Socal named as Operator for National 1 League

[chipmonk]

I wish we could focus on whether pro/rel being intentionally dropped for the 3 top leagues is a good thing or a bad thing, and not keep talking about pro/rel pros/cons in general and whether it should be used. It's used all over the place, easily in the majority of youth soccer. It has been used for many, many years. It's only weird that the top leagues don't use it (for some of the reasons listed over and over again in this thread).

I'm game. It's a bad thing. It prevents competition at the business model level and at the sporting level. It has proliferated from the top 2 tiers of the pyramid to the top 4 tiers of the pyramid and watered down each of the tiers in the process.

It creates incredibly high barriers to start a new competitive club or experiment/innovate with new models of development. It enables the 'big' clubs to bait and switch players when recruiting them. I haven't seen any less pressure to prioritize wins over losses. We see the bottom clubs of these leagues merging to replace their underperforming teams with teams from other hubs, or see them turn over their rosters year after year in search of wins.

Again, the only positive thing I see is with simplifying logistics for coaching staffs and ref crews. Maybe it's a good thing for college recruiters that the playoffs are all in one location before nationals instead of having regional playoffs before nationals, but this aspect is oversold and diminishing. The actual top clubs/academies are never in danger of being relegated anyway. On the boys side, the competition in their age groups is too weak (see the watering down/dilution above) so the academies play a year up.

 

[Grace T.]

See this why we need pro/rel so teams aren’t hiding behind “we have better things to do”. The whole point of pro/rel is to earn your reputation.

They do have better things to do: sell players. The deficiencies in the us aren’t at the academy level: it’s that when they age out the academy players have no where professionally to play. If you honestly think some team in the Val for some local club (even if the coach is going out of pocket to scholarship players and practicing 4 days a week) will be able to compete with an la galaxy team giving its players free rides, the badge, pro looks, and training 5 days a week plus class, conditioning and specialty training, I have a bridge to sell you. . It’s night and day, not even close. The division between the academies and regular mlsn isn’t coaching or players…it’s practice time… and it’s why sometimes residentials like barsca and img can mount a fight….its also why with some exception like strikers or delco the playoffs are dominated by the few academies not the masses of pay to play teams.

 

[CleatSniffer]

Pro/Rel being intentionally dropped at the high levels in the US is a bad thing. Here is my "fix" and don't laugh for adding yet another layer

Hear me out: There needs to be 1 more Tier. One that is not chosen by committee but rather Pro/Rel only. Using ECNL it would be something like ECNL Premier. The low teams of ECNL Premier would be relegated to ECNL and the high teams of ECNL would be promoted to ECNL Premier. ECNL and the others can still operate by committee but they cannot choose who makes the ECNL Premier.

 

[Jamisfoes]

Pro/Rel being intentionally dropped at the high levels in the US is a bad thing. Here is my "fix" and don't laugh for adding yet another layer

Hear me out: There needs to be 1 more Tier. One that is not chosen by committee but rather Pro/Rel only. Using ECNL it would be something like ECNL Premier. The low teams of ECNL Premier would be relegated to ECNL and the high teams of ECNL would be promoted to ECNL Premier. ECNL and the others can still operate by committee but they cannot choose who makes the ECNL Premier.

What you are proposing is called ECNL playoff.
True pro/rel needs to be an open system and team based.

 

[CleatSniffer]

What you are proposing is called ECNL playoff.
True pro/rel needs to be an open system and team based.

Are we fighting theory again? What I am proposing is something that would actually work in the US. We are NOT going to a true Pro/Rel system. That would be a disaster on a lot of levels. Its like wishing for a Ferrari when you were 10 and your parents can't afford rent. It isn't happening. Maybe ask for a Toy Ferrari because that's just a bit better life than you currently have.

What I am proposing is not a playoff and it IS team based. Its a Year long season with a tier that is untouchable to committees. Not qualification series for dumb one week tournament. You could have a SD SURF U14 ECNL playing in ECNL Premier and the SD SURF U16 ECNL playing in ECNL "Regular." Just depends on how they did the year prior.

You win the 2025-2026 ECNL you get Promoted to the 2026-2027 ECNL Premier. You are in the bottom of the 2025-2026 ECNL you get relegated. Not sure how that's the ECNL Playoff.

 

[Grace T.]

Are we fighting theory again? What I am proposing is something that would actually work in the US. We are NOT going to a true Pro/Rel system. That would be a disaster on a lot of levels. Its like wishing for a Ferrari when you were 10 and your parents can't afford rent. It isn't happening. Maybe ask for a Toy Ferrari because that's just a bit better life than you currently have.

What I am proposing is not a playoff and it IS team based. Its a Year long season with a tier that is untouchable to committees. Not qualification series for dumb one week tournament. You could have a SD SURF U14 ECNL playing in ECNL Premier and the SD SURF U16 ECNL playing in ECNL "Regular." Just depends on how they did the year prior.

You win the 2025-2026 ECNL you get Promoted to the 2026-2027 ECNL Premier. You are in the bottom of the 2025-2026 ECNL you get relegated. Not sure how that's the ECNL Playoff.

On the boys side iirc there are 10 boys teams last I checked in the SoCal division. It would mean ecnl premiere would be traveling to San Fran and Texas to get that high level play. Same on the mlsn side. The trade off would be you are traveling a whole lot more on top of Flex, qualifier tournament and playoffs (the academies anyway form their own mini league at the higher ages effectively…we could make it express by adding strikers, Barca maybe one of the Albion’s in SoCal…but that defeats the entire rest of the league being cannon fodder for the academy benchers and Youngers playing up)

 

[sigmabody]

Pro/Rel being intentionally dropped at the high levels in the US is a bad thing. Here is my "fix" and don't laugh for adding yet another layer

Hear me out: There needs to be 1 more Tier. One that is not chosen by committee but rather Pro/Rel only. Using ECNL it would be something like ECNL Premier. The low teams of ECNL Premier would be relegated to ECNL and the high teams of ECNL would be promoted to ECNL Premier. ECNL and the others can still operate by committee but they cannot choose who makes the ECNL Premier.

The problem with this suggestion, as I understand the current system (second hand info from club admins), would be that only select clubs can be accepted into ECNL, and it's an "old boys club" and walled garden for the big name clubs. So other teams/clubs would be frozen out anyway.

That's why MLSN exists: clubs wanted a pathway to high-end visibility that didn't involve moving all their players to the clubs allowed into ECNL. Now we have two semi-exclusive pathways, and no real improvement to the motivating problem which created them.

What we need, imho, is a more "open" playoff tournament and season structure, where teams aren't pigeon-holed into exclusionary "leagues" at all, and movement is dynamic between divisions based on strength of record alone (automatic pro/rel between seasonal divisions). That's already the case with most open tournaments, except for the league specific playoff/showcase ones; if that was the norm for seasonal leagues also, then maybe we could have more balanced local competition at all levels. Dump all the useless exclusionary leagues, and have one seasonal league per geographical region, with Flight 1 and down, with automatic shuffling, and no division placement guaranteed. That is, I believe, how CIF HS soccer works, for example.

Only US Soccer could force that type of change, so it's somewhat fanciful, but that would be how to get away from all the current garbage.

 

[Jamisfoes]

Are we fighting theory again? What I am proposing is something that would actually work in the US. We are NOT going to a true Pro/Rel system. That would be a disaster on a lot of levels. Its like wishing for a Ferrari when you were 10 and your parents can't afford rent. It isn't happening. Maybe ask for a Toy Ferrari because that's just a bit better life than you currently have.

What I am proposing is not a playoff and it IS team based. Its a Year long season with a tier that is untouchable to committees. Not qualification series for dumb one week tournament. You could have a SD SURF U14 ECNL playing in ECNL Premier and the SD SURF U16 ECNL playing in ECNL "Regular." Just depends on how they did the year prior.

You win the 2025-2026 ECNL you get Promoted to the 2026-2027 ECNL Premier. You are in the bottom of the 2025-2026 ECNL you get relegated. Not sure how that's the ECNL Playoff.

There are 13 ECNL teams. Let’s say you put 6 of them in that league. They will play the same 5 teams over and over again. If your team comes out on top, you still can’t say you are the best team in SoCal because there are all these MLS next teams you haven’t played.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

The clear answer is to solve that problem, is spread out the geography a bit more - which creates a different problem. So you don't have 13 teams, you have ~24 teams. Top 12 are in what you're calling ECNL Elite, bottom 12 are in ECNL Not-so-Elite. There's pro/rel each season from the top half to the bottom half. I'm not sure if the answer is ever going to be expand the geography/territory - but it's also true that there are much larger geographical areas covered by way, way weaker leagues elsewhere in the country. Some of the NPL clubs in norcal are traveling 4+ hours to half of their games.

 

[Karlton Athletic]

What I am proposing is not a playoff and it IS team based. Its a Year long season with a tier that is untouchable to committees. Not qualification series for dumb one week tournament. You could have a SD SURF U14 ECNL playing in ECNL Premier and the SD SURF U16 ECNL playing in ECNL "Regular." Just depends on how they did the year prior.

That's what's happening, at least per what our coach shared with me. I mentioned it earlier in this thread, but our team - as a whole, across all age groups - had a dangerously low average PPG that was threatening to get us relegated to the new ECNL-RL SoCal league. One age group was topping the league and keeping our average high, and most of us managed to get it together by season end, but this seemed like proper relegation - not a post season tournament.

I guess ECNL aren't publicizing it, and I don't know if the same applies to NL as there seems to be one team per club at that level, whereas RL is expanding to 2 or 3 now.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

Yes - from ECNL-RL on down, pro/rel already exists - mechanisms vary across geography. Teams being bumped from the 2nd tier to the 3rd tier, teams elevated from 3rd tier to 2nd tier, this isn't science fiction - it's already in the rules. The only outliers are at the top level (ECNL, MLSN, and GA) all of whom have pushed back on any formalization of pro/rel between the 1st & 2nd tier.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

When is it likely SoCal will announce the teams that have been accepted?

Is it likely a club that had a third place NPL team last year will get in, or is it not as simple as that?

Thank you

I've read elsewhere that applications to join the league in SoCal aren't even due until June. It is going to be awhile before formal annoincements.

 

[shankbone]

Yes - from ECNL-RL on down, pro/rel already exists - mechanisms vary across geography. Teams being bumped from the 2nd tier to the 3rd tier, teams elevated from 3rd tier to 2nd tier, this isn't science fiction - it's already in the rules. The only outliers are at the top level (ECNL, MLSN, and GA) all of whom have pushed back on any formalization of pro/rel between the 1st & 2nd tier.

I don't see evidence of relegation in ECNL-RL - again, coming from Socal specifically. Can you list (california teams preferred) teams that got relegated either last year or this just completed year?

I do see the ECNL forming a third league "Golden State" for Norcal boys and girls last year. Similar to what they did in Socal. That looks like just gobbling up more market share and building walls - if they were serious they could just make the ECNL-RL its own combined league with upper and lower divisions with promotion and relegation AND allow individual teams in - forget about this NPL/N1 thing. They are serious of course - about making member clubs money and making money themselves.

 

[shankbone]

The problem with this suggestion, as I understand the current system (second hand info from club admins), would be that only select clubs can be accepted into ECNL, and it's an "old boys club" and walled garden for the big name clubs. So other teams/clubs would be frozen out anyway.

That's why MLSN exists: clubs wanted a pathway to high-end visibility that didn't involve moving all their players to the clubs allowed into ECNL. Now we have two semi-exclusive pathways, and no real improvement to the motivating problem which created them.

What we need, imho, is a more "open" playoff tournament and season structure, where teams aren't pigeon-holed into exclusionary "leagues" at all, and movement is dynamic between divisions based on strength of record alone (automatic pro/rel between seasonal divisions). That's already the case with most open tournaments, except for the league specific playoff/showcase ones; if that was the norm for seasonal leagues also, then maybe we could have more balanced local competition at all levels. Dump all the useless exclusionary leagues, and have one seasonal league per geographical region, with Flight 1 and down, with automatic shuffling, and no division placement guaranteed. That is, I believe, how CIF HS soccer works, for example.

Only US Soccer could force that type of change, so it's somewhat fanciful, but that would be how to get away from all the current garbage.

CIF soccer has its own politics of course, and shifting rules - but they have moved (all CIF) to a system that acknowledges strength of schedule and slots teams into tiers.

Walled garden and old boys club for sure. These moves aren't being made to change the freeze out procedure already in place, its window dressing and also a move to solidify the garden.

I don't think it will be successful - MLS Next and EA is a big threat to ECNL and GA is a little threat with a chance.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

I don't see evidence of relegation in ECNL-RL - again, coming from Socal specifically. Can you list (california teams preferred) teams that got relegated either last year or this just completed year?

Doesn't work that way. Can you provide evidence that the way Norcal has published their operations for years is a lie? You're the one making unsupported and fantastical claims.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

I do see the ECNL forming a third league "Golden State" for Norcal boys and girls last year. Similar to what they did in Socal. That looks like just gobbling up more market share and building walls - if they were serious they could just make the ECNL-RL its own combined league with upper and lower divisions with promotion and relegation AND allow individual teams in - forget about this NPL/N1 thing. They are serious of course - about making member clubs money and making money themselves.

Please review what Norcal has already set up last year. There are already multiple RL brackets. They just didn't categorize them the same way as SoCal, who explicitly defined the new bracket as 3rd tier.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

If you want to check out teams that have been bouncing around due to pro/rel, look at ones like San Mateo County Seals 10B. If you look at their game history (use SR), and you can see them in the top NPL division, performing poorly, and being relegated to the bottom NPL3 division.

As has been posted many times in this thread, this is how it works: https://norcalpremier.com/explained-promotion-and-relegation-in-the-norcal-league-system/

Now that they rebranded the RL brackets a bit last year, the same thing works there as well, with pro/rel from RL to NPL and back again. Use SR, and you can find the brackets for RL Norcal: https://public.totalglobalsports.com/public/event/3906/schedules-standings

Here's U16/2010B:

Total Global Sports

public.totalglobalsports.com

South Valley Chivas and Sheriffs look to be in the relegation zone - they aren't going to be in that RL Norcal bracket in the fall. If the teams retain enough players to continue to exist, those teams will be in NPL (now called N1L).

 

[CleatSniffer]

Just for my own education is it possible for a Club's ECRL team and their ECRL II (or NPL) team play in ECRL if the ECRL II (or NPL) gets promoted? Or is it blocked like how Barcelona B cannot go to La Liga even if they win La Liga 2?

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

That's a good question. There's nothing published in the rules that I can find (at least publicly) that either specifically allows it (multiple teams from same club in same ECRL bracket), or specifically prohibits it. It sounds like something that would be decided case by case by Norcal's leadership. (who right now would be Kelcey, who heads up NPL,Pre-NPL, and ECNL-RL). While there is a very defined process how teams can win promotion (or be relegated), there always is the possibility that they choose to put teams in appropriate brackets to support what they feel is reasonable competition. One example of this is DeAnza Force Elite U15/2011B. This fall they finished 3rd of 9th in the top NPL bracket. They should have been placed in NPL1 in the spring. For reasons unknown, they were placed instead in NPL3. It appeared that they were going to dominate the bracket, with significantly less successful teams. But - either they or Norcal must have had discussions prior to the spring placement about what was happening with that team, and looking at Spring's results for them in NPL3 - they are going to finish 5th out of 7.