DOC here. Any questions on the inside dealings?
- Thread starter paytoplayisgood
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futboldad1
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ECNL begins at U13.... Socal leagues up to and including U12 are full strength, after that age group they still exist but are massively weakened......
So is it safe to say that after U12, the fight 1 teams in u13 socal soccer league are actually flight 3 teams the year before?
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For Clubs that have ECNL or GA teams, you will usually see them place their 3rd team in a Socal Flight 2 or 3 bracket once U13 starts. For the Clubs that are not ECNL and GA, typically their Flight 1 teams are still performing as Flight 1. Some ECNL clubs put their 3rd teams in NPL/Flight 1 last season. For the majority that tried that it went bad for those teams; you can look through the results on Socal and see the how they faired. As they get older the 3rd teams seem to either grow toward Flight 1 or disband. Just to clairfy, when I say club, I am refering to a single site, not all the feeder associates and affiliates.
Thanks for the explanation. I wonder how long does it take for people to figure this out. I know I was impressed that my club had all these flight 1 teams in the olders. Not impressed anymore.
Without making this into a debate about what's more "prestigious" (ECNL vs EA/MLS Next), the highest league for the boys in SoCal would be:
9 and younger - flight 1 SoCal League
10 and 11 - EA
12 years and up - MLS Next
Clubs choose ECNL path (Pats, Slammers) or EA/MLS Next path (TFA, City SC, Albion, Strikers, Liverpool, LAUFA).
It seems as though the most of the "big and best" clubs have chosen the EA/MLS Next path and since majority of the parents see it that way, it's become the de facto truth (and the fact that MLS Academies compete in MLS Next).
On the girls side, I think ECNL > GA but location/age could sway it the other way. In GENERAL though, if college soccer is the goal on the girls side, ECNL is very well tracked by college coaches and scouts and thus highest level girls play in ECNL.
Haha yea that's the reason why on some of these clubs you have flight 2 and 3 for the youngers and then have a bunch of flight 1 teams for the olders... because that flight 1 is essentially a flight 3 or flight 4 team...
If you want your kid to play or at least try to play in the highest level and the current club doesn't offer EA/MLS Next/ECNL, you literally can't and have to find a club that offers that.
The MLS Academies at the higher age levels actually just begin to compete against themselves in separate flights. They'll do some games against the MLS Next cannon fodder, but in league they are segregating them out amongst themselves. On the boys side, the MLS Academies are the true top flight...if you aren't playing for them, you aren't the top flight (even though there are teams out there that can give them a run for their money). The girls don't have a true elite league compared to the MLS Academies.
Ah yes, that's true. I believe they created MLS Next Pro which will be a mix of MLS teams' 2nd teams and academy kids.
I guess at age 16 and up, there is no "top flight" anymore... the truly talented ones will be signing professional contracts and leave youth soccer.
(Technically there is no age limit and we've been 14 year olds signed to MLS... starting with Freddy Adu back in the days to more recently Axel Kei and Maximo Carrizo...)
Yeah, it's funny....it means for the very oldest for the boys "flight 1" is actually flight 6.
Yeah, it's funny....it means for the very oldest for the boys "flight 1" is actually flight 6.
Haha I think we can separate out the youth vs adult leagues and say it's flight 4
What flight is my 40+ men's league on weekday nights??