2 new girls DA clubs announced

Real Deal said:
I don't know. Why does anyone care that much about high school soccer for their kids? It was being highly discouraged prior to DA, by coaches and, yes, ECNL ones too. The reason being: It is the bad soccer injury capitol of the universe! Not even counting overuse.... I think it's just being used as an excuse by clubs who are being revealed by GDA as maybe not as "elite" as they seemed. I wonder, if US Soccer changed the rules tomorrow, would these clubs jump back in?

Anyway, I would way rather have my kids getting recruited to colleges while in high school, than playing high school soccer. They can try track or hoops or something where they won't get killed.

As long as GDA proves to be a viable college recruiting platform, providing the necessary training for the next level, I can't see it going away.

And if the majority of future WNT players come from SoCal and Texas, well then, so be it :p
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This view seems very parochial. Kids shouldn't have to choose elite soccer versus playing with their friends. Doesn't GDA also mandate no other high school sports? My player was county athlete of the year her senior year of high school and it was due to her playing multiple sports at a high level. It didn't stop her from playing more minutes than any other field player the girst 2 years of her college career at a school that has top 5 team. If your player cannot handle physical play D1 college soccer might not be for her and that is a fact.

Good luck to you and your player.
 
MakeAPlay said:
This view seems very parochial. Kids shouldn't have to choose elite soccer versus playing with their friends. Doesn't GDA also mandate no other high school sports? My player was county athlete of the year her senior year of high school and it was due to her playing multiple sports at a high level. It didn't stop her from playing more minutes than any other field player the girst 2 years of her college career at a school that has top 5 team. If your player cannot handle physical play D1 college soccer might not be for her and that is a fact.

Good luck to you and your player.
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Fair enough. But I will note that physical soccer and bad soccer are two different things. And that too much soccer in general leads to overuse injuries. Do understand, though, that at the right high school you can gain fun accolades and win a championship and that can be a great experience.

So--I am most curious to know your opinion on this:
If the "no high school rule" were to change tomorrow, would these clubs jump back on board, and would folks like you be more inclined to accept GDA?
 
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Real Deal said:
Fair enough. But I will note that physical soccer and bad soccer are two different things. And that too much soccer in general leads to overuse injuries. Do understand, though, that at the right high school you can gain fun accolades and win a championship and that can be a great experience.

So--I am most curious to know your opinion on this:
If the "no high school rule" were to change tomorrow, would these clubs jump back on board, and would folks like you be more inclined to accept GDA?
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I was never against what the pie in the sky goals of the GDA were originally intended to be. My problem is that it is a lie. If their goal was to create these elite players for the national team then they need to fully fund it, pick the players regionally and have them play and train together on a different track from the pseudo elite players. In SoCal there are only about 25-35 players per age group that should be in a program like that not the 300+ per age group that are in the program. For all but maybe 1-4 per age group college is going to be the highest level that they ever play. Why not have a track for that? GDA is not that track and it is not elite only like ODP. So what is it supposed to be? Personally I didn't want my player to play high school out of fear but she wanted to play and never got injured. She got to play with her friends (they were never good enough to play with her past AYSO) and it made her happy. One of those friends she has known since elementary school and now they go to college together. Whenever I see her friend she always talks about how great those 2 years (she was on frosh/soph and JV her first two years while my kid was on Varsity all 4 years) that they played together were. Life is about the journey and soccer is only a small part of it even if your kid is a future national team player. Unless they are getting offered SIGNIFICANT money to forgo it (think Wes McKinnie, Tim Weah or Christian Pulisic) let them play.

Good luck to you and your player.
 
Real Deal said:
I don't know. Why does anyone care that much about high school soccer for their kids?
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Because its fun. My son absolutely loved it. Trying to make the varsity team as a freshman, playing with his schoolmates and meeting new kids from the school that he now had something in common with, going to practice after school with that kid from Spanish class, that kid from biology, the silent nods from the upperclassman when walking down the hall between classes, the comradery and sense of pride when all the soccer players (Freshman, JV and Varsity) wore their school soccer polo shirts on game day, riding on the bus to an away game, having the cheerleaders make a poster with the boy's name on it, having the girls team cheer them on during their playoff run, playing in a stadium filled with parents and classmates, etc., etc.

HS soccer may have its negatives, but in SoCal, at least at our school, the coaches for the Varsity and JV team are each local Club coaches and the same is true for virtually every school in our league. The kids that make the teams are almost all club kids and I can honestly say that my son's team played a better brand of soccer than his last two club teams.

We ask so much of our kids, do well in school, devote 2-4 hours a day to practice a few times a week (mine is a GK), chores, and other things that might not be fun. Humans (including our sons and daughters and especially our daughters) are social animals and playing for the High School team is just plain fun and an experience that club soccer does not provide.

When roughly 8-9% of kids will ever play in college at any level and the odds of getting a scholarship are even less, why on earth would we as parents/adults permit some A-Hole with US Soccer in Chicago to dictate to our kids they can't have fun for a few months?

Various scientific studies have found the injury rate is slightly lower in HS soccer (2.6 per 1k AEH) v. Club (3.0 per 1k AEH). (see, http://www.apta.org/PTinMotion/News/2017/3/22/HSSoccerInjuries/ and http://natajournals.org/doi/pdf/10.4085/1062-6050-45.3.238?code=nata-site) Note, anybody claiming different is relying on anecdotal evidence, which is inherently unreliable.

Bottom line ... they are kids. If they want to play HS soccer let them. Its fun. If they don't, OK that is their choice. The only exception in my mind is if you have a truly gifted athlete that is invited to the US Soccer National Youth Team Camp. Otherwise, a few month break playing HS soccer isn't going to impact much at all.
 
Ok, so then if GDA were to allow high school you all think no one would be so critical, and the teams who just backed out would jump back in?

BTW-- I do not know a single parent who believes the Girls' DA is some kind of direct route to the national team (oh except maybe a couple).
 
Real Deal said:
Ok, so then if GDA were to allow high school you all think no one would be so critical, and the teams who just backed out would jump back in?

BTW-- I do not know a single parent who believes the Girls' DA is some kind of direct route to the national team (oh except maybe a couple).
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I believe the concerns about DA include more than not being able to play high school. It sounds like there are also concerns about the substitution rules and the required 4 practices a week. Although most elite athletes do practice 3-4 times a week with privates, etc, they have more flexibility on scheduling and time. High school academics can be very demanding and having the flexibility to shift your time to allow your DD or DS to be successful with that is more important to many.
 
Real Deal said:
Ok, so then if GDA were to allow high school you all think no one would be so critical, and the teams who just backed out would jump back in?

BTW-- I do not know a single parent who believes the Girls' DA is some kind of direct route to the national team (oh except maybe a couple).
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I think if DA changes the HS rule along with the sub rule, it makes it attractive for many...and makes it more difficult for ECNL.
 
Real Deal said:
Ok, so then if GDA were to allow high school you all think no one would be so critical, and the teams who just backed out would jump back in?

BTW-- I do not know a single parent who believes the Girls' DA is some kind of direct route to the national team (oh except maybe a couple).
Click to expand...

Not just HS, but more liberal substitution rules. The teams that have left have cited both elements as major factors in their decision to leave the DA. Why the hell does a Girls U15 team carrying 22 players need to adhere to international rules on substitutions? What "development" purpose is served for the other girls on the bench? 11 starters and 3 subs and 8 bench players that won't see a single game minute because ... why?

Its one thing if this is an Academy Club for a Professional team that is training these girls for free with the hopes they move to the Senior level, but that is not the US Model. The US Model for girls is:
  1. Play on a high level team where you actually play at least 70%
  2. Make a "college recruiting" video.
  3. Go to College (maybe get a scholarship to play) (38,873 open spots to play in college in the U.S.)
  4. Get a Degree
  5. Go to work in the real world.
  6. Play semi-pro soccer for some NWSL team that pays right around minimum wage (234 open spots to play).
  7. Get invited to play for the National Team (22 open spots), quite real world job with National Team stipend.
  8. Become 1 of 3 marketable faces on the National Team that can do an endorsement deal and make a few hundred thousand more.
So, the odds are 1,766-to-1 of a college soccer player eventually playing for the national team. Restated, there is a .0566% chance (not 1%, not .5%, but five one-hundreds of a percent) of a college player making it to the next level. Compared to:

Odds of fatally slipping in bath or shower: 2,232 to 1
Odds of being killed sometime in the next year in any sort of transportation accident: 77 to 1
Chance of getting prostate cancer: 1 in 6
Chance of getting breast cancer: 1 in 9
Chance of getting colon / rectal cancer: 1 in 26
Chance of beating pancreatic or liver cancer: 1 in 9

But, here is the real rub, the Odd of being selected to the US Women's National Team while playing for a DA or ECNL or any club is 0, but getting selected while in college 1 in 21.

The US WNT does not select players from the DA or ECNL, it selects from college or the semi-pro teams. Making a youth national team can certainly pad the recruiting resume, but so can many other achievements.
 
Tomnchar said:
I believe the concerns about DA include more than not being able to play high school. It sounds like there are also concerns about the substitution rules and the required 4 practices a week. Although most elite athletes do practice 3-4 times a week with privates, etc, they have more flexibility on scheduling and time. High school academics can be very demanding and having the flexibility to shift your time to allow your DD or DS to be successful with that is more important to many.
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Another concern about the DA in other regions outside of SoCal is the travel. This probably doesn't apply to SoCal since there are so many DA teams in the same region, but the travel is a big issue elsewhere.

For the DA teams in NorCal, they each have to take 5 road trips for league games where they have to get on planes and rent hotel rooms. The NorCal ECNL teams only have 1 road trip like that for league games.

What makes it worse is the playing time for the kids who are not starters. A lot of families don't think it makes sense to spend all that money for flights/hotels when their kid might only see the field for 15 minutes.
 
MWN, it's not really fair to list the "cons" without listing the "pros"

1. Vanity
2. You can boast to your friends that your child plays in the USDA - The ones that aren't savvy enough to know that you are sacrificing your daughter's childhood for lottery ticket odds.

- feel free to add to the list..
 
Desert Hound said:
I think if DA changes the HS rule along with the sub rule, it makes it attractive for many...and makes it more difficult for ECNL.
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The problem with GDA is that US Soccer does not understand that those who incur the costs (the clubs) are businesses that need to at least break even. It is very easy for US Soccer to impose one mandatory obligation after the next without regard to the economic impact of their decisions, because US Soccer isn’t the entity that takes the financial hit for the decisions it makes. And those decisions drive boatloads of paying customers away.

Think about it. GDA clubs lose kids who want to play HS. They lose more who don’t want to give up piano, or tennis, or their entire social life, to train four days a week. They lose more who can’t or won’t pay to fly 6-7x a year. And more who are on the younger half of the age group and therefore not good enough to make the squad, but who can still be seen by college coaches by playing ECNL. More who think it is ridiculous to miss 8-10 days of school to travel and play in showcases in FL and NC. More who are forced to sit the bench solely due to the substitution limits. More because the costs are prohibitive. More who seem to be getting hurt from the overtraining. And how many do they pick up because they slapped their brand name on the league? None probably. Read just about any comment in response to a US Soccer social media post. It is one of the most reviled brands of any kind in the US.

What kind of business model can succeed that drives so many would be customers away from it unnecessarily? Not this one, I am sure of that. Especially when it’s primary competitor provides all the benefits of GDA, but much less of the bad.

In the end, the clubs that left GDA did not leave over HS, so they aren’t coming back even if US Soccer relented. They left because US Soccer wouldn’t listen to any of the members’ legitimate concerns, including concerns about rules that jeopardize their financial future. It is US Soccer's hubris and “my way or the highway” attitude, without regard for the financial impact, that drove these clubs out.
 
InTheValley said:
The problem with GDA is that US Soccer does not understand that those who incur the costs (the clubs) are businesses that need to at least break even. It is very easy for US Soccer to impose one mandatory obligation after the next without regard to the economic impact of their decisions, because US Soccer isn’t the entity that takes the financial hit for the decisions it makes. And those decisions drive boatloads of paying customers away.

Think about it. GDA clubs lose kids who want to play HS. They lose more who don’t want to give up piano, or tennis, or their entire social life, to train four days a week. They lose more who can’t or won’t pay to fly 6-7x a year. And more who are on the younger half of the age group and therefore not good enough to make the squad, but who can still be seen by college coaches by playing ECNL. More who think it is ridiculous to miss 8-10 days of school to travel and play in showcases in FL and NC. More who are forced to sit the bench solely due to the substitution limits. More because the costs are prohibitive. More who seem to be getting hurt from the overtraining. And how many do they pick up because they slapped their brand name on the league? None probably. Read just about any comment in response to a US Soccer social media post. It is one of the most reviled brands of any kind in the US.

What kind of business model can succeed that drives so many would be customers away from it unnecessarily? Not this one, I am sure of that. Especially when it’s primary competitor provides all the benefits of GDA, but much less of the bad.

In the end, the clubs that left GDA did not leave over HS, so they aren’t coming back even if US Soccer relented. They left because US Soccer wouldn’t listen to any of the members’ legitimate concerns, including concerns about rules that jeopardize their financial future. It is US Soccer's hubris and “my way or the highway” attitude, without regard for the financial impact, that drove these clubs out.
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You are right about US Soccer not listening to their members. This is the email that Michigan Hawks just sent out to their membership. See at the new model they are proposing with ECNL's blessing, which looks to be more inclusive and allowing more flexibility to players who choose to pursue other interests outside of club soccer.

The ECNL's holistic approach to the development of the entire player was one of the biggest reasons for our decision. We believe that we can provide a better overall experience for each of our players and families within the programming of the ECNL. Another important factor in this decision was our ability to include our first two teams into the ECNL for the 2018-2019 season. They have decided that based on the performance of our teams in the league this year, we will be able to have two teams participate moving forward. This gives us the ability to provide 30-40 kids in each age group the opportunity to compete at this elite level.

So, what does that mean? What will next year look like?

The club's plan in 2018-2019 for the 2005s will be to offer 2 ECNL teams to players. Both teams will be on a 10-month program, that will include conference games, ECNL Showcases and friendly weekends vs top clubs spread over the entire year.

The club's plan for the 2001s-2004s will be to offer 2 different team options to our players. The first will be a 10-month ECNL program, that will include conference games, ECNL Showcases and friendly weekends vs top clubs spread over the entire year. This team will be selected based on ability first and then the willingness of the player to commit to the 10-month calendar. Players on this team will be allowed to participate in other high school sports, just not soccer. This year round program has been a formula for success for our elite players for the last 5 years.

The Michigan Hawks will also offer 6-month ECNL programming for players, for those players that would like to play high school. The only difference for this group will be that they will play their conference schedule and showcases in the fall and winter, finishing up in early March, before high school starts. There will be an option for a spring showcase team for these players on the 6-month team that choose not to play in high school.
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SocalPapa said:
I'm not a doctor, but I'm pretty sure my DD's odds of getting prostate cancer are 0%. ;)
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Yes, true, likewise my son's (and my) odds of developing ovarian cancer are likewise 0% and I'm fairly certain neither of us will undergo a hysterectomy.
 
Kicker4Life said:
I know of a few DA players playing other High school sports I.e. Tennis. I think it is more the exception than the rule.
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Four players on my DD DA team play a high school sport just not soccer. They get to play with friends, travel on buses, experience the recognition by other students. So, the experience is there if they want it and can handle the school work load, DA and their sport. In addition they somehow have time for video games, social media, tv, and shopping. For some it definitely works!
 
MWN said:
Not just HS, but more liberal substitution rules. The teams that have left have cited both elements as major factors in their decision to leave the DA. Why the hell does a Girls U15 team carrying 22 players need to adhere to international rules on substitutions? What "development" purpose is served for the other girls on the bench? 11 starters and 3 subs and 8 bench players that won't see a single game minute because ... why?

Its one thing if this is an Academy Club for a Professional team that is training these girls for free with the hopes they move to the Senior level, but that is not the US Model. The US Model for girls is:
  1. Play on a high level team where you actually play at least 70%
  2. Make a "college recruiting" video.
  3. Go to College (maybe get a scholarship to play) (38,873 open spots to play in college in the U.S.)
  4. Get a Degree
  5. Go to work in the real world.
  6. Play semi-pro soccer for some NWSL team that pays right around minimum wage (234 open spots to play).
  7. Get invited to play for the National Team (22 open spots), quite real world job with National Team stipend.
  8. Become 1 of 3 marketable faces on the National Team that can do an endorsement deal and make a few hundred thousand more.
So, the odds are 1,766-to-1 of a college soccer player eventually playing for the national team. Restated, there is a .0566% chance (not 1%, not .5%, but five one-hundreds of a percent) of a college player making it to the next level. Compared to:

Odds of fatally slipping in bath or shower: 2,232 to 1
Odds of being killed sometime in the next year in any sort of transportation accident: 77 to 1
Chance of getting prostate cancer: 1 in 6
Chance of getting breast cancer: 1 in 9
Chance of getting colon / rectal cancer: 1 in 26
Chance of beating pancreatic or liver cancer: 1 in 9

But, here is the real rub, the Odd of being selected to the US Women's National Team while playing for a DA or ECNL or any club is 0, but getting selected while in college 1 in 21.

The US WNT does not select players from the DA or ECNL, it selects from college or the semi-pro teams. Making a youth national team can certainly pad the recruiting resume, but so can many other achievements.
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Any team regardless of sub rules is going to have a hard time getting playing time for the girls at the bottom. At least DA requires every girl to start 25% of the time. What I have seen is that most teams have around 16 active players with some of other girls out with long term injuries. Every team I have ever seen has struggled to find playing team beyond the first few subs.
 
MWN said:
Not just HS, but more liberal substitution rules. The teams that have left have cited both elements as major factors in their decision to leave the DA. Why the hell does a Girls U15 team carrying 22 players need to adhere to international rules on substitutions? What "development" purpose is served for the other girls on the bench? 11 starters and 3 subs and 8 bench players that won't see a single game minute because ... why?

Its one thing if this is an Academy Club for a Professional team that is training these girls for free with the hopes they move to the Senior level, but that is not the US Model. The US Model for girls is:
  1. Play on a high level team where you actually play at least 70%
  2. Make a "college recruiting" video.
  3. Go to College (maybe get a scholarship to play) (38,873 open spots to play in college in the U.S.)
  4. Get a Degree
  5. Go to work in the real world.
  6. Play semi-pro soccer for some NWSL team that pays right around minimum wage (234 open spots to play).
  7. Get invited to play for the National Team (22 open spots), quite real world job with National Team stipend.
  8. Become 1 of 3 marketable faces on the National Team that can do an endorsement deal and make a few hundred thousand more.
So, the odds are 1,766-to-1 of a college soccer player eventually playing for the national team. Restated, there is a .0566% chance (not 1%, not .5%, but five one-hundreds of a percent) of a college player making it to the next level. Compared to:

Odds of fatally slipping in bath or shower: 2,232 to 1
Odds of being killed sometime in the next year in any sort of transportation accident: 77 to 1
Chance of getting prostate cancer: 1 in 6
Chance of getting breast cancer: 1 in 9
Chance of getting colon / rectal cancer: 1 in 26
Chance of beating pancreatic or liver cancer: 1 in 9

But, here is the real rub, the Odd of being selected to the US Women's National Team while playing for a DA or ECNL or any club is 0, but getting selected while in college 1 in 21.

The US WNT does not select players from the DA or ECNL, it selects from college or the semi-pro teams. Making a youth national team can certainly pad the recruiting resume, but so can many other achievements.
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Here are the odds as recently published by the NCAA. http://www.ncaa.org/sites/default/files/2018RES_2017-18ProbabilityofGoPro_20180423.pdf
 
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