I highly recommend this podcast on Planet Futbol with Bill Simmons. His daughter is an 05 and helped start Tudela FC in LA. Tudela FC is a great opportunity for those on the westside. As he usually does, he hits the problems with youth soccer on the head. https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cadence13/planet-futbol-podcast/e/57702637
ECNL teams
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That was a great interview. Thanks for sharing it.
Apparently he is as delusional as the rest of us thinking his team is the only team that plays soccer the Barca way the rest of us play hoofball and they would of beat the 05 lafc slammers and heat fc if only they were entered in top bracket at thanksgiving silverlakes with those ecnl teams.
He does make a lot of valid points and I respect the small clubs and they way they are doing it.
Messi>CR7
GOLD
I also agree with his sentiment on the small clubs.
However, I couldn't stand listening to it after 15 minutes of what I assume is 45 minutes of non-stop bitching about club soccer. I get plenty of that for free on this forum already
Soccerfan2
GOLD
I was wondering if they are always blowing out the competition they do get to play since the complaint is they aren’t allowed into higher brackets?
My daughter plays for Rebels elite 05 and they played tudela 05’s in their regular season in coast.
That team is a solid team we had a tie and a lost to them.. and that lost could of gone our way..
And my daughters team also had played lafc at national cup and heat at the man city tournament.. and both of those team killed us 6-0. Those top tier teams in ecnl are legit non kick ball teams.
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Soccerfan2
GOLD
I know LAFC and Heat and yes, you are right. So his team is probably right where it should be. Should they improve and start beating teams like Heat and LAFC I think not being let in to top brackets at tournaments wouldn’t actually be a barrier.
Not_that_Serious
GOLD
Just heard this. Agree with most of it. Few things I dont agree with. Many of these parents who talk up their club or make excuses about getting killed by teams say "Our coach is teaching possession soccer while other teams play kickball". Most legit teams arent kicking the ball high and deep. Also didnt say how they financed the club - Hope Solo partnered with them. She either gave money directly or brought in sponsors. Bill Simmons also has a network, doesnt seem too involved on the surface but guy has access to sponsors. The club is named from a club started by his dad in Indiana - so probably easier just to work under that company name.
El Clasico
GOLD
Man, what a small world. So the DOC, Jacob, just happens to have the same last name as a club in Indiana founded by Bill Simmons father?
My perspective as a referee:
Possession only works when your players are better than the other players. One wrong touch and the other team is on the attack and has advantage. When wins matter, all teams fall back on a direct style looking to feed their best athletes as quick as they can. A direct style is often confused with kick ball. In a direct style, players are attempting to purposefully cover distances with long balls. While there are many lower percentage long pass, its different that kick it hard and as far as it can go. Weaker teams facing possession team will always counter with a direct style, with weaker players falling back on kick-ball.
At the 7v7 and 9v9 stage - winning clubs do not play possession soccer. They play a direct style that is intended to boot it up the field to their skilled/fast studs/studdettes. Almost every 7v7 team has that "1 player" that can dominate. The teams that tend to win a lot of games have 3 or more of those dominant players.
At the younger 11v11 the dominant player has much more ground to cover and becomes easier to neutralize. We start to see possession style as a means to break down defenses until a direct opportunity presents itself.
At the older 11v11 levels, most teams are now attempting to play possession until they get behind and then its all bets are off and direct style to get some points.
Two words: "Washington Generals."
I have.
My son's first DA coach stated right at the start of the season that it wasn't his intention to win games. It was the club's first season in the DA and he knew we would be over matched a lot of the time and he kept having to remind everyone that his job was to develop players, not win games in a league where they don't even keep standings. And he kept to his word. Even when games were close, he would make decisions that were clearly better for developing players than winning games: their winger is strong, our wing back is handling him okay, but Johny needs experience defending against a dominant player, so let's move him there to see what he can learn...
He was, by far, the best coach my son has had.
Rumors flying all over the place in the NorthWest about Crossfire Premier leaving GDA to become an ECNL-only club. If true, that would be a major gain for ECNL, as Crossfire Premier has been one of the top clubs in the country the past few years.
http://talking-soccer.com/TS4/showthread.php?t=155816
http://talking-soccer.com/TS4/showthread.php?t=155816
As long as ECNL only allows them one team per age group, it will be a plus. Allowing these clubs two teams in one age group is a little ridiculous. It's cutting off their nose to spite their face.
RedCard
GOLD
What teams have more than 1 team in an age group ???
Keepers_Keeper
SILVER
It's impressive that the club (Crossfire) pays for all elite team travel. On the Crossfire website, it shows most age groups have 3 teams (olders) ) - DA, ECNL and RCL and 2 teams - ECNL/RCL (youngers. So if they are ECNL all in, what happens to their DA teams?
Eclipse, Michigan Hawks, FC Stars, PDA, and arguably Slammers were granted two teams in ECNL per age group for going "all-in" last year. It doesn't look like Crossfire Premier got the same deal, but maybe they aren't disclosing it yet.
Under the idiom "There is no free lunch." If we were to follow the money, its not Cross-Fire per se paying for those elite teams to travel, its the parents of the lower level teams that are subsidizing the elite teams. That said, Cross-Fire does an good job of bringing in sponsors, etc., which help offset costs as well.