DA and ECNL

Maybe they were afraid of getting "Mallory Pugh'ed" again. Sign a top player who decides to forgo college to play NWSL/US National team.

Yup that’s it. You keep on thinking that way buddy.
 
GDA is not quite one year old and will be evolving for quite some time. Might be a little early to draw conclusions about which is better, right? Without question top players are split between GDA and ECNL right now. The older age groups obviously stuck with ECNL for the first year. Youngers will be (and already are) different. Speaking for the 05 age group which I know well, slightly more of the top players are going DA so far. While the merits of the two systems can be debated, nobody could reasonably argue that DA players aren’t getting outstanding exposure.

Outstanding exposure and EXPOSED. There aren’t enough top players to make two 22 man rosters in any age group in SoCal. There are plenty of good players that should be playing local club teams with the occasional showcase. Elite players are done a serious disservice by playing with players that are simply good. It’s like having a calculus class full of Geometry students. It slows down the calculus students from learning at a proper speed and in the proper position. How many GDA forwards and mids will be playing other positions if they play in college because they really don’t have the skills to evade a top level defender?
 
GDA is not quite one year old and will be evolving for quite some time. Might be a little early to draw conclusions about which is better, right? Without question top players are split between GDA and ECNL right now. The older age groups obviously stuck with ECNL for the first year. Youngers will be (and already are) different. Speaking for the 05 age group which I know well, slightly more of the top players are going DA so far. While the merits of the two systems can be debated, nobody could reasonably argue that DA players aren’t getting outstanding exposure.
It is going to take a few years before one can really say where the talent ends up. As you said...the olders mainly stayed ECNL. Why move when you are already committed? DA has to figure a few things out for sure. For college exposure you are probably not going wrong picking either...at least for the next 2-3 yrs.
 
Virtually none of the girls on the U20 team played in GDA. It's existed for one year. How is that even relevant?

False. 1/4 of the roster played GDA the announcer couldn’t wait to share that fact. Every player who isn’t a college player was on a GDA roster. The leading friggin scorer in GDA is on the team. Honestly none of the players should have been GDA players.
 
Outstanding exposure and EXPOSED. There aren’t enough top players to make two 22 man rosters in any age group in SoCal. There are plenty of good players that should be playing local club teams with the occasional showcase. Elite players are done a serious disservice by playing with players that are simply good. It’s like having a calculus class full of Geometry students. It slows down the calculus students from learning at a proper speed and in the proper position. How many GDA forwards and mids will be playing other positions if they play in college because they really don’t have the skills to evade a top level defender?

I was worried about roster size but my daughter’s GDA roster is 16. The very top players in the area are all in GDA. The youth national pool picks in and around her age group that I’ve seen over the last 12 mo are mostly coming out of GDA teams and they are picks that make sense to me. In order to work against those players my kid’s gotta be GDA. That’s the current landscape for her age group. We don’t have ECNL experience so we have no hangups about supporting GDA. I can say that our regional US soccer TA is outstanding and I think she will drive improvement in our club and I’m glad that my daughter gets to work with her.
 
Virtually none of the girls on the U20 team played in GDA. It's existed for one year. How is that even relevant?

Check out the player rankings and college commitments in SoCal from 03 and younger. It's very heavily skewed in favor of GDA - although the recent Slammers transition back to ECNL only makes that a bit more complicated of analysis. At the older ages, kids already committed definitely stuck around ECNL to play HS soccer. But it will interesting to see if the youngers move out of DA once HS starts.

My player’s team only has one GDA player regardless of year committed and they have three 2021 recruits already. I only see 2 GDA players for Stanford 2019 or more current. Any decent player can get committed. There are 321+ D1 schools and many times that if you include all of the other levels. Ask yourself where the top players (the ones going to the top 10-16 schools) are playing. Now look at the top 5 or 6 programs. Where are those players going. TDS rankings mean nothing. Big money offers from top schools tell you who the best players are. My kid was like the 24th ranked player in SoCal in her graduating class but has done more than everyone above her including two on her team that aren’t starters whereas she has started every game and been with the first XI on her team since the first summer practice prior to her freshman year. The best players often fly under the radar because good teams can hide a player’s deficiencies that get exposed in college.
 
False. 1/4 of the roster played GDA the announcer couldn’t wait to share that fact. Every player who isn’t a college player was on a GDA roster. The leading friggin scorer in GDA is on the team. Honestly none of the players should have been GDA players.
17 of the 21 players just finished either their Freshman or Sophomore year in College..... Basically 17 of them were not around for GDA..

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...-u20wnt-fifa-u20-womens-world-cup-france-2018
 
I was worried about roster size but my daughter’s GDA roster is 16. The very top players in the area are all in GDA. The youth national pool picks in and around her age group that I’ve seen over the last 12 mo are mostly coming out of GDA teams and they are picks that make sense to me. In order to work against those players my kid’s gotta be GDA. That’s the current landscape for her age group. We don’t have ECNL experience so we have no hangups about supporting GDA. I can say that our regional US soccer TA is outstanding and I think she will drive improvement in our club and I’m glad that my daughter gets to work with her.

You gotta do what you gotta do. US Soccer is intentionally picking GDA players over others in order to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Guess what. It won’t work because the cream always rises to the top and everything else is just curds and whey. No matter how hard US Soccer tries you can’t turn a sows ear into a silk purse. US Soccer has club parents fooled.

I will just shut up about it. You have been warned.
 
17 of the 21 players just finished either their Freshman or Sophomore year in College..... Basically 17 of them were not around for GDA..

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/20...-u20wnt-fifa-u20-womens-world-cup-france-2018

I count 6 but I am not just reading articles I KNOW what I am talking about. You might want to relook at that roster. Out of the 15 college players maybe 5 or 6 should have been there and none of the high schoolers should be there. I count only 3 players on that field that played in the College Cup. They have players on the roster that don’t start on their college teams!! Curious to say the least.
 
You gotta do what you gotta do. US Soccer is intentionally picking GDA players over others in order to create a self fulfilling prophecy. Guess what. It won’t work because the cream always rises to the top and everything else is just curds and whey. No matter how hard US Soccer tries you can’t turn a sows ear into a silk purse. US Soccer has club parents fooled.

I will just shut up about it. You have been warned.

I haven’t seen an 05 or 06 player picked that shouldn’t have been, and the most recent 05 picked isn’t GDA. I don’t see evidence of your claim in those age groups yet.
 
I haven’t seen an 05 or 06 player picked that shouldn’t have been, and the most recent 05 picked isn’t GDA. I don’t see evidence of your claim in those age groups yet.

So what you are saying is you already know who are going to be the best 18+ year old players by what you have seen at 12/13? I call bullshit.
 
I haven’t seen an 05 or 06 player picked that shouldn’t have been, and the most recent 05 picked isn’t GDA. I don’t see evidence of your claim in those age groups yet.

U$C, Stanford, UCLA and Penn State have a bench full of U14/15 national team players that don’t play very much FYI.
 
So what you are saying is you already know who are going to be the best 18+ year old players by what you have seen at 12/13? I call bullshit.
Not what I said and nobody knows that, US Soccer included.
I’m saying I don’t see evidence of US Soccer favoring GDA players over ECNL players.
 
I haven’t seen an 05 or 06 player picked that shouldn’t have been, and the most recent 05 picked isn’t GDA. I don’t see evidence of your claim in those age groups yet.
There are some players who are so talented that US Soccer can't ignore them even if they wanted to. I think I know which 05 kid you're referring to, and she plays up on a top 04 ECNL team and she is big-time difference maker. She stands out playing a year up and at the highest level. Her talent level forced US Soccer's hand.
 
Bit of a topic shift- but with the 05 Slammers team that made it to Hawaii and just won Surf Cup pretty much owning So Cal and most others over the past 2 years- Have they considered playing up a year?
Or having some players play up? (Maybe they already have/do).
With Slammers going all in with ECNL- does this team lose a game over the next 12 months?
 
False. 1/4 of the roster played GDA the announcer couldn’t wait to share that fact. Every player who isn’t a college player was on a GDA roster. The leading friggin scorer in GDA is on the team. Honestly none of the players should have been GDA players.

Stop spinning yourself in circles dude. I don't care if it was 3 or 6 girls. You cited the u20 teams as evidence of how bad GDA. It's a bad example.
 
My player’s team only has one GDA player regardless of year committed and they have three 2021 recruits already. I only see 2 GDA players for Stanford 2019 or more current. Any decent player can get committed. There are 321+ D1 schools and many times that if you include all of the other levels. Ask yourself where the top players (the ones going to the top 10-16 schools) are playing. Now look at the top 5 or 6 programs. Where are those players going. TDS rankings mean nothing. Big money offers from top schools tell you who the best players are. My kid was like the 24th ranked player in SoCal in her graduating class but has done more than everyone above her including two on her team that aren’t starters whereas she has started every game and been with the first XI on her team since the first summer practice prior to her freshman year. The best players often fly under the radar because good teams can hide a player’s deficiencies that get exposed in college.

All I'm saying is that kids in the younger age groups that are currently good flocked to GDA in SoCal. Not saying that they should have, I'm just saying that it happened. And it did. That wasn't the case for the older age groups.

Aren't there several that have committed to UCLA that played GDA - Beach, Cedar Stars, Under Soccer Alliance, California Thorns, Tophat, Blues (non-Bakers). When you say, my "player’s team only has one GDA player regardless of year committed," what are you referring to?

For reference, here are three UCLA commits: http://njsa.ussoccerda.com/sam/teams/index.php?team=3938600&player=265898209
http://unsa.ussoccerda.com/sam/teams/index.php?team=3952500&player=271127849
http://scbs.ussoccerda.com/sam/teams/index.php?team=3948460&player=265482218
 
See, like I said, in the younger age group a majority of the talent flocked to DA. ;) Just kidding Shales.
I was ready to clap back :eek:, it’s all good. I’m not the federation. It’s just press release telling you what they are doing.
 
All I'm saying is that kids in the younger age groups that are currently good flocked to GDA in SoCal. Not saying that they should have, I'm just saying that it happened. And it did. That wasn't the case for the older age groups
That's probably more to do with parents of youngers believing GDA is the best path to a YNT instead of just being an elite player. Olders and their parents are usually more aware of their talents and stop chasing the golden carrot.
 
Back
Top