Expansion

Code said:
Still locking SD Force out of the GA. Seems beyond logic. I'll bet the GA Board has members from City and/or Albion that are pushing to keep Force out of the league.
SD Force CA Ranking as of 5/16/2023:
2004/2005: 239
2006: 50
2007: 26 (was mid-teens most of the year)
2008: 111
2009: 16
2010: 54
2011: 79
2012: 45
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Carlsbad7 said:
What I've never understood is why ECNL doesnt let its top clubs run x2 ECNL (not ECRL) teams if they want to. Even right now ECNL/RL is designed like a pool allowing players to go back and forth between the two. Seems like a poor business decision that's likely been defined by administrative challenges.

If a club like Surf or Blues wanted to field a second ECNL team they could + they'd probabaly still beat most of the lower level Mohave/Sonoran teams likely at all ages with both teams. They're able to do this because these type of clubs have very good management and coaches.

Why penalize / hold back top clubs for doing everything right + showing it week in and week out via results.

Just my personal opinion but in this reguard GA allowing top clubs to run multiple teams at the highest level is the way to go + ECNL is missing the boat.
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Carlsbad7 said:
Just to be clear if GA gives City a 2nd GA team (which is purely speculation at this point) I believe the decision will be 20% performance based and 80% Citys ability to actually field a 2nd GA team consistently across all age groups. Out of the clubs you listed that were potentially getting screwed by this action ECS is the only one with the number of players to potentially make it happen. This makes me think that something is odd at ECS if both ECNL and GA haven't let them in.

Socal youth soccer politics runs deep. Theres club owners, directors, and coaches have both liked and hated each other sometimes since the 1980s. Performance on the field is a reflection of coaching and club leadership. But its primarily for parents to lure talent and players from other clubs. Club owners and leagues have different priorities. For a league you want to have the best teams + select "other teams", exclude everyone else, and press for higher fees. For a club you want a large number of players and wins. Whatever combo ECNL GA NPL Socal DPL etc and Wins will generally keep parents happy + paying dues.

Also City was a founding member of both Girls DA and GA. They're like Surf in ECNL always having an inside track on decisions.
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Sounds like City only cares about their business side and do not care about players. Adding ECS or Force would increase the competition for City's top GA players, but instead, the club has chosen to add weaker teams in order to potentially financially benefit the club.

The girls that want to play GA in north county already have two options, SDSC surf and City. There's no more de
Carlsbad7 said:
Just to be clear if GA gives City a 2nd GA team (which is purely speculation at this point) I believe the decision will be 20% performance based and 80% Citys ability to actually field a 2nd GA team consistently across all age groups. Out of the clubs you listed that were potentially getting screwed by this action ECS is the only one with the number of players to potentially make it happen. This makes me think that something is odd at ECS if both ECNL and GA haven't let them in.

Socal youth soccer politics runs deep. Theres club owners, directors, and coaches have both liked and hated each other sometimes since the 1980s. Performance on the field is a reflection of coaching and club leadership. But its primarily for parents to lure talent and players from other clubs. Club owners and leagues have different priorities. For a league you want to have the best teams + select "other teams", exclude everyone else, and press for higher fees. For a club you want a large number of players and wins. Whatever combo ECNL GA NPL Socal DPL etc and Wins will generally keep parents happy + paying dues.

Also City was a founding member of both Girls DA and GA. They're like Surf in ECNL always having an inside track on decisions.
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Sounds like City cares more about lining their pockets then building a better league for their players and the entire GA league. This league is way to young to be playing politics.

How do you tell your GA players that you added your DPL team to the league and prevented better local teams from improving the quality of the league. It's a red flag.
 
Code said:
I agree, that there is no reason to give a 2nd GA team to any clubs in the Southwest, there are a lot of clubs that could be brought into the league. Carlsbad7 was saying that the City DPL team being given GA access was not due to the DPL team performance, but the clubs GA team performance. I was pointing out that there are plenty of GA clubs performing about the same across all age groups. There are also a number of DPL clubs performing above City as well (based on league results, and soccer ranking). I realize my wording was confusing now that I reread my post. Either way you look at it, GA or DPL performance, I see no logical reason for the decision to give City DPL access to GA above many other DPL clubs throughout the league (performance, location, club facilities, player pool size, etc...). My mind immediately went to soccer politics, and it only took about 5 min to find a link between the GA Executive Board and City SC.
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$occer + Politics=$$$$
 
splat123 said:
Sounds more like City cares about their DPL teams too and not just their GA teams. :cool:
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Are you saying that by putting their 2nd team in the DPL league, they don't care about the team?

And maybe you are correct but it also shows that they don't care to improve their league for their GA teams by bringing in stronger teams.
 
sockma said:
Are you saying that by putting their 2nd team in the DPL league, they don't care about the team?

And maybe you are correct but it also shows that they don't care to improve their league for their GA teams by bringing in stronger teams.
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No, not saying that at all. City getting GA event access for their DPL teams shows they care about their second teams too. You said "City .. do not care about players" -- I'm suggesting that City cares about City players, both GA and DPL.
 
splat123 said:
No, not saying that at all. City getting GA event access for their DPL teams shows they care about their second teams too. You said "City .. do not care about players" -- I'm suggesting that City cares about City players, both GA and DPL.
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splat123 said:
No, not saying that at all. City getting GA event access for their DPL teams shows they care about their second teams too. You said "City .. do not care about players" -- I'm suggesting that City cares about City players, both GA and DPL.
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This is what I Said - that's some paraphrasing creativity you have

"Sounds like City cares more about lining their pockets then building a better league for their players and the entire GA league. This league is way too young to be playing politics.

How do you tell your GA players that you added your DPL team to the league and prevented better local teams from improving the quality of the league. It's a red flag. "
 
sockma said:
This is what I Said - that's some paraphrasing creativity you have

"Sounds like City cares more about lining their pockets then building a better league for their players and the entire GA league. This league is way too young to be playing politics.

How do you tell your GA players that you added your DPL team to the league and prevented better local teams from improving the quality of the league. It's a red flag. "
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Yes, you said that. But you also said, in exact quotes: "Sounds like City only cares about their business side and do not care about players."
 
KJR said:
We'll remain an event status club for next season. A couple of our teams enjoyed the recent Spring Showcase, and we appreciated the support we got from a lot of people in the GA while we were there. It's very obvious that the player development goals of the league, which we admire, are sometimes in conflict with the goals of certain clubs, and it's challenging to grow a diverse, competitive national league when those clubs get the last word.

It's a shame, because clubs that put walls around themselves to hoard players act like there's a limited supply of talent in SoCal. Speaking for myself, I believe that SoCal has more than enough players for everyone, and top teams should welcome the opportunity to test themselves against the best around, rather than force their families and coaches to drive to Utah and Arizona for league games. They should believe in their youth development enough to not be afraid of being exposed by a team from outside their wall.

But too often "development" is just finding the biggest, fastest 9-year-olds and betting that you'll be able to hold onto them if you're the only local pathway to elite national showcases. Or using college recruiting exposure to poach already-developed players for your older teams.

Real development is finding kids who want to play soccer and developing their love of the game and ability to play it. It's what every club should be focused on; it's what the GA mission statement is all about: "growing the female soccer player as both an athlete and a person." We'll keep trying to do that; most of the GA seems to believe it's working pretty well for us. And we'll continue to appreciate the opportunities we're get from them.
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Where will your teams play league? Without the competition of the big letter leagues, how do you challenge your teams in competition during the fall and spring seasons?
 
splat123 said:
Yes, you said that. But you also said, in exact quotes: "Sounds like City only cares about their business side and do not care about players."
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That exact quote came from you.

Below is my exact quote.

"Sounds like City cares more about lining their pockets then building a better league for their players and the entire GA league. This league is way too young to be playing politics.

How do you tell your GA players that you added your DPL team to the league and prevented better local teams from improving the quality of the league. It's a red flag. "
 
SDMama said:
Do tell!
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Do a quick search on the background of most high level Docs and Coaches in SD/LA and you'll see that they tend to cycle between Clubs all the time.

On top of that check out the leadership of all the big clubs and see that theres a small group that's been around for a while + likely all know each other pretty well.

It's actually a very good business to be in. Clubs generally are tax exempt via 501c + their customers (players + parents) are always cycling in/out. Once you're at the top of the pyramid as long as the teams are reasonably competitive you'll have a job.

From a consumer perspective having such a small group controlling the entire landscape via closed leagues sucks.
 
sockma said:
That exact quote came from you.

Below is my exact quote.

"Sounds like City cares more about lining their pockets then building a better league for their players and the entire GA league. This league is way too young to be playing politics.

How do you tell your GA players that you added your DPL team to the league and prevented better local teams from improving the quality of the league. It's a red flag. "
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I suggest you read everything that you wrote on post #101 of this thread. If you're distancing yourself from that ugly comment, then good for you and no more needs to be said. I also recommend being more careful when using your phone to post comments, you may have meant to delete that part, and if so, then good for you again. Cheers.
 
SDMama said:
Where will your teams play league? Without the competition of the big letter leagues, how do you challenge your teams in competition during the fall and spring seasons?
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All of our teams will play as high in SOCAL as they can and get bracketed as high in tournaments/showcases as they can. I realize that's a really obvious answer, but that's all we can do. Honestly, more development comes from training year-round than ten league games in the fall, so (particularly for younger ages) it's not that big a deal. Our 05s, who just finished up competitively, showed that it's possible to make it work, even if it's not ideal.

And it's not like all of our teams are blowing out every other team in SOCAL. Everyone likes winning more than losing, but we tell our kids (and their parents) that we're not going to sacrifice how we want to play in order to get wins, especially in early age groups. So if our 11-year-olds are knocking the ball around and trying to build out of the back, and they lose because the other team bombs two free kicks from 30 yards... that's fine. Some people in the letter leagues might point to that result and ask if our 11-year-olds are "good enough" to handle a step up in competition -- and that's a big problem with American youth soccer.

So most of our teams can still find a challenge in SOCAL, and we also challenge ourselves in training every day. And when the girls are older we can supplement the league with GA events, the PDA showcase, Surf Cup, etc. Again, it's not ideal but it works.
 
splat123 said:
I suggest you read everything that you wrote on post #101 of this thread. If you're distancing yourself from that ugly comment, then good for you and no more needs to be said. I also recommend being more careful when using your phone to post comments, you may have meant to delete that part, and if so, then good for you again. Cheers.
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Are you referring to this? I stand by it based on City's actions. Don't cut and paste sections to take things out of context for your desired results.. Post the whole thing...


Sounds like City only cares about their business side and do not care about players. Adding ECS or Force would increase the competition for City's top GA players, but instead, the club has chosen to add weaker teams in order to potentially financially benefit the club.

The girls that want to play GA in north county already have two options, SDSC surf and City. There's no more de

Yes - this is what I meant to post but both have similar context.

Sounds like City cares more about lining their pockets then building a better league for their players and the entire GA league. This league is way to young to be playing politics.

How do you tell your GA players that you added your DPL team to the league and prevented better local teams from improving the quality of the league. It's a red flag.

GA should be building a stronger league for the girls and add Tudela and EC county surf. Force has location issues because of SDSC but ECNL is crazy and has a bunch at great park.

If I were a GA player at City, I would question the commitment of the club to helping the top players build a top league.
 
VegasParent said:
Rumor is a few big GA clubs are leaving after this year. But I guess those rumors come up every year so who knows.
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Maybe, it would make sense for girls ECNL to drop some of the bottom feeders and replace them with clubs that are excelling in other leagues.

It would also make sense for ECNL clubs to switch over to GA if it got their boys teams into MLS Next.

And out on the wings is a potential NWSL Next which if implemented would likely require partnering with GA or ECNL.

Youth sports never gets dull.
 
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