How’s the 2025-2026 season going?

[futboldad1]

Back on topic…legends beat breakers in the big game of the day with a last second fast break after a goal kick for a 2-1 final score….my little birds told me it was a back and forth battle….koge kept rolling winning 5-2 over sporting….

 

[crush]

Congrats to Legends for the big win

 

[Veritas]

Welcome back. I love Texas. Age 15-18 in SoCal has so much to offer the goats and some goats get burned out because daddy goat pushes his baby goat to be great at one thing, soccer. It's soccer and more soccer and some girls have had enough by this age. The SoCal grind is not easy for young players. To be great at soccer in SoCal from age 15-18 takes dedication unlike most goat futbol teens around the world trying to be their best. We make the best young players become Unicorns. Unicorn= Top player that is 100% dedicated to play soccer only. No PARTIES allowed. Boys, no!!! It's total focus on soccer and going home to do homework and study and then practice and then come home to study for SAT scores and get 5 hours a sleep. It's basically a triangle of commitment that can only be done by a true Unicorn.

Love the “Daddy Goat” visual. Somewhere right now a dad in flip-flops is yelling “first to the ball!” while holding a Starbucks and Venmoing another $800 for private training.

I think you are spot on. SoCal has a PhD program in burnout. By age 15 these girls have done more 1v1s than a FIFA beta test. The survivors? Those are the real Unicorns. The rest of the country finally catches up physically and mentally while Socal kids are already on their second pair of knees.

Socal raises baby goats into Unicorns at the cost of sleep, social life, and probably a few ACLs. Still, nothing beats SoCal Futbol sunshine, turf burn, and eternal tryouts.

 

[Carlsbad7]

Love the “Daddy Goat” visual. Somewhere right now a dad in flip-flops is yelling “first to the ball!” while holding a Starbucks and Venmoing another $800 for private training.

I think you are spot on. SoCal has a PhD program in burnout. By age 15 these girls have done more 1v1s than a FIFA beta test. The survivors? Those are the real Unicorns. The rest of the country finally catches up physically and mentally while Socal kids are already on their second pair of knees.

Socal raises baby goats into Unicorns at the cost of sleep, social life, and probably a few ACLs. Still, nothing beats SoCal Futbol sunshine, turf burn, and eternal tryouts.

Another way of saying this is...

- Socal favors early developers
- The rest of the nation (maybe excluding Texas and Atlanta) favors later developers.

I've seen this myself where the early developer is 5'1" before everyone else and scores goals at will up until u13. Then around u15 when they're still 5'1" they get pushed off the ball constantly and rarely score. In Socal this type of player is on the top team and generally stays there. In other parts of the country they might be on the top team when younger but as they get older coaches select bigger and faster to develop. This is because high level competition doesnt start until an older/later age.

Not much Socal parents can do about it other than acknowledge coaches favor early developers out here.

 

[crush]

Another way of saying this is...

- Socal favors early developers
- The rest of the nation (maybe excluding Texas and Atlanta) favors later developers.

I've seen this myself where the early developer is 5'1" before everyone else and scores goals at will up until u13. Then around u15 when they're still 5'1" they get pushed off the ball constantly and rarely score. In Socal this type of player is on the top team and generally stays there. In other parts of the country they might be on the top team when younger but as they get older coaches select bigger and faster to develop. This is because high level competition doesnt start until an older/later age.

Not much Socal parents can do about it other than acknowledge coaches favor early developers out here.

It hurts with their development spin if the one they developed falls behind and makes coach, Doc and club look bad. It's sad!

 

[SuperSoccerStar]

Welcome back. I love Texas. Age 15-18 in SoCal has so much to offer the goats and some goats get burned out because daddy goat pushes his baby goat to be great at one thing, soccer. It's soccer and more soccer and some girls have had enough by this age. The SoCal grind is not easy for young players. To be great at soccer in SoCal from age 15-18 takes dedication unlike most goat futbol teens around the world trying to be their best. We make the best young players become Unicorns. Unicorn= Top player that is 100% dedicated to play soccer only. No PARTIES allowed. Boys, no!!! It's total focus on soccer and going home to do homework and study and then practice and then come home to study for SAT scores and get 5 hours a sleep. It's basically a triangle of commitment that can only be done by a true Unicorn.

another problem is having some kids on a team dedicated like that and the rest not.

 

[Carlsbad7]

It hurts with their development spin if the one they developed falls behind and makes coach, Doc and club look bad. It's sad!

What I've seen is clubs/coaches/doc pick who they think will be a winner and throw all their resources at them. This happens around u13. By u15 when the early developer hasn't got any bigger and its obvious that its time to shift gears they choose to dig in and keep developing them. US National teams seem to do the same thing. Its almost like an ego thing that coaches pick the ones they like and no matter what they'll stick with them to prove they were right. This same type of mentality probably happens at east coast and other not Socal geographies. Its probably just delayed a bit so you dont see as many early developer burnouts.

 

[Fieldsofgold]

Based on the elite 8 that made it VA for the 2010 I would argue So cal is still a very strong location. 2 out of 8 teams made it to VA, thats 25% of the teams being from one location and two teams were from Nor Cal... So 50% of the elite 8 teams were from CA. I would say thats still pretty dominate. I think its great there is competion all over the country, as it should be. Its okay to not win a national cahmpionship, life will continue on regardless. I do agree that some kids are pushed way too early and focus so much on private trainers early on and get burned. Its very sad. Even in So cal we have late bloomers and things will change for teenage girls.

In so cal the talent is spread out amongst more teams were lets say the Hawks has the one strong team in the state. Its great, love the competition.

 

[JustaSpectator]

another problem is having some kids on a team dedicated like that and the rest not.

Experiencing this now. Girls are in high school and other activities are now of interest, boys, etc. Girls putting high school sports above/over the club sport, all the good stuff.
Some girls seem to be out there because the parents want them there as they show no interest and just line pocket books.

 

[SuperSoccerStar]

The wild first half of ECNL league is almost over. Been a wild ride so far. I'm wondering if we are going to see a lot of movement over the break like we did last year for this age group. With everyone who wants to play at the next level actively recruiting I just don't see much movement happening like last season. What's everyone think?

 

[Surfer_dad]

As you know ranking is subjective. It's like trying to explain to someone why 50 shades of blue is somehow different than 60 shades of blue. What I've seen is really good grades opens all kinds of doors. You have to remember that the top teams probably have hundreds of players they can pick from for every roster spot. Anything that helps you to stand out is helpful. Good grades, SAT scores, coach connections, willingness to travel for college ID camps, the youth club you played for, ability to drop a huge donation on the school, black native American left handed gay agriculture major, famous. Whatever gets your foot in the door. I would also suggest not being so uptight about the obviously corrupt individuals with their hands out. They might have a connection that moves your kid to the front of the line. Sad and disgusting to participate in that type of thing but it happens and might end up being cheaper and easier in the long run.

The most important reasons that good/great grades and test scores are important in college recruiting is money available for a schools scholarships. Schools can tap the academic scholarship bucket of $ to add to their sport scholarship bucket of $. Also, the second reason is just the ability to go to get into a higher academic school

 

[crush]

Oopsy

 

[crush]

Go Pro, its way easier No crying in D1 either, even if coach is abusive

 

[crush]

Club Volleyball dad

 

[crush]

Somtimes you just have to laugh at the nonsense in club sports. The shit I went through for being a club hopper was insane.

 

[TeamDadJokes]

This doesn’t even make sense how the rankings app has Real Colorado National as #1 in the nation….

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

I thought it may be a glitch that would be resolved in a day or two, but instead it is still showing Real Colorado as #1 on Monday. Looking closer at their results, they have been phenomenal right up through the end of November, even beating Koge, Concorde Fire and SLSG in Phoenix. In league prior to that they were dominant and unbeatable. But in their last 5 games, they have only gone 2-3, with all 3 losses showing as an underperform against their rating. The losses certainly hurt the raw rating, but seems not enough yet to change their ranking. They still have a 0.2 goal lead over Koge and a 0.3 goal lead over MVLA. Their next league game is 1/31, with 5 games scheduled over a 2 week stretch. Depending on whether they continue the slump, or instead return to mid-november form, their rating/ranking will be reflected appropriately.

 

[Surfer_dad]

I thought it may be a glitch that would be resolved in a day or two, but instead it is still showing Real Colorado as #1 on Monday. Looking closer at their results, they have been phenomenal right up through the end of November, even beating Koge, Concorde Fire and SLSG in Phoenix. In league prior to that they were dominant and unbeatable. But in their last 5 games, they have only gone 2-3, with all 3 losses showing as an underperform against their rating. The losses certainly hurt the raw rating, but seems not enough yet to change their ranking. They still have a 0.2 goal lead over Koge and a 0.3 goal lead over MVLA. Their next league game is 1/31, with 5 games scheduled over a 2 week stretch. Depending on whether they continue the slump, or instead return to mid-november form, their rating/ranking will be reflected appropriately.

What I wish is that the rankings would discount the showcase games. Done properly, they aren’t coached to win but as the name implies showcase the players, ALL the players. Rankings should be based on coaching to win the games. Perhaps the ranking service could weigh the showcase games at half the normal weighting for league games and playoff games.

 

[Goforgoal]

What I wish is that the rankings would discount the showcase games. Done properly, they aren’t coached to win but as the name implies showcase the players, ALL the players. Rankings should be based on coaching to win the games. Perhaps the ranking service could weigh the showcase games at half the normal weighting for league games and playoff games.

I agree with this 100%. There should be zero incentive to win showcase games, outside of individual player effort and desire to win those games. Coaches should do their best to showcase all their players and that's it.

 

[justasoccerfam]

What I wish is that the rankings would discount the showcase games. Done properly, they aren’t coached to win but as the name implies showcase the players, ALL the players. Rankings should be based on coaching to win the games. Perhaps the ranking service could weigh the showcase games at half the normal weighting for league games and playoff games.

agreed, our coach only played the uncommitted players in a recent showcase yet the results still show and are used towards rankings.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

All the rating is ever going to do is predict how well a team is expected to do in their very next recorded game. Can you imagine trying to determine the relative value of each game programmatically, at scale, before deciding how highly to weight that particular game? What is a showcase game compared to a local tournament compared to a national final compared to a pre-season game? What about a late-season league game where everyone decent sits to keep them healthy for playoffs?

The rating is always going to be a calculation based on the past (up to) 20 recorded games in the past year. A game is a game if the score is published and the team can be identified. What some teams do, even at the ECNL level, is just have events with a whole bunch of friendlies and don't record the scores electronically. I can't imagine it's done specifically to avoid hurting anyone's SR score, but it is definitely an accompanying side effect.