Get ready folks

GVargas said:
Check out this story

https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6589530/2025...crocker-usmnt-uswnt/

"Tangibly, thus far, they’ve begun to coordinate a “unified youth calendar” with leagues like MLS Next. They are working on digital platforms. They are reaching out, building trust."
Click to expand...
good read. I highly suggest listening to this. ECNL director interviewing Everton Academy director. Seems initially to be a fluff piece for the new partnership, but some interesting insights on the development aspects of an English academy. The most surprising thing to me was when he said they don't really enter any truly competitive leagues until U15/U16. That and that 50% of all training time under 12 is dedicated to technical fundamentals and 30% of time thereafter.

 
My son and a couple of his friends and hs teammates just heard (different clubs) that mlsn including mls ad will not be switching over. Comes from the clubs not league so not the final definitive word.
 
IMG_6259.jpeg
 
CleatSniffer said:
View attachment 33460
Click to expand...
So now MLSN gets the benefit of both SY and BY in this set-up. Guessing EA follows suit since MLSN 2 is administered by them out West.

Don't remember if it was on here or on a podcast, but there was some speculation that as private equity firms start to push into the club soccer space, some among that community are advocating for a merger of MLSN and ECNL. Which in the race to see which one wins, as speculation goes, is contributing to these expansions of tiers and lobbying for cut off changes.
 
KingMI said:
I was told MLS next was staying birth year. But MLS2 is SY. ECNL is only one that is set in stone.
Click to expand...
Which makes sense if you look at things from a MLS perspective only. All MLS wants is a pipeline of talent that they can potentially field as homegrown pro players. To achieve this the only thing they need is a MLSN HG league. As long as all other leagues are funneling talent into MLSN HG. Reguarding BY vs SY from a MLS Pro League perspective either could work but SY (School Year) has no context in the pro game so it doesn't make sense to use it.

What's interesting is now MLS Academy will probabaly be its own league and pretty much a mirror of boys ECNL. (SY + allows HS soccer + showcases + etc) If MLS is making $$$ off MLS Academy league and wanted to expand their footprint in boys youth soccer it might make sense to buy out ECNL. Conversely if MLS is losing $$$ and/or doesnt want the hassle of running MLS Academy league they could sell it off to ECNL or whoever.
 
KingMI said:
I was told MLS next was staying birth year. But MLS2 is SY. ECNL is only one that is set in stone.
Click to expand...
I've heard the same. MLS just does not want to accept that they were wrong, and are prolonging the pain. Having one piece of their youth system out of sync with their other programs and all of their competition will create problems and obsticles, mostly for their own programs. I predict no more than two years before they realize the pragmatic strategy is to submit and switch.
 
I'm not sure I agree. They want to be seen as the unquestionably highest place to land for boys youth soccer - and they certainly are at the moment. It's not just perception - it's that that perception then drives reality - and the teams are in turn stronger, by far, than all who would consider themselves competing for the same kids. Having them run a different calendar than everyone else would be a problem if they were so small that it would inhibit marketing or their own activities. But they are large enough now, and have enough support from the top, that selling "exclusivity" is more than enough to have many more kids (and parents) trying to play in HG than they ever need. Just look it how many silly families they got to sign up for AD in the hope of getting a sniff of the HG teams.
 
MLSN HG lagging 5 month behind everyone else will make the competition tougher for them. If they consider themselves as the top league and have the best players, they should be able to compete with kids 5 months older than them.

Come next year tryout, people are going to find out that it’s easier to make non-academy MLSN HG teams than ECNL teams.
 
Jamisfoes said:
MLSN HG lagging 5 month behind everyone else will make the competition tougher for them. If they consider themselves as the top league and have the best players, they should be able to compete with kids 5 months older than them.
Click to expand...
Yes, but it likely won't make a difference at all.

Jamisfoes said:
Come next year tryout, people are going to find out that it’s easier to make non-academy MLSN HG teams than ECNL teams.
Click to expand...
Unlikely. You're severely underestimating the average distance between an average MLS HG (non academy) and an average ECNL team. There is always going to be overlap from top ECNL teams and bottom MLS N teams - it just shouldn't be interpreted as an equivalence at a league level. The specific team is always going to matter, and one can't assume something solely by their membership in a particular league.
 
RandomSoccerFan said:
Yes, but it likely won't make a difference at all.


Unlikely. You're severely underestimating the average distance between an average MLS HG (non academy) and an average ECNL team. There is always going to be overlap from top ECNL teams and bottom MLS N teams - it just shouldn't be interpreted as an equivalence at a league level. The specific team is always going to matter, and one can't assume something solely by their membership in a particular league.
Click to expand...
Your statement is only true if you talk about high school age kids. At younger ages, U13-15, the two leagues are same level.
Next year ECNL is accepting kids 5 months older, this makes trying out for ECNL teams harder next year compared to trying out for HG.
 
Jamisfoes said:
MLSN HG lagging 5 month behind everyone else will make the competition tougher for them. If they consider themselves as the top league and have the best players, they should be able to compete with kids 5 months older than them.

Come next year tryout, people are going to find out that it’s easier to make non-academy MLSN HG teams than ECNL teams.
Click to expand...

I agree. The ECNL tryout will be more intense than MLS1, especially for the older age group.
 
Code said:
I've heard the same. MLS just does not want to accept that they were wrong, and are prolonging the pain. Having one piece of their youth system out of sync with their other programs and all of their competition will create problems and obsticles, mostly for their own programs. I predict no more than two years before they realize the pragmatic strategy is to submit and switch.
Click to expand...
It's simply to make it compete with ECNL with the tall tale of upward mobility. MLS2 may have a few kids move to the 1st team over time. Since its clear ECNL for boys is 2nd tier why not have you inhouse 2nd tier. Some boys ECNL teams just as good as the MLSN teams. I have seen a few off the record games between the leagues.
 
Jamisfoes said:
Your statement is only true if you talk about high school age kids. At younger ages, U13-15, the two leagues are same level.
Next year ECNL is accepting kids 5 months older, this makes trying out for ECNL teams harder next year compared to trying out for HG.
Click to expand...
You might be right - they are closer in the youngers. Here's what 2012B looks like in CA, first MLS HD, then ECNL. Finally - here's what MLS HD looks like without the Academies. MLS HD is significantly different at the moment, and even if the Academies are removed it's still above ECNL by half a goal. But if you look between age groups (like 2012 to 2011 for ECNL, or between 2012 to 2013 for MLS), pegging that as a difference of ~2 goals, means that a shift of 5 months would imply a shift half goal to a goal. From there, it does look like next year they could be pretty similar on average. I do not think this means that ECNL tryouts are suddenly much more competitive than the MLS HD (non academy) ones - it looks instead like they'd be on par. But we'll all be able to see how it actually works out in practice soon enough.

mls1.pngmls2.pngmls3.png

(P.S. I really wish they'd release an API which would make things like this much easier to compile)
 
RandomSoccerFan said:
Unlikely. You're severely underestimating the average distance between an average MLS HG (non academy) and an average ECNL team. There is always going to be overlap from top ECNL teams and bottom MLS N teams - it just shouldn't be interpreted as an equivalence at a league level. The specific team is always going to matter, and one can't assume something solely by their membership in a particular league.
Click to expand...
This is what I've been saying for years but on the girls side. It's probably true on the Boys side as well.

What people don't understand is that at the youngers level things have changed dramatically from the way they were 5 years ago. Which I'm going to guess was the last time many of the girls parents that comment here attended a combined boys and girls tournament. I have started attending youngers combined tournaments again and the changes on the boys side are something I never would have guessed. When DA was happening you could see all the DA clubs would have more youmger boys teams but it wasn't that dramatic. Now it seems like any club that has MLS Next for the olders also seems to have 3-4 youngers teams per age group. At least that's what I noticed at tournaments. If MLS Next is the reason for so many youngers teams at MLS clubs I highly doubt the SOCAL BY to SY change will make that much of a difference. The Aug-Dec birthdays might drift to ECNL because in theory they'd be the biggest. But they also might stay at a MLS Next club to keep their place in the line for a potential Homegrown roster spot.
 
RandomSoccerFan said:
You might be right - they are closer in the youngers. Here's what 2012B looks like in CA, first MLS HD, then ECNL. Finally - here's what MLS HD looks like without the Academies. MLS HD is significantly different at the moment, and even if the Academies are removed it's still above ECNL by half a goal. But if you look between age groups (like 2012 to 2011 for ECNL, or between 2012 to 2013 for MLS), pegging that as a difference of ~2 goals, means that a shift of 5 months would imply a shift half goal to a goal. From there, it does look like next year they could be pretty similar on average. I do not think this means that ECNL tryouts are suddenly much more competitive than the MLS HD (non academy) ones - it looks instead like they'd be on par. But we'll all be able to see how it actually works out in practice soon enough.

View attachment 33664View attachment 33663View attachment 33662

(P.S. I really wish they'd release an API which would make things like this much easier to compile)
Click to expand...
I think taking the average might not be the best approach because the outliners will screw with the results, instead median should be used. If taking the median and exclude academy teams, median national rank for mls next is 221 and ECNL is 232, very little difference.
 
Jamisfoes said:
I think taking the average might not be the best approach because the outliners will screw with the results, instead median should be used. If taking the median and exclude academy teams, median national rank for mls next is 221 and ECNL is 232, very little difference.
Click to expand...
I think that's the incorrect way to look at it. All top MLS teams are above all top ECNL teams. All weak MLS teams are above all weak ECNL teams. If you're talking about how hard tryouts are going to be, you're talking about teams that are any good. As for the weaker teams, they don't have the luxury of turning away just about any passable players. The outliers at the top matter, as it's the only set of teams that are generally talked about in "how good is this league".
 
RandomSoccerFan said:
I think that's the incorrect way to look at it. All top MLS teams are above all top ECNL teams. All weak MLS teams are above all weak ECNL teams. If you're talking about how hard tryouts are going to be, you're talking about teams that are any good. As for the weaker teams, they don't have the luxury of turning away just about any passable players. The outliers at the top matter, as it's the only set of teams that are generally talked about in "how good is this league".
Click to expand...
Outliners can also be the worst teams, and there is no cap in ranking how bad a team can be…in your example 3 ECNL teams are ranked in 1000th. I don’t agree with the average approach.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top