Say bye-bye-bye to Girls and Boys DA

ECNL doesn't need to let anyone in, but it's not a question of need. This is their chance to build a real "monopoly" in SoCal girls soccer by being more inclusive and preventing the formation of a rival as Hawkeye stated. I would add every DA club of merit, and then let competition shake out ECNL (tier 1) vs ECRL (tier 2) over the course of what will likely be a shorten seasoned next year anyway. You could form ECNL North (8-9 teams) and ECNL South (9-10 teams). Adding 5 teams from NV and AZ (some already in) gives you 2 divisions of 12 teams.

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Looking at the standings of GDA and ECNL that @sdb and I tabulated......purely going by the #s.........Legends and Beach deserve inclusion.......Sharks and Arsenal on the chopping block if they want to keep it at 14..........I'll try to repost now so it follows this map........
 
GDA AND ECNL 2020 Standings Per Club by PPG
GDA Current Standings (Based on PPG)
AVG StandingsU14U15U16U17U18/U19
San Diego Surf2.421441
Legends417525
LA Galaxy536178
Real So Cal5.2482102
Beach Futbol Club6.6132639
SC Blues6.6649113
Albion SC7.25510511
LA Galaxy San Diego8.210133114
Pateadores9.21212787
SC del Sol9.211312614
LA Surf SC9.49911126
Utah Royals FC - Arizona9.814118133
OC Surf Soccer10.671413910
Albion SC Las Vegas11.6810141412
ECNL Current Standings (Based on PPG)AVG StandingsU13U14U15U16U17U18U18 Comp
LAFC Slammers2.42111228
So Cal Blues SC3.73684311
Slammers FC4.663103163
LA Breakers FC6.35868494
Heat FC6.3144710117
Strikers FC6.6117357310
Arizona Arsenal SC7.1911126642
Phoenix Rising FC7.379221212No team
Rebels SC7.6821110589
Eagles SC7.64105121156
Arsenal FC8.9125999711
DMCV Sharks9.010127118105
 
I believe what your saying is that basically most businesses don't carry, so no insurance costs. It's an at risk sport just like any other injuries....

No I am saying insurance against this is not available. Carriers do not cover a loss of business because of COVID. This is in general and as a business owner I would advise you to file a claim. The insurance clubs carry will not cover flu/cold / virus transference. The cost may increase in the future but not because something like this is covered as they will not cover it. Since 2006, in general, policies have excluded events like this (again file a claim as a business owner) . The reason is how do you prove you child got the virus/flu/cold at an event, game, practice? The burden of proof lies with the claimant. Did they get it going to the store to get water prior to practice? What about school? Were Mom and Dad exposed prior..
How deep do you want to go. Insurability is question today. Now there are states with legislation trying to change this, there are lawsuits (Thomas Keller v Hartford) coming down the pipe. As most things in the future, this will be interesting.
 
The trouble with adding another alternative is that there aren’t many girls playing at a top level. Every time you add an alternative, travel times increase. The more we go that route, the more soccer gets limited to rich families with lots of time.

The best situation would be if we could fix the organizations we have. Not sure that is possible, though.

To be honest with you the best situation is the purge that is going to happen over the next 12 months. Instead of US Soccer jumping in and picking winners a losers we will go back to simple Darwinism. The clubs that can put out the product that the customers want will survive. The many posers out there that have been selling snake oil are going to wither when the customers leave. I go way back before the formation of the ECNL and they filled a niche that was underserved before. It was formed initially by about 46 or so clubs that all had national championships and reputations for developing college and national team players. Top teams will never pass on a top tier player (unless the parents are train wrecks). The truth is with all of the "elite" teams the true product is much more diluted than it was several years ago when their was one top national league. What is actually going to happen is all of the middle tier and lower tier players who are on "elite" teams now are going to have to move to teams that are appropriate to their actual skill level. Honestly this isn't a bad thing. The top players will actulally get better overall competition and the players that really weren't top level will be able to compete against players that are more in their range which should help them improve their game.

This is going to be a good thing once the initial shock wears off. Good luck to everyone with a player going through this right now and for those whose players just aged out good luck to them at the next level.
 
Most of the high crime area’s in the bay area have been gentrified. Many moons ago, when I was in high school East Palo Alto had the highest per capita murder rate in the USA. For a while it was a fairly common occurrence to see Stanford students on University Ave.(EPA side) buying crack/cocaine. Not now though!
I use to buy weed in EPA in 92 lived in redwood city for a lil bit but from so cal knew no one found the closest drive thru weed spot was definitely hoooooooood. Good times.
 
The problem with pro/rel model in youth amateur sports...

1) Quality of play will suffer - in the quest to win as many games as possible, there would be a lot more kickball and less possession, less creativity, less risk-taking, more coaches yelling at the kids what to do.

2) Individual player development will suffer - due to #1 and the type of player that does better at kickball, guess what type of players will get most/all of the playing time? Also, rosters of 18-20 may only play the same 11-13 kids. So much for the late bloomers.

3) Feeds the problem of Super Teams - most players will flock to the best teams who have the deepest bench with the least chance of being relegated. Didn't we recently read about professional soccer players discussing that one of the most important things for them was how they had to sometimes carry their team or consistently be the one who put the team on his/her back to win a game because they were NOT on a SuperTeam? That builds and teaches grit etc. in the youth game, when they need to learn it.

4) Don't forget who is the league's customer - ECNL's customers are the clubs, not the parents, not the players. Who do they want to keep happy? Their customers. This isn't professional soccer. A new ECNL club can't go out and buy players to join their cause and make for better TV ratings like an Aston Villa, Wigan or Leeds. If doing it the right way, they need time/years to bear fruit of their coaching, development, team cohesion, etc. -- these are 13-17yr old kids, not adults. Clubs want stability. And gosh, after all this upheaval, don't we as families want some stability too? We should want to encourage clubs to develop players over time, not hang out in parking lots and recruit gullible parents. If a top player wants to stay on a mediocre team because his/her friends from school are on that team and because he/she is carrying the load and improving as discussed in #3, the league should encourage that. Not penalize by forcing the kid to go play on SuperTeam and become a cookie-cutter player who plays half as much and develops 50% less.

It's ok to have some incentives and rewards for winning more games -- Cups, better showcase placement, etc. -- but too often we want our kids' athletic experiences to be like what we see on TV--The pros...how they train, how they play, how they're coached (and how many of the coaches see themselves), how they're dressed on the field, how they travel, what they do off the field. But guess what, they're not pros, not adults, and treating them as such will actually hurt them in the long run--burnout, injury, desire, etc.

Pro/rel is a great thing in professional soccer - and I think it should definitely be a part of MLS. But making it a part of a youth league, where the PRIMARY purpose should still be to develop our players as much as possible, would be completely contrary to that goal. If you want to add a couple of clubs each year to your league--ECNL or MLS/hybrid or ABCD--fine, no problem. That, you can do like the pro leagues do--geographically where does it fill a void, which clubs have shown stability and a mission that is consistent with the league, which clubs will add value, etc. Just don't do it at the expense of eliminating other existing customer clubs. Otherwise, you repeat the frustration and disruption that the USSF has currently created and continue the cycle for even more families and players.

Beautiful day out there--find some time to horseplay with your kids today in the street if you haven't already.
 
LAGSB no longer exists, Legends is going to lose a lot of talent to Blues of Slammers (many already had left a year before this), Beach have the strongest teams and I don't know what will happen but some players will leave for ECNL competition.
Beach players can split between Breakers or Slammers, depends which way on the 405 or PCH they want to go...
 
Easy fix. One solution would be to not let new club who jump in now participate in showcases next year. They can go to big open tournaments instead. Not the end of the world and an easy tradeoff for a club looking to be accepted into ECNL. The following year, limit showcases to the top X clubs per conference and then the others that don't qualify go instead to the big open tourneys instead of showcases.

Zero reason to refuse new club additions that will improve leagues and shorten average travel time just because of showcase field space. That's a very solvable problem.
Another way which parallels what you are saying is to grown ECRL and make the whole system a Promotion/Relegation system. Top 2 ECRL get promoted, bottom 2 ECNL get relegated.

Have National Showcases and Regional Showcases.
 
Bringing those couple dozen clubs listed previously in this thread from the Soccer wire top 40 is the exact opposite of dilution. It's consolidation of the best talent, making your league better, and reducing league game travel time.

Excluding them because you don't have field space for a showcase is a problem that can be easily solved. Makes me think it is just an excuse for keeping them out for political or money motivations from existing clubs with influence.

Tophat will probably get in. Some of the other clubs that have been top level for a long time will get in on a region by region basis. Some teams are going to have to jump ship en masse with coach in tow. This is the beginning of the Purge part Two.
 
When will they players from da clubs join ecnl teams with club soccer being shutdown possibly for a while still? When do ecnl rosters get locked in will they cut players next fall when soccer resumes to make room for the da girls?
 
Really? What did that add?

MacDre was referring to areas where you take your life into your own hands driving on the freeway. You might not know that living in SoCal. I pointed out that he's got 4-5 ECNL clubs with an 1 hour drive to him. Furthermore, if California stopped catching and releasing criminals, our streets would be safer. If you don't think so, that's fine, but you could always ask the people that lost a love one this week because someone was let out and shouldn't have been.
 
To be honest with you the best situation is the purge that is going to happen over the next 12 months. Instead of US Soccer jumping in and picking winners a losers we will go back to simple Darwinism. The clubs that can put out the product that the customers want will survive. The many posers out there that have been selling snake oil are going to wither when the customers leave. I go way back before the formation of the ECNL and they filled a niche that was underserved before. It was formed initially by about 46 or so clubs that all had national championships and reputations for developing college and national team players. Top teams will never pass on a top tier player (unless the parents are train wrecks). The truth is with all of the "elite" teams the true product is much more diluted than it was several years ago when their was one top national league. What is actually going to happen is all of the middle tier and lower tier players who are on "elite" teams now are going to have to move to teams that are appropriate to their actual skill level. Honestly this isn't a bad thing. The top players will actulally get better overall competition and the players that really weren't top level will be able to compete against players that are more in their range which should help them improve their game.

This is going to be a good thing once the initial shock wears off. Good luck to everyone with a player going through this right now and for those whose players just aged out good luck to them at the next level.
Sort of.

It isn't Darwinism. I can't call it survival of the fittest as long as Legends is out. ( Not my club, but I'd like my daughter to play against them. )

It feels like ECNL wants to pick the winners now that USSF is out.
 
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