azsnowrider
SILVER ELITE
Just know this Happy, the GA is playing right now in Texas. And get this, there are P-P-P-arents on the sideline... Cold, but games are being played. Makes em tough right?
ECNL expansion 2021-2022
- Thread starter Surf Zombie
- Start date
Just know this Happy, the GA is playing right now in Texas. And get this, there are P-P-P-arents on the sideline... Cold, but games are being played. Makes em tough right?
Desert Hound
DA
They run small rosters now over the past 2-3 yrs.
As I was tracking them and a few other clubs over the years, I ended up having rosters from years past. 4 yrs ago for instance their 04s and 03s were at 17-18 kids per age group.
The small rosters you see now is not something they have traditionally done. It is done because they are short. In the past they kept full rosters.
One of the reasons I kept track of different club rosters was to see who moved where.
With DA I used it to see how coaches used subs and gave out minutes.
I don't think there is an official connection. Their connection to USSF relies mainly on personal relationships with key players within USSF. I'm sure ECNL and others have a similar relationship.
It appears there is a more direct connection to the youth talent folks at USSF. I don't if that really matters or if something more will come out of it.
Relationships are important. We'll find out over the next year or so. Plenty of posturing and nastiness will occur soon enough.
The club knew a change was needed. They kept about half the team from the original 06 team. All I think were offered spots within the club, but not sure if they stayed. The 07's were also a merger but not all the LAG players were offered spots. The club wanted to make it balanced between the two clubs. Addendum--I miscounted its 9 players.
I just checked out the live stream a bit ago. They are playing...they are cold, but they are playing. Good on them. Have talked to several people today, people are watching (coaches, YNT staff, etc). They are all starved for soccer. Putting aside all league bickering (which I could really care less about), the ladies are playing. Hopefully the ECNL ladies will get back on the pitch.. Leave all of the bickering to the parents.
Check out the disparity between FT and PT players. If you pulled DA rosters from their website, it specifies FT/PT.
Game day rosters always small, PT players not always there and sometimes (mostly) not even in the state. RSL did the same thing.
Desert Hound
DA
I used to not only look at rosters, but paid special attention to game day rosters and minutes. Also I am very aware of FT vs PT since my kid played DA.
In the past they had larger rosters at all age groups vs what you see now.
ECNL ladies are back on the pitch this weekend in San Diego. Thank you to Surf Cup Sports for arranging.
Rather than using the GA, if they really wanted to control call ups, US Soccer could just make their own league...oh wait, they just did that, and oh wait, ECNL just took them out. If ECNL can take out a federation sponsored league, I don't think they will be too concerned with much else.
Desert Hound
DA
I started paying attention to them when they still had ECNL and RSL was called Sereno and had ECNL. That was before my kid was old enough for the platform.
Another ECNL employee? OH, I know, just another version of what's his name.
Stating obvious facts. I'm far from an ECNL employee. Are you a GA fan? Sorry if I shocked you with the facts.
ECNL crushed GDA/USSF like a grape, despite the huge advantage GDA had by virtue of the USSF label. It did so because ECNL was built on a brilliant and financially successful platform, while GDA made no financial sense. And GAL is much the same as GDA, only fewer benefits.
GAL does not and never will hold the key to YNT call ups by virtue of the fact that the vast majority of the best players play ECNL, and there is no way to pry them away. GDA’s failure proved that. USSF tried to limit call ups to GDA players and that went horribly wrong. Regardless, the draw of the YNT is highly overrated as a means of attracting the best players, as also proven by GDA, and it is a grave mistake to build a business model around maybe 20 of your 10,000 paying customers. There are only a handful of kids in each age group who have a shot at the YNT, and most of them don’t even know that when they first choose between ECNL and GAL. But there are tens of thousands who are doing this for college, and that is where ECNL excels and USSF and GAL fail miserably. College is the be all, end all for girls soccer and always will be. Admission to Stanford, or UCLA or Berkeley or USC or Ivies is worth somewhere between $200-500k to families even without scholarship money, whereas YNT call ups only cause kids missed school so that daddy’s fragile self-esteem can get a boost. If a GAL club pitches that they have a potential advantage to maybe possibly play on a YNT some day, while a GDA club says they’ve got Radcliffe and Cromwell on speed dial and they show up to about 10 games a year, that is no contest and it never will be for parents, even if stupid 2nd tier soccer clubs get starry-eyed and delusional that an affiliation with USSF will allow them to jump the line without doing the work or putting in the investment. Just like what happened with GDA.
In the end, USSF has no power over girls youth soccer. None. It got beat not only by ECNL, but also by HS soccer. It was ridiculous to tell 10,000 kids they can’t play HS soccer because maybe 20 might get to play on a YNT some day. In the end, SoCal Blues alone had more power over the elite youth soccer landscape than USSF.
ECNL also has an infrastructure that cannot be matched by GAL. It has the perfect mix of travel requirements, regional showcases, and high level competition to excel in a financially sustainable way, with carefully chosen clubs to maximize that advantage. GAL is a bunch of leftovers that, in many places, make no sense and will require shelling out thousands of dollars on travel to play s**ty teams, or saving money by not traveling, instead playing s**ty local teams, depending where you are. There is no getting over that hurdle. That was also part of GDA’s downfall, although SoCal didn’t really see it because unlike most regions, there was enough talent that it wasn’t necessary to get on planes to play decent competition. But as clubs in other regions learned quickly, flying to UT to play one league game was a joke. But not flying to UT, and instead beating local teams 6-0 or worse over and over again is also a joke. That is the kind of impossible situation that many GAL clubs will be fighting constantly until they realize it is not sustainable and pack it in.
There is only room for one national youth league. Period. There is plenty of space, however, for lower level regional leagues to succeed, but it is simply too expensive for clubs and families to justify it. Clubs are asking families to pay more than what is justified for the sake of these clubs trying to get to someday supplant ECNL. That is a terrible business model. A great business model would be for solid SoCal clubs to form a solid regional league and pitch it to families that they get nearly the same benefit without having to shell out the extra thousands on travel. But it could only work regionally because there are only two or three areas in the entire US that can conceivably provide enough high level teams without having to constantly travel hundreds of miles.
Making an overly long story short, you can boil this down to the following:
1. If an elite CA team must get on a plane or drive more than 100 miles to play league games, the league will eventually fail.
2. If an elite CA team must get on a plane or drive more than 100 miles to play league games they won’t regularly win 6-0, the league will also fail.
I don't pick tribes. They are your facts and I rarely get into measuring contests. Next question..
Sounds to me like CA needs to abandon ECNL and do their own thing. And I agree, A CA team should never have to leave the state to play a league game, that's a no brainer. If that's the case, why do you need ECNL at all? Why have the middle man and the cost?
You are brilliant, start the revolution, lead the charge to secede from ECNL and craft the CA girls soccer league. Why wouldn't that be a good thing?
azsnowrider
SILVER ELITE
Well I hope CA acts quickly to secede and start a new CA girls league. Based on this comment the ECNL is destined to fail.
1. If an elite CA team must get on a plane or drive more than 100 miles to play league games, the league will eventually fail.
Better act quick folks the league is going to crumble because you have to drive more than 100 miles for a league game. Hey happy maybe we can get Nevada, Utah, New Mexico to team up and form our own league we will show them!
We are a bit spoiled in SoCal. If you look at the geographic range of the other Regions, the travel is mind boggling.
GeekKid
SILVER ELITE
The Texas region travel is very palatable. There are 6 teams in the DFW metroplex, two team in Oklahoma which drive time is 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours and then Austin and San Antonio which is about the same as the Oklahoma teams and then 2 Houston teams which is a 4 hour ride. So same proximity as playing an opponent in Vegas. Plus with SoCal traffic a trip down to San Diego could take 2-3 hours depending on traffic and yes I've experienced it!
When Eagles play surf that’s a 3 to 4 Hour commute as well Depending on the time of day.