The DA team has never been one of the top teams in the country. What is going to change?
ECNL vs. DA turf war has created a 'toxic environment'
- Thread starter VegasParent
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The DA team has never been one of the top teams in the country. What is going to change?
First, they played up with a majority of 03s on last year’s roster. Now that it’s an even field they will show better.
On top of that they added a top player CM from the ECNL team, or are about to, and two top players from another DA club Surf. Those players are all ranked high on TDS if you like that kind of thing.
From what i heard it was one way helping - DA players to ECNL after the DA season. So fair game.
That's positive. The CM from the ECNL team is a stud.
From the Spot
SILVER
How ironic, the champion of the U15 "Best of the Best" isn't a DA or ECNL team! Big props to Surf Hawaii.
And the u15 black tier could be DPL. I'm hearing OC surf dpl is in pk's with dmcv sharks ecnl now
Sharks win in pks. Congrats
Considering they don’t have either of those programs in Hawaii, I’m not sure how ironic that is. Hawaiian teams have always been strong.
Messi>CR7
GOLD
They spend less time traveling and more time on practices.
Ok, so then based on the Surf Cup and Silverlakes samples (which appear to show that either ECNL had a healthy advantage in win totals or things were closer to even, depending on how certain clubs are counted etc., but no reasonable conclusion that the DA teams substantially outperformed ECNL teams overall), is it fair to conclude that, after 2 years, the DA program is not producing teams that are substantially better than their ECNL counterparts on any consistent basis? Is two years a fair timeline? If not, how much of a grace period should DA expect? Given that it was DA who came into the market that already had an established league, identifying a different methodology and asserting that its uniform program was a superior approach to developing the highest level player, is it delivering the promised better mousetrap? If the argument is that one can't reach that conclusion on the basis of DA teams, but instead on the goal of developing the highest caliber individual players, then perhaps it is delivering the better mousetrap if the best players are now (or at least beginning to on a clear basis) come out of that program. So, then two questions: (1) if DA is not producing clearly superior players at the highest end, is DA achieving any of its stated objectives?, and (2) since its teams are not broadly superior to ECNL teams, is DA a better option for any but perhaps the very highest caliber players (and then only assuming the answer to (1) is yes)? If the answer to (1) is no, it appears the program needs to change that quickly or it could be fairly considered a failure, and if the answer to (2) is no, then it seems the YNT already serves this function and DA is a redundancy in the context of the YNT and ECNL. Either way, it seems to me like it was a bad weekend for the DA program. When you show up with the new, better idea, even or worse two years later gets you fired in my business.
Boys DA teams two years into the program weren't even competitive with many NPL teams...it takes time and US Soccer will (I think) eventually squeeze non-DA by only accepting kids playing in DA into the NTC and YNTs. If they allowed high school play and then phased that out over the next 3-4 years I think it would be game over already. I'd not look too deeply into this weekend's results as specifics matter (and it appears whoever did the math here only counted head to head match-ups? why not overall records?). Taking a quick look over a couple age groups it looks like both leagues had similar success. Who played better soccer that translates better to college and beyond? No idea without watching every game.
Using the YNT as leverage doesn’t make it a better mousetrap. If it is compelling on its own merits, why is that exclusionary position necessary? Sort of like Microsoft making people use Explorer over Google, isn’t it? That was great for business until it was an antitrust violation. May not be illegal in this context, but pretty punitive to the kids who aren’t buying the product (which today has not been shown to be clearly better) and its antithetical to the mission of fielding the best possible teams to represent the country.
Not targeting this comment at OT but just using this post as an example. The debate is actually becoming comical. "DA is pulling the best players and has the best talent hands down..... ECNL is dead and second tier"..... oh they didn't demonstrate dominance at a recent showcase of head to head play? then the comments change to: "Those were not the top DA teams there.... the best DA teams are all on break right now..... It takes time to develop, eventually the DA will show their dominance..... these specific games and scores don't matter, DA is a superior developmental platform...."
Either the DA has the best developmental curriculum and has the best players or they don't. I was an early proponent of the DA feeling the pressure to jump on board so my DD didn't get left out of the party then after a short time, realized there was no unique party going on there. It comes down to finding the right coach, team, and club that will provide a benefit to your specific DD in the place where she is at and based on her training needs. It is a shame that US Soccer is excluding players that have chosen a different environment than the DA. It is also a shame about the denigration of college soccer. As has been said many, many times, most youth players will not advance to the USWNT and many will not play professionally. Of those that do play professionally, many will not make as much money as they could with an excellent college degree and other career pathways. Our experience in the DA was not good and actually detrimental at the time. That doesn't mean the DA is bad but it certainly is not the best for all and US Soccer should be looking for the best not who is the best in the DA.
Great post. ECNL (College Scholarship) vs DA (YNT). I went to the first DA party. I was very excited. I wanted my dd to get a ticket to Hollywood to audition for the YNT. She was also told by coaches the judges loved how she played......hahahahahaha. No invite. My dd was pissed. She was super pissed they picked 12 05s out of 48 girls for the first U14 YNT. Some of the 04s they picked were kids who were excellent at the TCs. Juggle 500 times and great skills in small area. She now realizes she is not the type of player they want to develop. She's a gamer. The toxic part in all this: DA is really trying to sell college just like ECNL. However, the rules don't match up. Also, all the top DA clubs DOCs will tell that this YNT is a load of crap for 99.9% of the players and its all about the college scholarship. DA needs to shrink in size quickly and find the players that want to go for YNT and pro. That's the EURO style. The US style is ECNL=College. If you show my dd a way to make some serious $$$ playing professionally she might take 30 minutes out of her day to juggle and get to 500. I think she's at 100 in a row.....lol
Lambchop
GOLD
Interesting, so many of the DA players have college scholarships to top academic schools. Who says DA is not a path to great universities and college scholarships?
I agree...it mostly makes it a 'trap'. But it is one that worked on the Boy's side once it built momentum over 3-5 years. My comments merely reflect the fact that it will probably go similarly for the girls side (but I don't know for sure!). I don't really care about acronyms/leagues (or even club name) so much as having a great coach with a vision of what great soccer looks like and can/will relentlessly teach that...and who has great connections to college opportunities.
Surf Zombie
GOLD
My 2007 played at a club when she was age 8-11 where they were required to be able to do 500 juggles (I think it was by U11) or they couldn’t start. They were threatened that if they couldn’t do 500 by age 12 they wouldn’t play at all. She’d get to like 350- 375 out in the yard and come into the house crying. Horror show, but I digress.
My kid hates it it to this day. Her HS teammate (fullride to UCLA) is the only player I've seen that can pull off a few juggles and then a flick over defenders head for a goal. I will say if she had the mental calmness and patience it would make her a much better player. Oh well
Surf Zombie
GOLD
It’s not fun. Looks great on her instagram account, so i guess there’s that. She’d have been better served putting the extra 100+ hours spent torturing herself into her shooting/finishing instead.
I'm not sure who is claiming that DA is pulling the best players and has the best talent "hands down" at this point? I've talked to a couple college coaches who feel like they are pretty equivalent right now. Who is saying ECNL is dead or second tier (besides maybe some trolls)? I do think that ECNL would have been dead at this point if DA had phased out high school soccer over the course of a few years - many of the strongest ECNL teams declined the initial invitation for this very reason. Sort of sounds sort of like setting up a strawman there. My only point about looking at specific tournament results with small sample sizes is that you really can't read much into it beyond, "Hey both platforms did pretty well". I doubt anyone here would argue that a good DA (or even DPL) team will beat a weak ECNL team and that a good ECNL team would beat a weak DA team. So then it all gets into specific match-ups which is further muddied by the fact that there are new ECNL clubs (like Marin), new DA clubs (like Albion LV) clubs transitioning from one platform to another (like Eagles and others), clubs that have two ECNL squads (quite the coupe there...I'd be pissed if I was an ECNL club that turned down a DA invite) and clubs with both and nobody really knows how they are stacking their players(!). Trying to pull unbiased, useful and meaningful analytics from that mess would be difficult and you'd probably just end up with "yeah they both seem pretty good".
Do specific games and scores matter? I'm not really sure. About 5 years ago we had two older boys (up to U19) DA programs in the area (I think in this way the boys' model is better...narrow down the number of clubs that have them as they get older. this also frees more kids to play high school!). Team A always beat Team B and had a broader, more recognizable profile. Team B had a vision of how the game should be played and taught their players to relentlessly pursue that style. Upon high school graduation Team B had almost every player tied to scholarships at various levels while Team A had just a few. Again, Team A always won their head to head matches and placed higher in the league so there was a lot of confusion and upset parents who didn't really understand that winning soccer and soccer that is transferable to the next level isn't necessarily the same thing.
As for DA having a "superior developmental platform" I can't really comment except to say that they actually have a unified platform while ECNL doesn't really. This really just means the organization has a large degree of control from the top down - DA clubs are routinely evaluated/audited for coaching, coaching licenses, vision, organizational processes, play style, quality of facilities as well as the product on the field. If a club is out of compliance they lose their designation (happens frequently on the Boys side and less so on the Girls since they are trying to build it up). Representatives frequently show up at games to create quite detailed reports (which also include the referee performances). Is that better? Maybe...just depends how it is used. It is also useful to note that even a 'superior platform' doesn't mean superior development in every specific case. I think MVLAs player development is better than almost all DA programs (regardless of DA having a 'better platform'). I'd put Marin up against most of them as well and they weren't even an NPL team (I think...not sure on this point) until they just got offered ECNL.