top players who do not feel that pressure. While there may be 6-8 players who will get college offers on most top teams just by being seen, getting the specific college(s) you are interested in to pay attention to you can be a challenge.

All my kids played HS sports. At their school, the teams generally were pretty bad, the coaching very uneven, but the experience was irreplaceable. All those non-soccer development related reasons/benefits that US Soccer scoffs at, helped shape my kids into who they are today.
 
Dos Equis said:
In all fairness, you are talking about a very small number of top players who do not feel that pressure. While there may be 6-8 players who will get college offers on most top teams just by being seen, getting the specific college(s) you are interested in to pay attention to you can be a challenge.

All my kids played HS sports. At their school, the teams generally were pretty bad, the coaching very uneven, but the experience was irreplaceable. All those non-soccer development related reasons/benefits that US Soccer scoffs at, helped shape my kids into who they are today.
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I agree with you 100%. My point is also that it is a small number of players that are "elite" and an even smaller number with the talent and drive to get to the full WNT and you have a league (GDA) that uses the thousands of other players to give those few players the optimal path to get there. The problem is that basically everyone else is just cannon fodder for the few purple unicorns out there that will get to the full team. Even the unicorns have to give up what you and I would consider a normal childhood and development path that does fine in providing enough talent that a decent coach will continue to have our women's team in the top 2-3 in the world.
 
Good info above. Thanks to all for sharing. My question to y’all, is if the above information is still valid in the “new era” of GDA and European investment in the women’s game? For example, now there are teenagers going pro (domestically and abroad) and being encouraged to skip college all together. FIFA also announced recently plans to invest more in the women’s game and it seems to me that opportunities for “elite players” will increase with more investment.
I understand that in the past that High School and college soccer were important. But isn’t this model becoming obsolete considering how our U20’s and U17’s got the brakes beat off of them in recent International tournaments? Is what is happening at the U20 and U17 level indicative of our future if High School and college continue to be advocated because of it’s past success in an era where other nations were too sexist to invest in the women’s game?
Can someone please help me out with a more nuanced examples of community/social benefits of the High School soccer issue, because I just don’t get it. Isn’t club soccer socially beneficial and can’t friends, family, and community support a player at their club games too? What makes High School soccer so special, community oriented, and socially beneficial?
Wouldn’t a 2 semester college soccer season resolve most of the above issues?
 
I'm reluctant to conclude too much about a new landscape of opportunity until I see FIFA's investment and that from the large European clubs and how that impacts younger women/girl players. Even the fact that we see teenage girls going pro - the world is a big place with lots of players. Even a handful of pros doesn't really indicate a trend to me. If playing professionally becomes a viable path for more than just a couple of players now and again, say a path for a group that is (in numbers) akin to 2 full squads of players and playing professionally becomes a viable career path (w/o having to worry about big endorsement dollars), then I will say, "yes, there is a change." Others may feel differently.

With respect to high school - I am sure that my kid is not terribly unique among the kids of people on this board (though I think this is less common in NorCal and more common in SoCal). She does not play in her home community - she commutes to practice and games and while she has great bonds with her club teammates and I consider their parents among my good friends, she is not playing with her social friends, with her community. Playing HS is a different experience - she's playing with girls she's played with and against since the micro rec days when they played 4v4 with no GK. She's part of a HS community that does support its athletes - sometimes that means going out to the games and sometimes it means people high fiving in the hallways or a teacher or support staff person making a comment to her about a recent result or hearing she had been named to this team or that. Younger girls might see her doing a private workout and think, "oh, when I get to HS, I'm going to work like that. I can't wait to be a _____". She and her club teammates play at a high level and give up a lot - like all of your players do - to achieve what they have achieved. All the kids have missed birthday parties and dances and other parties and short trips with friends. A bit of all of that does happen during the HS season.

The elite among the elite teen players are still teens. They do need to be kids and grow to be adults. Their paths may differ but athlete after athlete has shown that that path, even for the elite among the elite, CAN include HS. If a player will suffer so much by taking 3 or 4 months off to play HS, I sure hope that player never gets injured, has a personal tragedy, feels any temporary burnout. If a kid can't take a break w/o the path getting swept away, I worry about that player. (to be clear, if a player CHOOSES not to play, CHOOSES to not take breaks, etc., etc., etc., I am quite supportive because that is the player's CHOICE).
 
dk_b said:
I'm reluctant to conclude too much about a new landscape of opportunity until I see FIFA's investment and that from the large European clubs and how that impacts younger women/girl players. Even the fact that we see teenage girls going pro - the world is a big place with lots of players. Even a handful of pros doesn't really indicate a trend to me. If playing professionally becomes a viable path for more than just a couple of players now and again, say a path for a group that is (in numbers) akin to 2 full squads of players and playing professionally becomes a viable career path (w/o having to worry about big endorsement dollars), then I will say, "yes, there is a change." Others may feel differently.

With respect to high school - I am sure that my kid is not terribly unique among the kids of people on this board (though I think this is less common in NorCal and more common in SoCal). She does not play in her home community - she commutes to practice and games and while she has great bonds with her club teammates and I consider their parents among my good friends, she is not playing with her social friends, with her community. Playing HS is a different experience - she's playing with girls she's played with and against since the micro rec days when they played 4v4 with no GK. She's part of a HS community that does support its athletes - sometimes that means going out to the games and sometimes it means people high fiving in the hallways or a teacher or support staff person making a comment to her about a recent result or hearing she had been named to this team or that. Younger girls might see her doing a private workout and think, "oh, when I get to HS, I'm going to work like that. I can't wait to be a _____". She and her club teammates play at a high level and give up a lot - like all of your players do - to achieve what they have achieved. All the kids have missed birthday parties and dances and other parties and short trips with friends. A bit of all of that does happen during the HS season.

The elite among the elite teen players are still teens. They do need to be kids and grow to be adults. Their paths may differ but athlete after athlete has shown that that path, even for the elite among the elite, CAN include HS. If a player will suffer so much by taking 3 or 4 months off to play HS, I sure hope that player never gets injured, has a personal tragedy, feels any temporary burnout. If a kid can't take a break w/o the path getting swept away, I worry about that player. (to be clear, if a player CHOOSES not to play, CHOOSES to not take breaks, etc., etc., etc., I am quite supportive because that is the player's CHOICE).
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Do you think CIF should eliminate the rule preventing kids from playing club soccer during the HS season?
 
MarkM said:
Do you think CIF should eliminate the rule preventing kids from playing club soccer during the HS season?
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I do not. One of the biggest factors in ACL injuries is the hamstring - either tired from use (or overuse) or a strength imbalance between the hammy and the quad. Playing both is too much and puts kids at risk for more devastating injuries. (Btw: one of the best lectures on ACL prevention that I ever attended made this point - soccer players should NEVER do leg lefts as part of weight training because their quads are almost always strong and often overdeveloped. And if out of balance, even with strong hammies, the quads will pull forward more than the hammies can counteract by pulling back. The result: more stress on the knees and more risk for ACL tears)
 
dk_b said:
I do not. One of the biggest factors in ACL injuries is the hamstring - either tired from use (or overuse) or a strength imbalance between the hammy and the quad. Playing both is too much and puts kids at risk for more devastating injuries. (Btw: one of the best lectures on ACL prevention that I ever attended made this point - soccer players should NEVER do leg lefts as part of weight training because their quads are almost always strong and often overdeveloped. And if out of balance, even with strong hammies, the quads will pull forward more than the hammies can counteract by pulling back. The result: more stress on the knees and more risk for ACL tears)
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My kids' club soccer teams never did weight training.
 
espola said:
My kids' club soccer teams never did weight training.
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I don’t know many who do but I do know players who do on their own (with a trainer or at a gym). But I was trying to make the broader point of avoiding doing too much to build up quads to the neglect of hamstrings and, more importantly, kids need to avoid overtired muscles. I like that both DA and ECNL avoid 2 games/day at showcases and playoffs.
 
dk_b said:
I don’t know many who do but I do know players who do on their own (with a trainer or at a gym). But I was trying to make the broader point of avoiding doing too much to build up quads to the neglect of hamstrings and, more importantly, kids need to avoid overtired muscles. I like that both DA and ECNL avoid 2 games/day at showcases and playoffs.
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My son did a couple of DA showcases during this last season. One of them, we did play 2 games on Saturday, but it was 25 minute halves which was weird. Felt like we were back in U8...lol
 
MacDre said:
Good info above. Thanks to all for sharing. My question to y’all, is if the above information is still valid in the “new era” of GDA and European investment in the women’s game? For example, now there are teenagers going pro (domestically and abroad) and being encouraged to skip college all together. FIFA also announced recently plans to invest more in the women’s game and it seems to me that opportunities for “elite players” will increase with more investment.
I understand that in the past that High School and college soccer were important. But isn’t this model becoming obsolete considering how our U20’s and U17’s got the brakes beat off of them in recent International tournaments? Is what is happening at the U20 and U17 level indicative of our future if High School and college continue to be advocated because of it’s past success in an era where other nations were too sexist to invest in the women’s game?
Can someone please help me out with a more nuanced examples of community/social benefits of the High School soccer issue, because I just don’t get it. Isn’t club soccer socially beneficial and can’t friends, family, and community support a player at their club games too? What makes High School soccer so special, community oriented, and socially beneficial?
Wouldn’t a 2 semester college soccer season resolve most of the above issues?
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Anson Dorrance definitely thinks that what we have here is better than what they have in Europe and many foreign players still play soccer in US colleges. The Dutch coach even played at North Carolina.

I think that the World Cup showed that our college system produces more than enough talent for a decent coach to win. Every US starter in the final played at a D1 college. Many players on multiple teams played college in the US. Until someone can overcome our numerical advantage in terms of player pool size (320+ well funded teams training 25-30 players each), I just don’t see our team being outside the top 2-3.

What country in Europe has that large of a pool of players between the ages of 18 and 23 being trained at top notch facilities most better than the facilities that our top division (the NWSL) trains at.

Regarding high school, girls sports are a social activity and there is no better benefit than being a freshman star on varsity. Most schools only have a couple of players that play at the highest levels so high level club players tend to be stars and being a star at anything in high school has many benefits, but I’m sure that you already know that.

Good luck to you and your player.
 
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