East County Soccer Dad
SILVER
As
are they going to a certain club?
AYSO UNITED
- Thread starter zags77
- Start date
I don’t understand the logic on why it needs to be a system with no player movement. I can see it working if you just have a small bench and have plenty of minutes to go around. As long as you are winning, the team will stay together. So what the kids get poached, you can also poach back.
It seems to be just a mix of the available clubs in the area. San Diego Rush, Sporting San Diego, etc
It's not no player movement. It's that it puts a cost on the club to make decisions. That's how the academies work in Europe....each player is a cost that must be evaluated, not some half a-- "let's see if this works" roll of the dice...you can't just build a team by poaching other players and see if they work out and the wins becoming meaningless because every player is an investment which must be recouped so developing the player is what's most important. The other way to go is how pro/rel works in rec in Europe: very few players play academy and everyone else plays rec, there's no college and no varsity high school on the line depending on your placement and brackets are just to keep competition level and to keep interest in the game, costs are extremely low, most people stop playing at secondary school, so no one really cares or pulls shenanigans because nothing but the glory is at stake and money is taken completely off the table. Our issue is the money is half way but not all the way in there so it's the worst of both worlds and the incentives are all wrong.
I am ok with a rec pro/rel league. MLS can have their pro academies. The rest of us can just play rec. We already are playing rec, some of us just can’t admit it.
Maybe AYSO can stop that every team equal strength none sense and put a proper rec pro/rel league together.
You'll have to rewrite the college admission rules, scholarship rules, and split out NIL into men's football and basketball. I endorse your endeavor (but don't ask for help!)
FutsalIsFurReal
BRONZE
Checking back on predictions is the most fun (and often hilarious) aspect of this forum.
Agree, everyone drinks the kool-aid now and then.
RedCard
GOLD
I feel that AYSO "knew" what they wanted to do, which was to compete with club teams, but didn't know how to and just started adding more and more programs within the AYSO world. First, they started the Extra program which didn't work. Then they came up with United. OK, that was working but there was soooooo many United teams. Then out of the blue, they create Alliance. Do really know why. And so where in between all of that, the San Diego area got Matrix. Pretty confusing if you ask me. Should of just stuck with one program....
And then there are some clubs that are basically AYSO United/Alliance/Extra teams where at the end of the season, AYSO All-Star teams move to these clubs and are out of the AYSO shadow...There are 2 of those types of clubs here in the SGV....
And then there are some clubs that are basically AYSO United/Alliance/Extra teams where at the end of the season, AYSO All-Star teams move to these clubs and are out of the AYSO shadow...There are 2 of those types of clubs here in the SGV....
A couple of things happened (at least on the girls side). United got denied trying to join ECNL and GA even though a good number of teams were competitive even with the everybody plays rule, so they joined the E64 league. For the most part, they took the strongest team in each age group from whatever hub the team was from and then augmented those teams with players from the other hubs. This is where the politics started that led to the creation of Alliance - teams/coaches/rcs that did not want their players to leave their region or felt that their team should have been the core for the E64 team. In CA, Some of them also wanted to play in CSL instead of Socal for whatever reason. They also didn’t want to fall in line with the coaching standards, though I think that was a little more of secondary issue. Everything I heard about the United leadership staff going to different regions and helping the volunteer coaches level up was extremely positive.
We’ve been out for a few years now but I still think it was one the best moonshots in youth soccer, but I guess we’re stuck paying at least 4k per year for decently competitive rec soccer.
MerseysideOC
BRONZE
Agreed. My son & daughter were involved in Extra for a couple of years before moving to club. While Extra is billed as an alternative to club (both in cost & competition), I found that most families in our region looked at it from purely an increased activity standpoint (i.e. just keep the kids busy & moving), not so much a development/competition standpoint. Coaching is still volunteer-based, field allocations were extremely difficult & limited in space to properly train. Add to that, most athletes were in multiple sports, robotics, or other outside activities that often cut into training or game time. Also, based on a significantly lower price-point ($550 per season IIRC), the level of commitment or participation was just not there. This was evident when we consistently played short of players/subs. Some parents never interacted with coaches, so we could not count on their kids to show up for practice or games. At a certain point, it was time to move on from Extra since we knew nothing would really change.
We noticed other regions had fairly competitive Extra programs. Cypress had very skilled players who were well-drilled. From what one of their parents told us after a game, that team was looking to leave Extra & go club. Montebello also had a solid program, similar to Cypress. Quality truly ranged from region to region.
In terms of United, my understanding is that our region had one of the initial AYSO United teams in Orange Co., but the coach took that team to another club. Par for the course I reckon.
rainbow_unicorn
PREMIER
AYSO should have gotten rid of the Extra program and kept United. Starting at U8, they should have selected the all-stars (those who would have been selected for Extra) and extended an invite for them to try out for the United teams. With their huge player base and low cost, AYSO could have become a real force in the club world.
I dont think it would have mattered. AYSO has a different clientele than Club soccer. To make it work AYSO super teams (whatever you want to call them) would need to be 100% funded and this includes transportation to and from events. Even if this was possible clubs would pick off the talent offering scholorships.
United did make a go of it for wins (especially for minors), at least in SoCal. Built several state championship teams by exactly drawing on that huge player base. The issue as chip monk identified is that they got frozen out of competing letter league. So when they hit the olders, clubs would pick off the top talent. When coast fell apart that also didn't help. United's model was always to grind up teams, recruit players, go higher and the distance for top Socal play and the select your own tier hurt that strategy.
AYSO core is $180 for 11 games, plus another 10 games if you go deep into post season tournaments. Their extra team is about $600 a year and the level of play is equivalent to socal flight 1. Their extra coach probably cares more than your typical club SoCal flight 1 coach. AYSO does more for soccer in this country more than all the clubs combined.
It's been a few years since I've seen a transition from the youngers into club, and it's possible that a championship extras team might be able to hang with higher level club, but when I've seen extras teams or all star teams transition to club, they tended usually not to do very well, let alone be ready to play flight 1 youngers (when there's limited or no letter league options). My son also reffed a few extras teams this last season: 1) the quality of play was NOT generally that of club (as the other post mentioned likely because the players aren't as committed or the number of practices not the same as club), and 2) the extras program has really been paired down by the existence of united, which tends to take the better players. Amusing story: after his United year, my son started for a local club...best coach we ever had from a development point of view...it was only flight 3. That year an AYSO extras team was in their bracket. The extras team had made it to the SoCal extras finals (finishing second overall) and the coaches were really upset that coast was forcing them to start in bronze....they felt i would be (like my son's United team), a wasted year where they are running over the entire competition. So they recruited a couple older kids and decided they would play up a year. They drew my son's team (which finished 3rd in the bracket, just outside of promotion the previous year) as their first competition of the season. The parents were really cocky before the gaming saying this would be a piece of cake for their little champions since our team was a bunch of losers that missed out on promotion. They had their zuzuzela horns, were taunting our players, even organized cheers. They wound up losing to our team 10-0 with maybe only a single shot on goal on target. The team fell apart before the end of the season and forfeit the remaining games.
sanmarcosfc
BRONZE
Once you have separate entities, the lawyers are quick to point out they must be separated.
Short of a formal tryout agreement (which would require Ayso to appoint someone on their end to oversee the entire thing), I don’t see how athletic does cooperative tryouts drawing on the Ayso player base either…too much liability for potential safe sport violations that may arise…certainly doesn’t seem like they can just use Ayso facilities for those tryouts. 
By SoCal flight 1, I am referring to the third tier league in 9v9 or 11v11. Some of the better extra teams can compete well against EA2 teams. My point is AYSO offers extremely good value.
In our region, the extra team for my son’s age group in back to back years two different coaches took the extra team to join a club. This year is third time they have to build an extra team from scratch.