Agree. Most important thing is that your kid has the will/dedication to engage in ball work every single day. It 100% translates on the field, in terms of their composure on the ball. Takes a focused kid though.
ECNL vs. DA turf war has created a 'toxic environment'
- Thread starter VegasParent
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Well I wasn't there back in the day. But I'd venture to guess that, while talent may be diluted, there is just far more of it now. This sport has grown immensely in the past few years, and especially on the girls' side. No, those teams don't have all the top talent in the region. That would take three teams.
MakeAPlay
DA
I'm not surprised at all. I have a player who has started every game of her college career on a top 5 team and was a member of the #1 recruiting class in the nation her senior year., so I know what skilled players look like. She also won 2 ODP national championships and trust me the teams that I see on video aren't even close. That Earthquakes team isn't even Deza's best team. His old Redwood Rays/DeAnza Force team would have beaten them easily and they weren't even the best team in their age group and even they weren't as good as the old CSL Premier teams.
I know that it is hard to imagine what it would look like if ALL of SoCal played in one main gaming circuit (Surf was the only team that wasn't allowed to play in CSL Premier due to politics BTW) but it used to happen. ODP was a HUGE deal and was a pipeline to the YNTs. The tendency is to think that newer is always better. The truth is that a concentration of talent always gives you a leg up. The old CSL Premier teams would have almost every top player in SoCal and the top team would often win the USYS National Championship or at least make it to the final against an All-Star team from either Texas, NY/NJ or occasionally a team from either Michigan/Ohio/Colorado/Chicago.
Good luck to you and your player.
Those teams were 03/04. These two are good teams but they play in a very watered down developmental league.
MakeAPlay
DA
CSL Premier concentrated all of the top talent in SoCal. The only region that didn't have pretty much all of their players playing in it was San Diego and that was simply because Surf wasn't allowed in and they had most of the top talent in San Diego. I know that it is hard to imagine in this current climate. The best analogy I can give is for someone who only got to see the 2 and a half years of the Trump presidency would find it hard to imagine a president that isn't a total dumpster fire. It was the case though....
dk_b
GOLD
"far more of it"? How far back are you looking? The participation rates have been really high for a long time - have it really grown that much in the last 5 years (I generally consider "few" to mean 3 but I will back it out further)? I'd be interested to see the trend over the last decade - I do think there are many skilled players, maybe even more of a certain skill level, but I don't think the # of competitive players has changed any more than can be attributed to odd demographic blips (some groups more, some groups fewer)
(not sure how it is in SoCal but the # of girls generally seems lower in the Bay Area in the 06 age range (or maybe I should say the 05/06 group who will be class of 2024) - my twins' classrooms in elementary school were often 2:1 boys:girls and, in speaking to other people from around the Bay, they had similar odd ratios; that is very different than my older girl (02, class of 2020) and my oldest (my son, 98, class of 2016) (my 02 daughter's first club - a very small club that none of you would have heard of - had 3 teams at one point at the 01/02 level, something that is not possible with my 06s at the same club; the club she joined at U13 had a HUGE # of competitive players in that 01/02 group, demographically similar to our local community).
dk_b
GOLD
Not sure if this is behind a paywall but this article takes issue with the continued growth of the sport: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/14/sports/world-cup/soccer-youth-decline.html
MakeAPlay
DA
Here is a link to the year that Amy Rodriguez's Eclipse White team won the USYS National Championship. McCall Zerboni played for the Blues team coached by Randy Dodge.
http://www.coastsoccer.com/2003/SG170P.htm
http://www.coastsoccer.com/2003/SG170P.htm
MakeAPlay
DA
http://www.coastsoccer.com/2006/sG190P.htm
This link is from Alex Morgan's senior year. She was on the Cypress Elite team. Click on the yellow cards and you can see her referred to as Alexandra Morgan (who by the way started club soccer at 14 which would be "too late" under GDA desires because she was a multi-sport athlete).
This link is from Alex Morgan's senior year. She was on the Cypress Elite team. Click on the yellow cards and you can see her referred to as Alexandra Morgan (who by the way started club soccer at 14 which would be "too late" under GDA desires because she was a multi-sport athlete).
Okay so you have 10 teams and a team at the top that is 9-0-3 and one on the bottom is 1-8-4. That isn't too different from what we see today
One million percent agree that all things sports-related start too young and continue to get younger and younger. Kids get put on a pedestal too young, and kids get discouraged too young. For some, the pressure to stay on top is overwhelming, and for others, it is the pressure to catch up. If participation is declining, that may be one reason why. Also may contribute to anxiety and depression rates as it seems the trend in everything.
MakeAPlay
DA
My daughter was at West Coast FC at the U10-U12 level and they had 3-4 teams at every age group (one of the reasons that we left is that they had one coach coaching two teams in the same bracket!). I am not sure about the numbers now as I am 4 years removed from club soccer, however, there were a TON of teams back in the day.
Great article. I like the juggling part. I played basketball. Every practice we shot free throws at the end. If you wanted to be the best, you stayed later or practiced when others were surfing. It's a choice. I will say I saw very little coaching and teaching on juggling at practices when my kid was a youth. It was understood that you would work on that skill on your own. As one coach said to my kid, "the soccer ball has to be your best friend. Do you talk to your best friend everyday?"
MakeAPlay
DA
Alex Morgan’s team was the 3rd place team FYI. Having a top player and having a top team are two completely different things. Having all the top players in a region playing in one gaming circuit used to be awesome.
MakeAPlay
DA
Okay so you have 10 teams and a team at the top that is 9-0-3 and one on the bottom is 1-8-4. That isn't too different from what we see today
Look at the scores though. They are close because all the teams had a roster full of talented players. The only team not in that league that could compete was Surf and even the last place Premier team would murder the rest of the teams in the country other than maybe a Dallas Sting, PDA, Colorado Rush, MVLA or Michigan Hawks team.
Teams would travel here to play against the best and the only time SoCal teams would travel would be for the Vegas Showcase, PDA Showcase, and the USYS championship.
Ding ding ding ding.......Socal sold out for $$$$ folks. And if you don't fully commit yourself by 12 years old to full time soccer, you get regulated to ECNL. What a a bunch of BS.
This last year I saw friends leaving for NJ, CO, FL, VA and I keep thinking to myself, "why." This is stupid and frankly expensive. SoCal can pitch a tent and all the teams will come here. What two clubs in SoCal have benefited the most $$$$$ wise with this seismic shift? $1 to the first person to name them....
Interesting article. Soccer should be promoted K-12 folks. It would be free to all
The Urban Soccer Leadership Academy in San Antonio illustrates the potential for growth. It has expanded to more than 500 players — predominantly Latino, low income and considered at high risk of dropping out of school — by working closely with the city’s schools.
Although the federation has installed an academy system to standardize coaching and culture, many believe it chokes off a pathway for young players. Academy members are forbidden to play on their high school or college teams.
“Soccer is the fastest-growing sport in urban schools,” said Ed Garza, the former mayor of San Antonio and president of the academy. “It’s part of the cultural dynamic.
“Why would you want to shut down that potential pipeline?”
Why don't you just go ahead.
Our family is doing ok $$ wise but soccer is 100% helping my dd get good grades and stay in school. If I didn't play sports in HS, I would have dropped out by 9th or 10th grade.Interesting article. Soccer should be promoted K-12 folks. It would be free to all
The Urban Soccer Leadership Academy in San Antonio illustrates the potential for growth. It has expanded to more than 500 players — predominantly Latino, low income and considered at high risk of dropping out of school — by working closely with the city’s schools.
Although the federation has installed an academy system to standardize coaching and culture, many believe it chokes off a pathway for young players. Academy members are forbidden to play on their high school or college teams.
“Soccer is the fastest-growing sport in urban schools,” said Ed Garza, the former mayor of San Antonio and president of the academy. “It’s part of the cultural dynamic.
“Why would you want to shut down that potential pipeline?”
When I would go to see my son play in college, I often told him that since he was playing I knew that he was still academically eligible.