What did he have to say?
ECNL vs. DA turf war has created a 'toxic environment'
- Thread starter VegasParent
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What did he have to say?
If the European countries ever get serious about women's soccer they will set up women's leagues better than NCAA D1, since they will not be worried about little things like getting passing grades in difficult subjects or finding funding for scholarships.
Our USWNT's are currently successful because the lure of playing in college, thanks to Title 9, makes the youth game so driven and competitive. We simply have more girls playing and playing at higher levels than our European counterparts had previously.
BUUUUT that lead is coming to an end as European pro clubs are investing in the women's game and they are using the same training models and academy systems that have worked for the men for years. The benefits of college and high school soccer have not revealed themselves on the international stage on the men's side and the women's game may follow suit within a generation.
What does that have to the Girls High School Soccer? Not much other than the notion that HS soccer is developmental is going to look quaint in due time. Yes there are benefits to high school but they all seem to sound the same as the benefits of rec soccer. It is fun, social status in school. I played High School sports
The issue with High school soccer really is about volume and over-training. A kid is not going to suddenly forget how to play soccer because they spend a couple months playing HS but they are significantly increasing their risk of injury due to over training. A ECNL schedule plus HS can lead to 40 games in a 6 month span. That along with the number of practices is frankly diminishing returns.
As far as our "system" with college compared to Europe in time it will look about the same as the men's side compared to Europe.
Title 9 and the financial college benefits make soccer a prime youth sport target for girls. This means we do have leagues like ECNL and GDA where the most driven parents/kids can get pretty high level training at younger ages. It is a lead on Europe that we have capitalized on. The desire to play in college for some financial benefit is the real driver of our youth system on the girls side. High School is just kinda in the way of some of that and really contributes nothing to the player pool. The college hook through club is what has made the difference.
That said, our lead will not last as the European academies are seriously investing in the women's game. The Dutch will even play co-ed until 19 if necessary. They also didn't play in their first major tournament until 2009 and ten years later they reached the finals in the World Cup. Title 9 will always give us a deep player pool but where we will fall behind Europe is the quality and the PROFESSIONAL training during those college years. As women's professional leagues grow in Europe and the major big clubs keep investing their women will be playing and training as professionals while we will have student athletes.
Other examples of where our college approach has failed on the international stage, Basketball (We sent the Dream Team to restore order after our men's team lost in the previous Olympics), Hockey (Miracle On Ice not withstanding). We need a strong professional league that can pay our top women's players and allow them go directly pro and bypass the college game altogether.
And as far as the European players coming here to play in college they are not sending their best. This has been the case on the men's side for some time. These European players essentially washed out of the pro academies and are cashing their soccer in for an education here. They are not coming here to become soccer players. This will also be more of a phenomena on the women's side as the pro game grows in Europe.
We have a huge player pool thanks to Title 9 but without a strong and economically viable pro league our development will stagnate during the college years in comparison to Europe.
vegasguy
GOLD
They have serious women's leagues. Real Madrid, Barca, PSG, Lyon, Man City, Chelsea all have great women' s leagues but don't support it financially as many of those countries culturally do not support the leagues the clubs do. We love our USWNT and yet don't go to NWSL games. Read what Anson Dorrance said and it is true. Most countries can put out a top line and when a player is subbed out the quality falls dramatically. Not for the USA because of College Soccer not DA. Because we have thousands of young women fighting for field time. France is full of starting subs and their bench is awful. Players for Jamaica and Mexico and many other countries are players who could not make our national team and played at a US College. The England #1 Keeper played for a SoCal Club. So for the women, college works as a feeder to the USWNT.
That is all true NOW but that is not where the game will be in Europe in ten years.
As stated above, Title 9 provided the motivation for a deep player pool for colleges to choose from but the college game did not really develop our USWNT.
As financial growth and incentives increase in the women's game in Europe their player pool will deepen and so will their substitution quality and depth. Anson is simply trying to protect the college game but having a viable professional league will do more for the women's game than D1 will in the long run. Sports like Baseball, Hockey, Tennis and Golf all do fine providing a pathway where college is not necessary even though it is still available. Certainly LeBron and Kobe did just fine without college as well, and Kobe played a lot of BB and soccer in Spain too.
They have the YNT respresentation because Quakes are a DA club. Not to say he doesn't have talented deserving players, but there are others as or more deserving not getting looks because of ECNL affiliation.
dk_b
GOLD
I'm well aware of that - I was making no judgment on "deserving" and have a lot of strong thoughts that I would not share on this board about precisely this situation (GDA/ECNL/YNT). My main point is that the end game for nearly all elite-elite players is college soccer because only the tiniest fraction makes a NT and, comparing those two clubs (at least in those age groups), Mustang and Quakes are on par and the Mustang girls had the opportunity to play HS soccer if they wanted (and nearly all did). Other NorCal DA clubs in those age groups don't have close to the same measurable success in terms of college placement and those girls had no choice about HS soccer (since US Soccer made it for them) and a very, very small # (0 at most of these clubs) have been called into camp.
vegasguy
GOLD
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?[/QUOTE]
To the first question, Our U20's and U17's got the breaks beat off them.... Do not put to much credence into this. At the Man City Cup our boys academies are beating Euro Academies at times at the U14 age. Dig deeper and the soccer is different. America is playing to win at that age and the Euro's are playing to develop (play the way you face, 1 and 2 touch, achieve the 2v1 solution and attack). Our u20 men's killed it at the Youth World Cup in Poland this year making quarters and yet we don't qualify at the true World Cup. Point being is development is different so the YNT teams are great but not a benchmark; at least in my opinion.
Club v. High School. Lose and do not get out of your pool at Surf, Blues, big name tournament and what do you do? You pack up and head home. Talk a little soccer and train. You lose a playoff game to your rival and you will feel the difference even as a parent. Differing sense of pride and most of all different passion. You represent your student body, your High School. Believe or not is still matters and that letter jacket still matters to many. I didn't want my child to play high school. He did anyway. In the regional match against a rival and top seed, there were about 400kids cramming a sideline and behind my keeper son on the touchline. Some yelling for him and some yelling things at him that I was shocked to hear. In a tight match the boys on the field played harder than you see at most Surf finals. It was intense, kids chanting my son's name and when that whistle went off and the students ran on the field it was their World Cup for that day. You don't get that from club. Do I think it will have an affect on my son and his personal development. Yes. Am I glad he plays HS. Heck yes it is fun for us to watch too. It is different than Club for sure.
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?[/QUOTE]
To the first question, Our U20's and U17's got the breaks beat off them.... Do not put to much credence into this. At the Man City Cup our boys academies are beating Euro Academies at times at the U14 age. Dig deeper and the soccer is different. America is playing to win at that age and the Euro's are playing to develop (play the way you face, 1 and 2 touch, achieve the 2v1 solution and attack). Our u20 men's killed it at the Youth World Cup in Poland this year making quarters and yet we don't qualify at the true World Cup. Point being is development is different so the YNT teams are great but not a benchmark; at least in my opinion.
Club v. High School. Lose and do not get out of your pool at Surf, Blues, big name tournament and what do you do? You pack up and head home. Talk a little soccer and train. You lose a playoff game to your rival and you will feel the difference even as a parent. Differing sense of pride and most of all different passion. You represent your student body, your High School. Believe or not is still matters and that letter jacket still matters to many. I didn't want my child to play high school. He did anyway. In the regional match against a rival and top seed, there were about 400kids cramming a sideline and behind my keeper son on the touchline. Some yelling for him and some yelling things at him that I was shocked to hear. In a tight match the boys on the field played harder than you see at most Surf finals. It was intense, kids chanting my son's name and when that whistle went off and the students ran on the field it was their World Cup for that day. You don't get that from club. Do I think it will have an affect on my son and his personal development. Yes. Am I glad he plays HS. Heck yes it is fun for us to watch too. It is different than Club for sure.
dk_b
GOLD
To the first question, Our U20's and U17's got the breaks beat off them.... Do not put to much credence into this. At the Man City Cup our boys academies are beating Euro Academies at times at the U14 age. Dig deeper and the soccer is different. America is playing to win at that age and the Euro's are playing to develop (play the way you face, 1 and 2 touch, achieve the 2v1 solution and attack). Our u20 men's killed it at the Youth World Cup in Poland this year making quarters and yet we don't qualify at the true World Cup. Point being is development is different so the YNT teams are great but not a benchmark; at least in my opinion.
Club v. High School. Lose and do not get out of your pool at Surf, Blues, big name tournament and what do you do? You pack up and head home. Talk a little soccer and train. You lose a playoff game to your rival and you will feel the difference even as a parent. Differing sense of pride and most of all different passion. You represent your student body, your High School. Believe or not is still matters and that letter jacket still matters to many. I didn't want my child to play high school. He did anyway. In the regional match against a rival and top seed, there were about 400kids cramming a sideline and behind my keeper son on the touchline. Some yelling for him and some yelling things at him that I was shocked to hear. In a tight match the boys on the field played harder than you see at most Surf finals. It was intense, kids chanting my son's name and when that whistle went off and the students ran on the field it was their World Cup for that day. You don't get that from club. Do I think it will have an affect on my son and his personal development. Yes. Am I glad he plays HS. Heck yes it is fun for us to watch too. It is different than Club for sure.[/QUOTE]
Really well-stated.
Also, the word "obsolete" in the post to which you are responding strikes me as odd. How can it be obsolete when MOST kids don't play college and fewer of those kids get called into camp (or have a hope to be called in)? Should we be limiting our kids' opportunities for growth, social connection, involvement with community any more than we already did? Because our U17s and U20s did not advance? I go back to . . . HS may be de-emphasized in pretty much every sport in terms of a vehicle for college or national team recruitment but do the elite-elite kids REALLY lose that much by playing for 3 or 4 months? I mean, if they are that good, how can they lose that much. But what do they gain? For some, it is negligible and they should do something else in the break. For others? It is hugely important.
My kid has represented the US in a foreign country in front of thousands of people. It was an experience to remember forever and I think she'd easily put it on the top of all her soccer experiences to date. But she also loves representing her school for all the reasons @vegasguy just wrote. In the end, the kid she is and the woman she becomes will be framed by all of it.
vegasguy
GOLD
LeBron and Kobe did fine as they are Spotted Unicorns and were surrounded by players who at most attended two years of college based on the rules at that time. Also, if they failed they were given a financial head start. There is very little if any financial head start in women's soccer and I am sorry I don't see the proof that this will change in 10yrs. I think USWNT and MNT will be equally paid (at least they should be) or a closer gap but I do not see FIFA Changing dramatically as sad as that sounds. Many baseball players chose college and still make the pro's too. See Max Sherzer (sp)
MakeAPlay
DA
I agree with some of what you said and disagree with some. We fell behind Europe in basketball on the international stage simply because we were send kids that were significantly younger than the seasoned European and South American teams that they were playing. Our top players were forgoing their amateur status quickly due to the financial incentives that the NBA offered. Same goes for hockey. The best American players due to the financial incentive of professional sports simply weren't playing. You also are neglecting to mention that a significant amount of other nations (Canada, Sweden, Norway and Russia to name a few) were already heavily invested in hockey as were many of those other countries already heavily invested in basketball (it is the 2nd most popular sport on the continent FYI).
On the women's side until the game is truly financially viable (it isn't very profitable in ANY league in the world) there won't be the same financial incentives to drive the pro game. The player pools in these countries is not very vast unlike on the men's side. Our numbers and our semi-pro league (NCAA D1) is better than all but the top few teams in each league other than in England where most of teams have top facilities). If you did a little more research on it you will see that those leagues are top heavy and many of the bottom teams pay very little or are essentially Pro-AM teams. Pretty much any US player that played D1 and was decent can catch on in Europe. Why would that be the case if the training was so shitty? My daughter's team played what amounted to a mixture of U18-U23 national team players from a bunch of countries recently and they didn't even have their complete roster, heck many colleges had players that played in the World Cup.
I used to think that Europe had caught us but this cycle showed that our talent pool is currently too deep and getting deeper and more technical and a decent coach won't have a problem keeping us in the top 2-3. Maybe Pia was just a bad coach or we would be sitting on 3 straight World Cup titles.
Good luck to you and your player.
dk_b
GOLD
Hockey and baseball have well-developed minor league systems. And, still, I'd question whether those sports "do fine" except at the very top levels. What about the kid who gets drafted out of HS, goes pro and washes out? You know . . . like the vast, vast majority of pro ballplayers (currently, there are 40 rounds of the draft and 30 teams; that's up to 1,200 drafted every year. Then there are the international players no subject to the draft. There are also 1,200 on the 30 teams' "40 man rosters" (25 from the active roster + 15 minor league players). MOST do not make the top level (most don't even make AAA).
@Mullet also mentioned golf and tennis. Again, at the top levels - the players that casual observers like me hear about - they may make a great living. And, in a sense, if people are watching, the sports "do fine". But do the athletes? I'd question that all the pros in golf and tennis who had the opportunity to play in college but went pro instead - even a fraction of those pros - would not have benefitted from a subsidized education, joining the pro ranks later and/or turning their education into something else.
We run the risk of turning anecdote - Push, Horan, Moultrie - into trends or into representatives of the whole. Soon we will have a big group of soccer NT players who did not play HS but will that really be evidence that HS is bad for soccer development? I mean, if US Soccer is focusing on DA (as it is), the resulting sample is not really indicative of anything other than a clear policy for recruitment. The current senior players - and college age players in the older YNT teams - are likely more representative because they had choice. And most chose - overwhelmingly to play HS.
The head start for us is Title 9.
The path to many pro sports both in the US and around the World do not always include college. The path to professional soccer in Europe does not include college. Within a very short period of time the women's game in Europe will model the men's professional academy system. If their leagues grow at a rate faster than our weak 9 team league does they will surpass our college development model.
The NHL has multiple pathways but choosing a professional path at a younger age yields greater success than the college path does. Baseball is also similar. Working ones way up though the minors yields greater development success than the college game allows. To think that a system based on 4 years of college for soccer will be able to match a professional academy system is putting ones head in the sand.
MakeAPlay
DA
Input limits potential output. The foreign academies do not have similar levels of players on the women's side and that has not changed in the equation. Statistically speaking there is no significant difference in professional baseball or hockey careers in our pro leagues between straight to the pros players and players that played any amount of college time if you remove the foreign born players.
The NWSL is not the chief development vehicle for the US in the 18-23 age range the NCAA is. Not to mention that US players can easily get on top flight professional European teams due to their lack of sufficient high end talent. You do remember that the North Carolina Courage won the ICC last year over Lyon right?
The reality is Women's World Cup is still really a Amateur level tournament. The amount and quality of professional leagues around the world is just developing and hopefully capable of growth. So, in a tournament that is essentially amateurs our college system will remain king. But, for the good of the women's game internationally we should be willing to support multiple, healthy and viable professionals leagues here and abroad.
vegasguy
GOLD
UNLV Women's team played Argentina's World Cup Women's team in April for a Spring Game and a WWC tune up match for Argentina. UNLV (many played high school) won 1-0. Argentina went on to tie Scotland and Japan and lose to England 1 to 0. I think Utah Valley also beat Argentina. The Rebels did not make the Women's College Cup this year. So is our way working out ok for the women?
vegasguy
GOLD
Substitute US Men and MLS for women's and domestically for abroad and you have the US Men's argument for the last 20+ years. We as a soccer country are different and are a different as men and women development. It is ok to be different. There are a multiple ways to develop quality world class players. We need to embrace that instead of a "program".
MakeAPlay
DA
I agree with you. My player will most likely be playing in England come December so I hear you. She isn't exactly enamored with the NWSL unless she was guaranteed to play for Portland or North Carolina. Our domestic league has a way to go in terms of facilities and pay. I wish that US Soccer would invest some of their war chest on paying the ladies better and subsidizing some investments in facilities. That in my opinion would be money better spent than giving bigger guaranteed salaries to a small group of players (many of whom have endorsements too) while the rest of the players live off of peanuts because they truly love the game and want to play as long as they are able.
Our family friends who have been strong baseball players cover a wide spectrum. My high school buddy (he had a car and we were dating sisters) got a free trip to Florida for half of spring training and was driving a cab the last time I saw him. Some of my kids' classmates got college scholarships and/or signing bonuses and a couple are still active players. Baseball and basketball (and hockey too if you live where that can be played outdoors) have the funding available to winnow out thousands of players to find the one or two who will play at the highest level. Soccer as currently instituted in the USA does not.
dk_b
GOLD
I don't disagree that growing the game requires that but I am not sure "we should" do any of that - I mean, this is a captive audience of very supportive, dedicated folks. But still this group is not representative of the vast, vast majority of people out there. And unless/until there are real economic incentives for multiple, healthy, viable professional leagues, women's soccer will remain the cream at the top but not much more beyond that. The world is a soccer world but most countries with soccer cultures do not promote girls/women playing soccer like occurs here. Even where there is a lot of participation at the young ages, much of that drops off when the girls hit puberty. That said, even in the countries where it is flourishing, there is lack of support at the gate, in uniform purchases, in sponsorship opportunities, in broadcast range. Solve for all of that, there MAY be a jump. I certainly hope so b/c I do enjoy the game and want it to expand. But one of the main reasons that the WNBA continues is b/c it has a major benefactor in the NBA - if FIFA really wanted to grow the women's game, it could be that benefactor. If not FIFA, maybe the European leagues but I think they'd almost need to do it HERE.