I especially agree with this statement, which needs to be the lens that every single girl playing soccer must fundamentally understand:
The reality is that the in thd 200+ years of this country, the current 324 Million residents of the U.S. have never supported professional women's sports leagues. The WNBA (insolvent, but for support from the NBA), the NWHL (insolvent, but for support from the NHL), the NWSL (insolvent, but for support from the MLS and USSF), LPB (baseball, folded in 1998), the list goes on and on. The only sports where a woman can have a legitimate career are those where you don't have teammates, Golf, Tennis, UFC, stock car racing (I know there is a team, but in name only).
Of the top 100 athletes in the world, there is only 1 woman (Serena Williams) [
http://time.com/money/4810637/female-highest-paid-athletes/]
What many lose sight of is that at the youth level, sports has numerous benefits for young people and helps them grow and mature into healthy productive adults. There is societal value and we should encourage all of our youth, boys and girls, to play sports later in their adult life through recreational amateur leagues. BUT and this is a huge BUT ...
at the professional level sports is pure entertainment. It has no benefit to society other than for its entertainment value, which unto itself has some intrinsic value. Professional athletes are on the same level of actors, comedians, youtube stars, dancer, strippers, artist and musicians. They don't cure cancer, they don't discover the next great scientific advancement, they don't invent a better way to feed the hungry or do anything else but entertain. When a boys U15 ODP team can whip our Woman's National Team by 6+ points, it should be obvious to all (including the USSF) that soccer for teenage women is purely a means to stay healthy and possibly get some college paid for. That is it. The ECNL gets it. The Girls DA remains confused as to what their mission statement should be.
All we have to do is look at the USSDA "mission," which is nothing more than some platitudes and an admission that it only wants to control (i.e. "set the standard") development for the international game:
There there you have it. Build players for the "international game" and control their training. Which is absolutely, positively what the USSF should be be doing.
If one were to rewrite the mission statements of the DA for the girls and boys programs, this is what they should be:
Boys: "The mission of the Boys USSDA program is to create a national database of elite soccer players, so we can identify those athletes early, help them avoid college where they will lose 4 years of development, and figure out a way to get them into professional international leagues at age 17-19 (but if we can't, then the MLS will do) in order to have a pool of elite US professional players good enough to form a team that will win the world cup and/or the Olympics."
Girls: "The mission of the Girls USSDA program is to foster as many opportunities for girls to attend college using soccer in order to get high enough paying jobs to continue playing soccer for the semi-pro woman's league in order for the USSF to put together a good enough team every few years to win the world cup and/or the Olympics."
In each case, the mission of US Soccer misses the ultimate point. Top level professional athletes (men and women) don't reach their peak until their late 20's early 30's. Its roughly 27 years of age for soccer players, men and women. By they time these athletes are ready for the National Team, they have over 4-6 years of Non-DA development under their belt. Why US Soccer is dicking around with kids is beyond me. Its resources need to be put into programs that impact the "college" and post college age kids. This is where its pool of National team players will come from. If the MLS wants to form an academy, fine, let them. But our Federation is wasting its money. 99.9% of these kids won't sign a professional contract. The fact that the USSDA has the audacity to tell these kids to
ignore the social aspect of H.S. sports is insane.
The goal of boys and girls at an elite level should be college, college, college. If an athlete can get a Generation Adidas deal, then great, but let the kids be kids, let them experience some of the best aspect of H.S., the social benefits of being on a team with their classmates, just let them be student-athletes. The ECNL gets it, USSF doesn't (especially on the girls side). For this reason, the ECNL isn't going anywhere.
To answer the title question of this thread:
"In SoCal what’s it going to be DA/DPL or ECNL?"
Its going to be both. DA for those parents that buy the sales pitch the DA is selling. ECNL for those parents that are looking for a more balance path. In the end, both programs will get their girls playing against top competition. Both programs will get sufficient exposure for the top athletes to get some college money. As far as DPL goes, fine, another league that won't get as much exposure as DA or ECNL. If it works for your daughter, that is all that matters.
