Noticer
SILVER
I agree with a lot of what you said here.The reason for the ECNL pushing to switch back to grade defined groups is because they never wanted to switch to calendar year groups.
DA pushed for calendar year because US Soccer was using the USMNT and USWNT (who use calendar year grouping) + free soccer as incentives to get players to join the league. When DA first came out they were picking up clubs left and right. ECNL was 100% on the ropes + fighting for it's existence. Because of this they went along with DA / US Soccer and aligned to calendar year.
Now that DA has blown up + GA is just a copy of everything ECNL does. ECNL has decided that it's their turn to flex on the other leagues by going back to grouping by school grade.
It really is this simple. ECNLs focus has always been getting players onto college teams, that's it. US Soccer believes in getting players onto the USM/WNT first, then getting players playing professionally, and finally getting players onto college teams. GA is like ECNL and only focused on getting players on college teams. The problem with GA is US Soccer created it so even though it's a copy of ECNL the 100% college only pathway mentality isn't there.
Something that people aren't considering is ECNL pushing to change to grade based groups might force US Soccer to pull out the NWSL Next card. This is because they can't let ECNL dictate how everyone else functions.
However, I do not agree that "GA is just a copy of everything ECNL does.."
Consider, for example, that ECNL keeps their top clubs within ECNL. ECNL isn't mass migrating their top clubs into GAL or any other league. That is, as far as I can tell, a strategy that only GAL is employing.