ECNL will be to DA what Premier is to ECNL. So many folks jumped to less than optimal situations just for the ecnl distinction. Plenty of players on the roster that would be better served elsewhere. A "reputable" or at least well know coach was over heard telling parents that every girl who is on an ecnl team gets a scholarship. Easy to fool the under informed.
Girls Development Academy
- Thread starter Swoosh
- Start date
And another thing. One of the main reasons that US soccer gave for the Pure birth year changes is that it combats the relative age effect(which I thought was bogus anyway because all it did was shift the birthmonths of the kids who would feel the effect). With the DA combining 2 birth years on the same team, it looks to me that they are actually increasing the relative age effect for these DA teams. Every other year, the kids who were born in November/December will be having to compete with kids almost 2 years older than they are. Again, this is another reason why I'd steer my daughter to ECNL, although I probably don't need to since she would likely choose ECNL anyway because she wants to play high school soccer and run track.
Pre and post Armageddon of the So Cal Forum this has been quite a detailed thread and very interesting to read. A few posters have eluded to it, but no one has gone in to detail about it...but will the DA implement a curriculum on how they want to instruct technical and tactical instruction? In my opinion no change will come without one. Nor will growth of our national team, college players, etc. Which supposedly is the point of the DA. However, from what I understand neither does the ECNL. Just clubs or coaches dis-jointly applying their methods.
shales1002
GOLD
Thanks for sharing. I was completely floored by these conditions. Isn't the NWSL suppose to sponsor/assist the GDA?
I would agree if it wasn't for the rule changes and playing restrictions in the DA. It's going to be very difficult to mange those and keep parents and players happy. ECNL didn't have as many of those issues to contend with when it came along as another option to Premiere.
pooka
SILVER ELITE
This is crazy! They could play on high school fields and it would be better than a baseball outfield! It looks like the league doesn't plan at all! Couldn't they use college facilities? This is a shame, I know it isn't a huge moneymaker, but damn our u14 team travels and plays in better condition.
socalsoccercoach
SILVER
The ECNL and DA situation will be interesting with clubs in proximity where a club has DA and ECNL and one club has ECNL only..could stand to reason the DA club could also attract the best ECNL kids with lure of DA teams in the club...the landscape could change a bit...
Generik
SILVER
Back in the "good-old-days" we used to get excited about the time our girls/teams transitioned from 8v8 to the "big field!"
Nowadays...change seems to be our new "normal" - we haven't even really started with the calendar-age play yet and we are already getting bombarded with many more significant changes that we are trying to understand in order to make the best decisions for our families.
Just when we thought we had it all "figured out" we now get to deal with Development Academy for the girls side.
Don't get me wrong...I am a firm believer that change is positive...you have to keep moving forward and evolving or you will get left behind with the dinosaurs...I just wish our change was spread-out a bit more than it is since our dd's only have a few more years left enjoying this journey - assuming they finish out their playing years.
All this change will benefit some...pose as obstacles to others...and be transparent to many - I just hope it is not too late for those trying to figure things out that ultimately are impacted...so they can still react accordingly for the player.
Someone needs to take some screen-shots of this thread...so when this Forum database gets deleted one day (fingers crossed it doesn't happen!), we can all look back on this dialogue and laugh about these "good-old-days" when parents/players only had to deal with the new world of DA for their girls - no doubt this change will pass-by us all...because coming around another corner is more change...we just don't know what it is just yet.
Good luck to everyone trying to navigate this new soccer world order...and keep posting all the great insight and opinions!
Nowadays...change seems to be our new "normal" - we haven't even really started with the calendar-age play yet and we are already getting bombarded with many more significant changes that we are trying to understand in order to make the best decisions for our families.
Just when we thought we had it all "figured out" we now get to deal with Development Academy for the girls side.
Don't get me wrong...I am a firm believer that change is positive...you have to keep moving forward and evolving or you will get left behind with the dinosaurs...I just wish our change was spread-out a bit more than it is since our dd's only have a few more years left enjoying this journey - assuming they finish out their playing years.
All this change will benefit some...pose as obstacles to others...and be transparent to many - I just hope it is not too late for those trying to figure things out that ultimately are impacted...so they can still react accordingly for the player.
Someone needs to take some screen-shots of this thread...so when this Forum database gets deleted one day (fingers crossed it doesn't happen!), we can all look back on this dialogue and laugh about these "good-old-days" when parents/players only had to deal with the new world of DA for their girls - no doubt this change will pass-by us all...because coming around another corner is more change...we just don't know what it is just yet.
Good luck to everyone trying to navigate this new soccer world order...and keep posting all the great insight and opinions!
NoGoal
DA
Thanks to 17SD posting this article in another thread. The executive director and president of Real Colorado, has the same opinion as I do. That DA combining 2 age groups leaves out college level players from the mix, unless the club as GA and ECNL.
"Now you merge everything into three [GDA] teams, so there’s tons of players left over. And all these players are going to colleges and they’re playing ball; what do you do with them? So we’re playing in both leagues,” said Donaldson. “You have to. Because you can’t have somebody who is going to go play college ball and say, ‘you can no longer play for Real Colorado.’ We have enough players and we have enough good coaches that we can make it work. So this group, it’s the last go-round for them, because some of them are 99s and some of them are 2000s.”
http://www.soccerwire.com/news/club...lorado-coach-rips-ussfs-ecnl-scheduling-snub/
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T
TD1
Guest
Great post Nogoal. I'm just glad my dd is done with the club scene and I don't have to give any of those suckers another dime.
P.s. Wasn't BJ Snow the coach at UCLA who tricked a bunch of the girls to sign away their scholarships when he took over the colleges soccer program (slipped the forms in with a bunch of other paperwork he asked them to sign)? What a great guy.
P.s. Wasn't BJ Snow the coach at UCLA who tricked a bunch of the girls to sign away their scholarships when he took over the colleges soccer program (slipped the forms in with a bunch of other paperwork he asked them to sign)? What a great guy.
T
TD1
Guest
That was the rumor, but I certainly am in no position to confirm. Hope it's not true.
17SquirrelsDad
BRONZE
Count me in as happy too. DD is out of soccer, with 1 year left, but no regrets (other than painful coaches/doc speeches about getting DDs scholarship monies... what a bunch of shit!). Still have great memories of seeing Marley Canales play club/HS; and seeing Mallory in person playing; along with watching some great players playing ECNL (actual, REAL soccer!). Shout out to Abdul - YOUR dd made it, Congrats!
Second girls DA expansion worrying for ECNL
Article Written by Will Parchman
Published: July 12, 2016
Comments
There was never much of a chance the ECNL would be able to throw a velvet rope of exclusivity around its biggest, most prestigious clubs. As the girls Development Academy elbowed itself into the discussion about who develops the best and brightest in the country, there would always be some bleed-over.
For the ECNL, the task was always about limiting the damage and continuing to prop up the tenets of development that got them here. The latter is unassailable, buttressed by a massive number of U.S. YNT players and a seven-year history that’s given them unique perspective. Whatever U.S. Soccer does with its academy, it will never be able to usurp those hard-won lessons.
But the former is suddenly on shaky ground. Damage limitation in the form of defecting clubs is suddenly more untenable than ever.
The U.S. Soccer-led girls Development Academy made waves in early July by announcing 25 clubs had agreed to join for the 2017 season. It was the first wave of additions, and while it was an important stepping stone it didn’t tell us everything. PDA led the charge, and 60 percent of the NWSL was represented, but there were still some huge clubs left out of the mix. Were they abstaining, or were they simply biding their time?
After the first jab, U.S. Soccer came across with a haymaker on July 9. It announced it added 28 more clubs for the 2017-18 season, bringing the total to 53. And it emphatically answered the question as to whether the ECNL had something to worry about in its new club competition.
After this second wave of additions, the answer, emphatically, is yes. The ECNL has something to worry about. Here’s what we learned after the girls DA’s second significant round of expansion.
— PDA was the club the DA needed in its first round of expansion to cement the league as a going concern for the ECNL. The NWSL clubs were nice, as were a few of the other heavy hitters, but PDA made it all very real. Even if PDA keeps teams in the ECNL, there’s a significant chance their most prestigious teams and their best players are shuttled off to U.S. Soccer’s league. The ECNL simply couldn’t afford to lose another major pillar.
The second round of expansion was another crushing body blow. Not only did the girls DA add another NWSL team (the Washington Spirit), but it folded in the Dallas Sting, Dallas Texans and Eclipse Select, three of the 10 biggest girls soccer development operations in the country. All three routinely pump out national team-quality players, and the fact that both are headed for the DA does not bode particularly well for the ECNL.
Of course that doesn’t mean all three are abandoning the ECNL. It’s unclear how teams will partition their players in the future, and whether some go all-in on the DA or opt to split time between the two. But the writing is on the wall that the new thing is gathering steam as big club after big club signs up for its ranks. As one joins after another, the ECNL is left wondering how many exclusive clubs it’ll have at the end of the 2016-17 season.
— Speaking of 2016-17, the upcoming season is a big one for the ECNL. It’s the league’s last as a lone wolf atop the girls development apparatus in this country, and they’ll have to make good use of it if they hope to stave off the charge of the DA. What that means is still up the air. Does the ECNL opt to use its brief bit of leverage to attempt to sway its clubs to keep their more muscled half in the league? It has the unique advantage over the DA for the next 12 months of having these clubs’ collective ear while they still have their best players stashed in the league. They could well pull off a coup in that time.
But it’s clear U.S. Soccer has newness on its side, and that’s an intriguing prospect for much of the league. For clubs dissatisfied with the ECNL’s more relaxed standards as opposed to what’s being offered by U.S. Soccer, this could be the opportunity they’ve been awaiting for years.
— Of course some clubs don’t agree. Not long after the first round of expansion went live, Ohio Elite, an ECNL member club since the league arrived in 2009, went public with its pledge to stay in the ECNL. Among their gripes with the DA, they simply stated that they had no real reason to jump for the new league. How many clubs follow their lead is uncertain, but they increasingly look like outliers after this recent 28-club announcement. The DA is now at 53 clubs with a year left to get to the boys benchmark of around 80, which is also generally where the ECNL settles. It looks like they should have little trouble adding big names too, another trend that has to be somewhat dissatisfying for the ECNL.
— The ECNL long hung its hat on its fully national organizational model. It has clubs all over the country in every major market and in a bunch of minor ones too, and it has long said that each of those needs to be dealt with differently. That drove the ECNL’s more hands-off approach with its requirements, allowing each club to determine what was best for them in the confines of their unique market. If the ECNL couldn’t determine what was best for those clubs, they reasoned, the boots on the ground certainly could.
The ECNL’s best chance at avoiding a mass exodus to the DA was essentially hoping its clubs agreed. After years of allowing them to make their own big decisions, it had to hope they appreciated that approach and didn’t buy into U.S. Soccer’s more heavy-handed view toward development.
But it appears that hasn’t happened. Even if the Ohio Elites opted to not leave the ECNL in any form, the nation’s biggest clubs - the PDAs, the Dallas Stings, the So Cal Blues’ - were of more interest in that they likely felt (and feel) as if they have as good a grasp on how to produce players as anyone based on their track record. Big clubs tend to be more intractable in how they view development, and convincing them they needed more help was always going to be a difficult sell.
Credit U.S. Soccer. They’ve already brought many of the country’s biggest girls clubs on board, and at least one more round of significant expansion should tell us even more about how far the girls DA has already come in such a short period of time. But either way, if the ECNL wasn’t worried before, it should be now.
Article Written by Will Parchman
Published: July 12, 2016
Comments
There was never much of a chance the ECNL would be able to throw a velvet rope of exclusivity around its biggest, most prestigious clubs. As the girls Development Academy elbowed itself into the discussion about who develops the best and brightest in the country, there would always be some bleed-over.
For the ECNL, the task was always about limiting the damage and continuing to prop up the tenets of development that got them here. The latter is unassailable, buttressed by a massive number of U.S. YNT players and a seven-year history that’s given them unique perspective. Whatever U.S. Soccer does with its academy, it will never be able to usurp those hard-won lessons.
But the former is suddenly on shaky ground. Damage limitation in the form of defecting clubs is suddenly more untenable than ever.
The U.S. Soccer-led girls Development Academy made waves in early July by announcing 25 clubs had agreed to join for the 2017 season. It was the first wave of additions, and while it was an important stepping stone it didn’t tell us everything. PDA led the charge, and 60 percent of the NWSL was represented, but there were still some huge clubs left out of the mix. Were they abstaining, or were they simply biding their time?
After the first jab, U.S. Soccer came across with a haymaker on July 9. It announced it added 28 more clubs for the 2017-18 season, bringing the total to 53. And it emphatically answered the question as to whether the ECNL had something to worry about in its new club competition.
After this second wave of additions, the answer, emphatically, is yes. The ECNL has something to worry about. Here’s what we learned after the girls DA’s second significant round of expansion.
— PDA was the club the DA needed in its first round of expansion to cement the league as a going concern for the ECNL. The NWSL clubs were nice, as were a few of the other heavy hitters, but PDA made it all very real. Even if PDA keeps teams in the ECNL, there’s a significant chance their most prestigious teams and their best players are shuttled off to U.S. Soccer’s league. The ECNL simply couldn’t afford to lose another major pillar.
The second round of expansion was another crushing body blow. Not only did the girls DA add another NWSL team (the Washington Spirit), but it folded in the Dallas Sting, Dallas Texans and Eclipse Select, three of the 10 biggest girls soccer development operations in the country. All three routinely pump out national team-quality players, and the fact that both are headed for the DA does not bode particularly well for the ECNL.
Of course that doesn’t mean all three are abandoning the ECNL. It’s unclear how teams will partition their players in the future, and whether some go all-in on the DA or opt to split time between the two. But the writing is on the wall that the new thing is gathering steam as big club after big club signs up for its ranks. As one joins after another, the ECNL is left wondering how many exclusive clubs it’ll have at the end of the 2016-17 season.
— Speaking of 2016-17, the upcoming season is a big one for the ECNL. It’s the league’s last as a lone wolf atop the girls development apparatus in this country, and they’ll have to make good use of it if they hope to stave off the charge of the DA. What that means is still up the air. Does the ECNL opt to use its brief bit of leverage to attempt to sway its clubs to keep their more muscled half in the league? It has the unique advantage over the DA for the next 12 months of having these clubs’ collective ear while they still have their best players stashed in the league. They could well pull off a coup in that time.
But it’s clear U.S. Soccer has newness on its side, and that’s an intriguing prospect for much of the league. For clubs dissatisfied with the ECNL’s more relaxed standards as opposed to what’s being offered by U.S. Soccer, this could be the opportunity they’ve been awaiting for years.
— Of course some clubs don’t agree. Not long after the first round of expansion went live, Ohio Elite, an ECNL member club since the league arrived in 2009, went public with its pledge to stay in the ECNL. Among their gripes with the DA, they simply stated that they had no real reason to jump for the new league. How many clubs follow their lead is uncertain, but they increasingly look like outliers after this recent 28-club announcement. The DA is now at 53 clubs with a year left to get to the boys benchmark of around 80, which is also generally where the ECNL settles. It looks like they should have little trouble adding big names too, another trend that has to be somewhat dissatisfying for the ECNL.
— The ECNL long hung its hat on its fully national organizational model. It has clubs all over the country in every major market and in a bunch of minor ones too, and it has long said that each of those needs to be dealt with differently. That drove the ECNL’s more hands-off approach with its requirements, allowing each club to determine what was best for them in the confines of their unique market. If the ECNL couldn’t determine what was best for those clubs, they reasoned, the boots on the ground certainly could.
The ECNL’s best chance at avoiding a mass exodus to the DA was essentially hoping its clubs agreed. After years of allowing them to make their own big decisions, it had to hope they appreciated that approach and didn’t buy into U.S. Soccer’s more heavy-handed view toward development.
But it appears that hasn’t happened. Even if the Ohio Elites opted to not leave the ECNL in any form, the nation’s biggest clubs - the PDAs, the Dallas Stings, the So Cal Blues’ - were of more interest in that they likely felt (and feel) as if they have as good a grasp on how to produce players as anyone based on their track record. Big clubs tend to be more intractable in how they view development, and convincing them they needed more help was always going to be a difficult sell.
Credit U.S. Soccer. They’ve already brought many of the country’s biggest girls clubs on board, and at least one more round of significant expansion should tell us even more about how far the girls DA has already come in such a short period of time. But either way, if the ECNL wasn’t worried before, it should be now.
socalsoccercoach
SILVER
To me it is simple the ECNL must allow clubs in the DA and in ECNL to continue to be in the ECNL while this will diminish the level some I believe it will allow the ECNL to do what it has done well and that is get players in college.
eastbaysoccer
GOLD
No. The correct thing to do is accept applications to the ecnl and be poised to replace every GDA club with a club in close proximity.
IMO GDA will be battling the unknown. We don't know if girls are willing to give up so much for so little. Only a less than 1% shot take the YNT awaits them. Million dollar contracts don't exist for them.
IMO GDA will be battling the unknown. We don't know if girls are willing to give up so much for so little. Only a less than 1% shot take the YNT awaits them. Million dollar contracts don't exist for them.
Give up so much what?
NoGoal
DA
Looks like that isn't going to happen. A buddy text this to me yesterday. DA clubs are not leaving ECNL as ECNL is marketing that the most successful clubs are playing ECNL the 2017-2018 season during DA's inaugural season.
http://www.eliteclubsnationalleague.com/home/920431.html
As I posted prior, there will be clubs participating in both Girls DA and ECNL. These are the clubs that will dominant the market in SoCal. The Girls DA only clubs such as Legends, Beach, LA Premier and Carlsbad. When they conduct open tryouts the spring of 2017 and over half of their A team players DO NOT make the DA team will be very upset. I can almost guarantee families will feel a sense of betrayal after the club cuts their DDs. What is the club going to say, "we had a lot of new talent trying out for the DA teams, unfortunately we can only offer your DD a spot on our B team that will be playing National League". They will then go to other DA clubs to tryout and if they don't make it there....ECNL will be the final destination for those players.
The same can be said, for the ECNL clubs who do not have DA status. Their best Ulittle players will be trying out for DA clubs. Why are they gonna play for an ECNL only club? When they can play for a club that has ECNL and DA affiliation. This way there is an opportunity to be called up to the DA team.
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