High school may end up playing a bigger part in this too. The girls all got high school back and boys ECNL allows for HS so only the MLS league doesn’t allow for it and it’s a 10-month season. Those non-MLS teams may not like the no HS Component when they are just filler games. The boys DA players haven’t played HS in a long time. Now that this isn’t a US Soccer DA system and it’s just an MLS league, high school could become something players are interested in again.
Like it, you can recruit all the HB junior lifeguards kids while your at it, I'm sure they would rather surf and play some beach soccer. Shaved Ice within arms reach!
I bought his first Stewart off him for $100. He was sponsored early by Bill. When we were young surfers and surfing lowers, he would tell me I had potential if I would take the sport more serious. My pride said it was too cool to surf in competitions back then and he went all in pro. He worked his ass off and surfed the Cortez Banks and Mavricks. I was a crazy too as a young grom but Parsons took it to a level that was too gnarly even for this surfer dude. Toeing oneself into a 60 foot wave is insane. Here he is at Cortez Bank off Dana Point.
80%-20% rule seems like the math trick MLS made.
If you look at the right-hand side of the attachment (labeled Elite Youth Player Pathway), it says that teams in that pathway (i.e., non-MLS teams) at U15 would play 20% of their games v. MLS Pro Player Pathway Teams (i.e., MLS teams). So, it DOES actually say that non-MLS teams would play 20% against MLS teams. I do think it's mathematically possible for both to be true (you assume 30 games rather than the 40 in the graphic and you assume all 65 clubs will field teams at U15, which some people on this board have reported is not the case for clubs that they know). Still, it's also possible that this won't actually happen and non-MLS teams will only get 4 games, rather than 8 (30 MLS teams x 8 games v. non-MLS teams [40 games x .2] = 240 games total/65 non-MLS teams = 3.7, which would be about the same number of games they got against MLS teams last year in DA at U14 (not including tournaments). I think most would probably be OK with that, rather than playing the extra games against some of the Boys ECNL teams leftover from last year, but it's reasonable to not oversell the MLS "exposure" you might get from this league.
Kooks can always share the ocean, but they can't share the soccer pitch. So your exclusivity idea doesn't work in surfing...but it does in soccer.I'm starting a new "Elite Surfing Club." Basically, I teach you how to become an elite surfer. More news to come if @Dominic is ok with me sharing this new concept that also has beach soccer tied to it? I don;t want to break the rules like some do on here
I think that's a pretty good analysis. The kids i have known over the years (been observing as a club/academy dad for over 10 years) who have played Ivy League soccer or other excellent schools with programs (Tufts, Wash U, etc.) come out of the "next tier down" all the time. More well-rounded opportunities and you take the "go pro" (or maybe no Duke or Notre Dame or big D1 programs like that) out of the equation, but everything else stays on the table, as you suggest.
It all depends where you surf Messy. Many kooks at all the public beaches.....lol!!! Soccer kooks? No comment but any kook is dangerous, regardless of their sport of choice. I had a kook I played basketball against at Main Beach back in the 80s. Crazy Dom was his name I think. Body builder with long blond hair surfer "looking kook" and one crazy ass man who ruined games every week. A true kook in every sense of the word. Lets also understand the true meaning of the word kook in surfing Messy.
