At U15 MLS Next breaks out the Academy teams. In the case of the Quakes they go to the West Division. The remaining NorCal MLS Next teams stay in the Northwest Division. So U15 and older, nobody is playing the Academy teams other than themselves. ECNL doesn't have anything like that. So how do we compare these leagues in a way that makes sense? I think you have to compare ECNL NorCal division to the MLS Next Northwest division. In that case, there's really not a noticeable delta. This is why the SR league ranking just really isn't super clear on what it's actually comparing. MLS Next is actually two leagues in one once you get to U15.
ECNL. The C stands for Cartel
- Thread starter NorCalUSN
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At U15 MLS Next breaks out the Academy teams. In the case of the Quakes they go to the West Division. The remaining NorCal MLS Next teams stay in the Northwest Division. So U15 and older, nobody is playing the Academy teams other than themselves. ECNL doesn't have anything like that. So how do we compare these leagues in a way that makes sense? I think you have to compare ECNL NorCal division to the MLS Next Northwest division. In that case, there's really not a noticeable delta. This is why the SR league ranking just really isn't super clear on what it's actually comparing. MLS Next is actually two leagues in one once you get to U15.
Yeah, me too.. I get a good laugh at some of the takes on here....
Nah... 6' 5" struggles to get down low on all those balls you parried to the side.
Many a time a couple inches would have made a difference…Argentina’s GK is 6’5, and made the save of his life in OT in the WC Final…needed all 6’5 of him to do it. Pluses and minuses at all sizes. It comes down to the total package. You can be successful at 5’10 or 6’7 depends on so many factors. Height is one of many factors. But an important one.
on the boys side, the academies wouldn't have the cannon fodder they need given the distances in the US.
The other main function against them is to act as a way to sort talent without having to do the distortions of a pro/rel system, which is where we get into the accusation implied by the OP: that it's really just a way to lower competition between the clubs since having an ECNL or MLS slot is a golden ticket to attracting talent not just to the first but also the lower teams.
The old coast pro/rel system just didn't work which is why it fell apart: too much variance in field and staff quality, too many teams locked out of any real chance of improvement, too many short cuts taken to advance up that pyramid.
I, however, don't really see a way to fix it short of establishing a national governance system that can regulate things. However, that means blowing up even AYSO and that's simply not going to happen.
Coast didn't work because parents wanted their kids to be on the highest tier even when they did NOT DESERVE to be on it. E
The best current example is Brandon Aubrey the kicker for the Cowboys. He is a 28 year old rookie and is 30 for 30 on field goals this year, and last night he became the first kicker to have two FG's 59 yards or greater (59 and 60). Both kicks hit net. Aubrey never played football, but played soccer for Notre Dame and was drafted by the MLS. He didn't start place kicking until he was 24, and is now the best rookie kicker ever. He is an absolute beast.
While going from soccer to kicker is a common transition, I agree with MSK357 and GraceT... soccer players are much better athletes and more skilled than most football players. Soccer players make great football players at any position, but particularly the skill positions. In most cases, its because soccer players have superior footwork. Also foot/eye coordination seems to correlate with hand/eye coordination. My son and his buddies that have left MLS Next teams to play football dominate most football players that have grown up playing Pop Warner football. If you're hell bent on having your kid go to a school on an athletic scholarship, have them play soccer until they reach high school then switch to football.
Deserve is a word that’s doing a lot of work there. Who “deserves” to play at the highest tier?
It's a combination of nature and nurture. What you're born with and what you work for.
Every parent thinks their kid belongs in the top league and those who can afford it created ECNL. GA, DPL, E64 etc. to put their kids in the "top" league.
The problems with that in a pro/rel system is that it's not really a true meritocracy either:
1. Selection into the top tier is by team, not by individual. So you have a bunch of people playing in the top tier which aren't really the best by "nature and nurture" but instead by politics or money or region anyways. The only way you'd fix this is by having a regional org that sorts kids according to their level.
2. The team that "earned it" is last year's teams, not the current team. Unless you lock kids in so they can't transfer off a promoted team, there's no way to ensure that they dance with the one that brung them and earned it.
3. Promotion isn't necessarily the most well developed in the long term. It's by the recruitment of the best players who are generally closest to the age line. You are basically rewarding the oldest, earliest developing players and the coaches that are best at recruiting, not coaching.
4. They generally structured it like a pyramid when really the talent distribution is more like a bell curve. If you have 5 levels, your biggest level should be flight 3, not the bottom level.
That said, ECNL and MLS Next do at least an adequate job of sorting as pro/rel. There's a long line of kids willing to play as a reserve player for MLS Next and coaches aren't putting their best players on the reserve bench to play politics or the richest at primary. The parents created the letter league thing in order to put their weaker kids up there just doesn't float. It was always about control: In the case of MLS Next, to give the academies cannon fodder to play against and in the others to control their own destinies so "if they build it, they will come" and to be able to control field and competition quality. The issue which the OP raised, which is a valid question, if whether it was also created to restrict their competition.
I agree with you that the entire system is slanted in some players/parents/clubs/leagues favor. It's unfortunate that a game that seems so simple is also so easily exploited.
The one "game changer" that I've seen in youth soccer is the rankings app. I still don't like it for individual game predictions. But it's very good at giving a true high level view of the teams/clubs/leagues that are performing. Before the rankings app everything came down to my XYZ is better than yours.
In the future there's going to be RFID tags sewn into jerseys and implanted in thr ball. The scores will be tracked in real time. This might sound scary to some but it's going to open many doors for those that were previously overlooked becuase of politics and/or who you know. It's already happened to some degree with the different leagues.
Code
GOLD
If your team played local, and all the other ECNL teams played local, don't you think those scouts would have just came out to SoCal to recruit? The college coaches are interested in the players, not necessarily the league. You wouldn't need to travel anywhere if all the ECNL and GA teams decided to skip the "national" idea. I don't disagree that ECNL has the monopoly of the system right now. And they are making money from the travel/event/showcase scam. The point is we don't need national leagues for your team to exist as it is. Do you really like how it is currently working? Who is talking about Highschool?
The environment is ripe for a group like ESPN, Nike, etc to put together a single weekend "sweet 16" tournament for top teams per age group in CA as defined by the rankings app. You could even extend to all of the West Coast + AZ and NV.
Imagine a tournament (with a 3 month previous roster freeze) completely independent of league + the teams all know who going to attend + the teams you'll likely be playing before the tournament even begins.
Using the rankings app for seedings it would be even more interesting.
Code
GOLD
That's strange. Who played these games? A completely different roster of players? I understand MLS Academy teams play in "two separate leagues" throughout the season. It doesn't invalidate the results of team to team match ups when they play other "Flex" teams.
Here's a way the App Developer could push the "sweet 16" concept.
Have the app show users a proposed sweet 16 bracket with included teams populated. Have it break out sweet 16s by national, state, or regional + constantly updated.
When everything is put on a plate like this someone will take notice.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
It's not a bad idea, the pieces are already there. Any tournament director who wants help with seeding needs only to send the team names to the support email, and they will bracket them pseudo-automatically anyway. The "Sweet 16" would just be the top 16 teams, so bracketing would be pretty rote as well (1 v 16, 2 v 15, 3 v 14, etc., unless there as a desire for closer games in the round of 16). I would imagine that this gets put in the suggestion bucket for the app, likely below everything they are working on for the player statistics launch. However this theoretical tournament would be run, the cut-off dates would be quite important. While there is some stability for the top teams, choosing when to determine the top 16 would be extremely important, as some teams will hop into that list and hop out of that list on a daily basis.
Ahhh yeah I forgot about MLS Flex, my bad. But MLS Flex is only U15 - U19, and only U15 and U17 are the only two tables where Academy teams join -- not to make this all that more confusing. I would love to see the metrics on how many non-Academy teams make it through in MLS Flex.
aong cangkol
SILVER
I don't understand why it has to touch a nerve by saying one sport is more skill-based than others.
No professional tennis players start playing at 12yo. Giannis starts playing basketball at 13. Many NFL linesmen starts playing that position at 16.
Soccer is probably closest to tennis/badminton but I would say Ice hockey is the most difficult to start at later age.
ALL olympic swimmers start when they were 5 or younger.
It does not mean one sport is the best (Gymnastics would most likely the winner if early training requirement is the standard)
On a personal note, I have the same experience with my 10yo and a couple of friends tried flag football for one season. They simply dominate the rec league and win it on their first season. They are all mediocre soccer players.
Agree with your statement with one caveat. The one limitation on boys trying to jump in from soccer to football (with the exception of the kicker position) is body shape, particularly if the boy is trying to play high school t1, 2 or even 3. Not even talking about the linemen here, but even the so-called "skilled positions" where height and upper body mass become important. The QB position is also very hard to jump into just because there are so few positions open and the competition is very severe and the ones that have been playing the position have been playing since they were little. We're friends with one QB who is playing at a mid-level public high school and who physically and experience wise is way beyond most of his teammates-- he could and has been recruited to play private school t1 but he started varsity as a freshman in public and probably wouldn't see the field as even the alternate varsity qb at the local t1 private school until at least junior year.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
People can define it to either offend terribly or be completely anodyne, and the lack of that definition is what causes the eyerolls. If skill is defined as inherent or learned, it means one thing. If it means that all other attributes (body shape/size, effort, commitment) are not applicable in the comparison, it means other things.
An offensive statement is saying, without any caveat or clarification, that an all-pro quarterback is more skilled than an all-pro linebacker. Or an all-pro running back is more skilled than an all-pro left tackle. All of those statements, as written, should be and would be pushed back against by anyone who follows football.
An inoffensive statement is saying - one sport requires many more years of practice to achieve some level of success, while another someone who has the other qualifications can step in at a reasonable level with much less (or even no) years of practice. Of course that is the case for football kickers. And someone who fits the other qualifications for various positions may do OK when joining later in life.
An offensive statement is "soccer requires more skill than football". An inoffensive statement is "soccer players rarely join later in life at the top levels, while it is more common in some other sports".
Assuming the former or the latter in all of these is the difference in mostly agreeing, or unintentionally/intentionally offending.
Actually kicker is not an exception. Most kids making the move from soccer to kicker have to put on a lot of mass. Even more so if they're punting.