Lasc in SoCal purportedly has it first team boys olders (Younger’s are mls next) in e64 and it’s second team in ea. I think they are the only ones on the boys side that did that…that club really expanded with the mls next for the Younger’s. They (for the most part) didn’t do so great at nhb against ea and premiere teams. Laufa used to have its 4th team olders in e64 but that club has lost quite a few teams despite being mls next. Strikers has its north affiliate in e64.
How's that Elite 64 League going?
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The top girls divisions in CSL were decimated in 2018 when the remaining top teams switched to SoCal/NPL. The top boys divisions stayed roughly on par with NPL until last year. There was some cross play in the spring/summer leagues to validate that. There’s still a few strong teams loyal to CalSouth for some unknown reason, but yeah, they’re losing teams faster than they can fill the top divisions with promotion.
There's SoCal Elite (which is special case because of what happened in SoCal). Other than that, on the boys side it's mostly clubs that have been locked out of letter league (the most obvious example is Downtown LA which has some teams equivalent to the boys ECNL and can take even the lower level boys MLS Next Teams), Central Coast Condors (another one), some AYSO teams, Necaxa...and some rando little clubs that don't have the facilities to play SoCal. It's also not about travel....a huge chunk of the premiere league games are at Great Park with teams going there from Santa Barbara to San Diego.
You say this a lot, but it isn't universally true. Every year the teams shift and as MLS Next improves by bringing in the top kids from the other letter leagues, there's less of a gap. The results this year are bearing this out. I'm not saying the true academies aren't better or that any kid wouldn't leave their regular MLS Next team if an offer from an academy came, but that's where most of the academy kids come from now and the games are (almost) all competitive.
LAFC and Galaxy scouts, along with academy scouts from around the country, regularly come to the games, especially if they're in Silver Lakes or Great Park, and the showcases / flex / playoffs have scouts not only from colleges, but European and Mexican academies.
A lot of what you say is true (eg that it isn’t universally true). but I disagree that most of the games are competitive. I regularly follow both the 07 and 08 online and I know that’s not the case. Generally the mls academy teams are dominant (both here and nationally particularly as you get older) certain clubs excepted. To the extent certain games are competitive it’s also partially because of the rotation (academy teams have rosters which don’t even dress). Also we know more than a few kids that have gone strikers to academy, notwithstanding the dominance of that particular club. The mls system is designed to have the future pros playing for academy teams because that’s where they want them training: everything else is practice fodder and recruitment base, with a huge variation in training, player recruitment and faculties (strikers on one side, tfa or murrieta on the other)
Some anecdotal evidence:
My son was on a mid-table MLS Next club last year and played up with the U19s. Of the 15 or so kids on the team 4 or 5 went to D1 schools and 4 or 5 went to D2 with a few going D3. The rest either decided to stop playing at a high level or I just didn't hear about their plans. At least 2 of the D1 and 1 of the D2 kids started (or play a lot) as freshmen (this is only the kids my son follows on the insta, I don't know about the rest).
A lot of people don't seem to realize that most of the kids that are in LAFC or Galaxy aren't going to go straight to the pro-level either, so college is an option for them as well. It's very different from Europe where there are viable semi-pro options for younger kids. Most of the non-academy MLS Next players would already be on league 2 or 3 teams by now (depending on the country).
And, yes, colleges recruit heavily from Next. The showcases are crawling with scouts, often head coaches, because there's so much talent in one place.
Ps we probably have different ideas of what “competitive” means. My definition is that the game probability will be decided by a coin flip (roughly 50-50). Not that it will be close or the other team will hang in there. I agree the system isn’t designed so the mls academy stringers blow out the Washington generals 5-0 every time.
Where are you seeing results for this year? They aren't posted, so everything has to happen through the grapevine.
In U16, there are some clubs that can't keep up, but they get clobbered by everyone and age out by U17.
True, but there's also the SoCal bump. SoCal non-academy teams do much better nationally than their rankings suggest because the league is so strong and the kids are heavily recruited outside of SoCal. Interestingly, though, SoCal academy teams don't dominate on the national stage.
This is true of many of the teams now: Strikers, FCGS, LA Surf and others have rosters bigger than can dress for a given game.
Strikers to academy is a thing, sure, but so is Murrieta direct to the pros. Rarities like this (so-called black swans) are hard to predict. Also, the academies often aren't in SoCal.
I think we have a different definition of "cannon fodder". A team that you have to work hard to beat isn't cannon fodder. It's when you're so much better you don't have to try that (both teams) get into trouble.
My sons first team which is still bumping along mid tier coast has more players than can dress. I know very well from personal experience it’s a thing at mls next. But I’m seeing it more and more at the lower levels. Then there are teams like the coast team at championship I pointed out that can’t make roster and even some teams at the ea and ecrl levels that struggle to get a full roster or advertising for goalies a few weeks prior to season. Some ea2 and e64 teams are still pumping hard for players on the boards. Is this a thing as they get older now: people congregating onto certain teams even among equivalent leagues which aren’t full? Doesn’t necessarily correspond to winning record or not either so is it regional, the pull of certain mls next teams in the region, the coaches, all the above and more? I get why you’d join an academy team to sit on reserves or as third keeper….I don’t get why you’d do that for regular next or below
Yes we do. I’d regard that as just target practice like the washington generals. There’s no point in playing if the stringers won’t get something out of it
I definitely understand that - our girls have been playing up in CSL for the past 3 seasons and tried to play against boys this year. My comment was more to show there is a team that is getting rolled by double digits every game that definitely did not go through pro/rel to get there. They're Flight 3 at best playing in the top flight when the team was literally formed 3 weeks before the season started according to their IG.
Not seeing them for this year except the games and highlights that have been posted online at YouTube insta and places
Ps I just saw that laufa bit the dust as in independent club. It’s now Albion Los Angeles. Soon the boys side will be all surfs and Albions.
...and their U17s just beat LAFC.
Never heard of those teams. So I guess relegation is gone, but everyone gets promoted!
Pro/Rel only works when more teams want to play in your league than available spots.
In Socal if CSL booted anyone for poor performance that team/club would likely just go to Socal/NPL or E64 or DPL or ECRL where they won't get booted for poor performance.
SurfSupDude
SILVER
I can’t tell if you are being sarcastic or not. My sarcasm meter might be broken this morning.
Personally, I LOVE that there is an option for every kid.
justabystander
BRONZE
I can say this from experience. Our E64 team plays “friendlies” against two playoff ECNL teams each year and go back and forth win, loss, and draw each year. These are ECNL teams are strong and make national playoffs each year. Also we easily handled the RL team that made national final four without a problem and with us using a lot of bench players.
justabystander
BRONZE
and we left e64 this year. It was too easy. We are stuck because we partner with the pro mls team and they use our team as their primary feeder club. So we don’t have an MLS at the club with exception of U13 and U14. The local ECNL team which is awful btw on the boys side, has a director that is supposedly a big dog in ECNL and won’t let out club in because he knows his club will go under the day that happens.
Our club is strong just stuck. We will do this NAL thing this year, but i think we will win that too.