# CSL Gold vs SCDSL Flight 1?



## mlx (Feb 10, 2020)

Can they be considered at the same level in terms of quality (generally speaking)?
Which one would be better in terms of continuing developing?

Team A SCDSL Flight 1 (Next level up in the club is ECNL)
Team B CSL Gold (Next level up in the club is DA)

Edit: On the Boys side, 2007.


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## focomoso (Feb 10, 2020)

mlx said:


> Can they be considered at the same level in terms of quality (generally speaking)?
> Which one would be better in terms of continuing developing?
> 
> Team A SCDSL Flight 1 (Next level up in the club is ECNL)
> ...


The league is not really that important. Most of your games will be outside the league anyway: tournaments, national cup or scrimmages. Find the better coach. Do they emphasize good soccer over winning? Do the kids enjoy playing? If you can't evaluate the coach, find the team where your son fits with the kids and style better.


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## lastkid (Feb 11, 2020)

mlx said:


> Can they be considered at the same level in terms of quality (generally speaking)?
> Which one would be better in terms of continuing developing?
> 
> Team A SCDSL Flight 1 (Next level up in the club is ECNL)
> ...


Generally speaking, on the boys' side I would say that a flight 1 SCDSL teams does not play at the same level as CSL Gold teams.  Look at Presidents Cup and National Cup from last year for B2007.  Only one SCDSL team made it to the final eight for National Cup and no SCDSL teams were in the final eight for Presidents Cup.  Both champions were from CSL and almost all of the final eight were from CSL.  That does not mean that team B is better than team A for your son, but it is pretty safe to say the flight 1 SCDSL teams generally do not compete at the same level as the CSL gold teams.  In CSL, you have to earn your way into the Gold division.


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## Not_that_Serious (Feb 15, 2020)

lastkid said:


> Generally speaking, on the boys' side I would say that a flight 1 SCDSL teams does not play at the same level as CSL Gold teams.  Look at Presidents Cup and National Cup from last year for B2007.  Only one SCDSL team made it to the final eight for National Cup and no SCDSL teams were in the final eight for Presidents Cup.  Both champions were from CSL and almost all of the final eight were from CSL.  That does not mean that team B is better than team A for your son, but it is pretty safe to say the flight 1 SCDSL teams generally do not compete at the same level as the CSL gold teams.  In CSL, you have to earn your way into the Gold division.


Based only off 07 or? As mentioned it’s more about coaching and playing good competition when possible. What is the end goal? College, Pro or just for the kids to play? If one league was better than the other you would see one league dominating, especially all the teams dropping down levels to play. SCDSL also has Discovery where former DA and ECNL teams have gone to play. Again, doesn’t matter as someone else mentioned. DA the goal? If so why? That is up to the individual player and the coaching he has. Not like DA is even a big feeder to the pros statistically. I think most parents do not realize how difficult it is to even smell the gas from players on even a 2nd to 3rd tier pro team. For example, local pro local teams invite about 100 players (some more) to “open” tryouts. Out of that hundred maybe ONE player gets invited to train with the rostered team. That player might not even stick. Sometimes teams don’t even call back any players. If your child has talent, elite talent, see how they are at about 16-17 . hopefully they have a coach who is highly networked and can get them out to a college or local pro team training to see the level of play - maybe they will understand everyone else is working harder than what they think is “working hard”. There are people on this board who have played pro, I’m sure they can chime in about their experience and what all these leagues/academies even mean - not much


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## lastkid (Feb 18, 2020)

Not_that_Serious said:


> Based only off 07 or? As mentioned it’s more about coaching and playing good competition when possible. What is the end goal? College, Pro or just for the kids to play? If one league was better than the other you would see one league dominating, especially all the teams dropping down levels to play. SCDSL also has Discovery where former DA and ECNL teams have gone to play. Again, doesn’t matter as someone else mentioned. DA the goal? If so why? That is up to the individual player and the coaching he has. Not like DA is even a big feeder to the pros statistically. I think most parents do not realize how difficult it is to even smell the gas from players on even a 2nd to 3rd tier pro team. For example, local pro local teams invite about 100 players (some more) to “open” tryouts. Out of that hundred maybe ONE player gets invited to train with the rostered team. That player might not even stick. Sometimes teams don’t even call back any players. If your child has talent, elite talent, see how they are at about 16-17 . hopefully they have a coach who is highly networked and can get them out to a college or local pro team training to see the level of play - maybe they will understand everyone else is working harder than what they think is “working hard”. There are people on this board who have played pro, I’m sure they can chime in about their experience and what all these leagues/academies even mean - not much


Not just B07.  That was the age that MLX inquired about.  You can go back a few years for all levels and ages of State Cup and see similar results.  Never said that means the CSL gold team is the right place for an individual player, but generally speaking, the gold level CSL teams outperform the SCDSL flight 1 and Discovery teams.  Go look at the final 8 and champions for each level.


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## focomoso (Feb 18, 2020)

lastkid said:


> Not just B07.  That was the age that MLX inquired about.  You can go back a few years for all levels and ages of State Cup and see similar results.  Never said that means the CSL gold team is the right place for an individual player, but generally speaking, the gold level CSL teams outperform the SCDSL flight 1 and Discovery teams.  Go look at the final 8 and champions for each level.


The trouble with just looking at national cup results to compare the leagues is that (at least up in LA) more of the SCDSL clubs have DA and ECNL than the coast clubs. The best kids on the SCDSL clubs are moved up to the DA while this happens less with coast. (Also not saying one is a better choice for an individual player than the other.)


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## focomoso (Feb 29, 2020)

Looking at this year's B'07 National Cup round of 16, exactly half came from Coast and half from SCDSL - which is what I would have expected now that my son has played in both. https://cysa.affinitysoccer.com/tour/public/info/schedule_results2.asp?sessionguid=&flightguid=51E06873-D3F8-4C1D-85D4-FA9DB105FC73&tournamentguid=BE85A855-7148-42A8-A636-3A9E7AFB364F


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## socalkdg (Mar 2, 2020)

focomoso said:


> The trouble with just looking at national cup results to compare the leagues is that (at least up in LA) more of the SCDSL clubs have DA and ECNL than the coast clubs. The best kids on the SCDSL clubs are moved up to the DA while this happens less with coast. (Also not saying one is a better choice for an individual player than the other.)


If a kid wants to play DA I'm pretty sure it doesn't matter if they currently play either CSL or SCDSL, they are going to tryout and see if they make it.


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## Riggins (Mar 2, 2020)

It's a pretty huge myth these clubs propagate about their "pathway". I bet if you polled the kids on ECNL or DA you'd find most did not come from the same club. They need "the best of the best" and will take whoever that is.


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## SPChamp1 (Mar 3, 2020)

mlx said:


> Can they be considered at the same level in terms of quality (generally speaking)?
> Which one would be better in terms of continuing developing?
> 
> Team A SCDSL Flight 1 (Next level up in the club is ECNL)
> ...


You have to take into consideration that a standard SCDSL Flight 1 Team is still behind SCDSL's Discovery, Champions and Europa leagues which are also "technically" Flight 1.

It becomes more apparent of the difference in quality when you start to get into the Flight 2 vs Silver or Silver Elite teams. On more than one occasion I have seen CSL Silver or Silver Elite teams play at a significantly higher than an SCDSL Flight 2 team. While more common to see these CSL teams play better, its far from a standard acceptance.


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## MWN (Mar 3, 2020)

mlx said:


> Can they be considered at the same level in terms of quality (generally speaking)?
> Which one would be better in terms of continuing developing?
> 
> Team A SCDSL Flight 1 (Next level up in the club is ECNL)
> ...


The general rule is that historically:

CSL Premiere similar to SCDSL Discovery;
CSL Gold similar to SCDSL F1 Champions
CSL Silver-Elite similar to SCDSL F1 Europa
CSL Silver similar to F2,
CSL Bronze similar to F3

Now the problem we get into is a bottom level CSL Premiere team can often be beat by a top level CSL Gold or F1 Champions team.  Teams lose key players all the time to injury, family events, etc.  So you need to appreciate that anectodtal evidence similar to "Well, I saw a Flight 2 team beat a CSL Premiere team" is just a bunch of B.S. because who knows how many were missing from the Premiere team and how many club pass kids played down that day for the tournament.  So, just appreciate that we are talking generalities with no definite outcome.

1. On average, CSL boys teams tend to be a little stronger than the comparable level SCDSL.  This general statement is based on a number of factors ... performance in State and National cups, CRL, etc.  This doesn't mean that there will be some SCDSL teams that dominate, only "on balance" more boys CSL teams do better at their respective comparable levels.  All you need to do is look at the top 8 teams in National Cup and Presidents cup on the boys side and you will see a majority tend to be CSL, but... there will always be situations where this year at this age group some SCDSL team dominates.

As noted above, one of the main reasons is that SCDSL clubs are much bigger and tend to have DA and move their boys up to a league that doesn't play in CSL or SCDSL.  Thus, the top level boys in Clubs often do not play in SCDSL or CSL (unless a team pops up because of DA composite age group issues). 

2. On average, SCDSL girls teams tend to be a little better than the comparable level CSL teams.  Again, exceptions exist, but the top level girls teams used to be ECNL, which didn't prohibit players from playing in another league (like the DA).  With the girls DA, we may see the balance shift.


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## focomoso (Mar 3, 2020)

Riggins said:


> It's a pretty huge myth these clubs propagate about their "pathway". I bet if you polled the kids on ECNL or DA you'd find most did not come from the same club. They need "the best of the best" and will take whoever that is.


I agree and have been saying this for years.

But what I was originally saying wasn't about pathway so much as "pool of kids". If the best team for a club at a given location is DA (I assert that) their 2nd best team is likely not to be as good as a different club/location who's best team is flight 1 / gold. (It makes sense in my head...


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