The only reason to have 22-24 players on the roster is $ for the club, hard stop. What is best for players is playing. What is best for teams is team chemistry and great coaching. The ideal team is 12 to 13 starter quality starting level players and 3-4 players willing to be bench players. 18-20 starting quality players is a recipe for disaster. A great wise coach told me once that picking the best 18 players is easy, picking a team is difficult. As the kids get older (16 on) the roster needs to be a little bigger because injuries increase and player outside conflicts exist.
Whatever happens in the transfers this year, never count Surf or Koge out. The reason that they are competitive at every age is that they are both great organizations and for the most part make decisions that are best in the long term (ok, not always, but they have past the test of time.)
You’re preaching to the choir but it still doesn’t change the fact I’ve only seen 16 active players and have been told by parents on that team their roster was at 16 prior to tryouts.
I’ve had the chance to observe first hand and talk to parents and coaches to verify the roster size. Contrary to most, I care less about NL at this age. It’s pointless at this age unless you’re just trying to get there first. No coaches are going to look at these girls until their sophomore year anyway so might as well get your playtime in now and get the advantage over the bench players who are going to lose a step riding the pine. So I 100% agree it’s a hard stop with a roster of 19+.
It was partly why some parents have been leaving the Slammers RL/RL (formerly E64) teams because one roster is at 17 while another one ballooned to 25 while the teams were gearing up for next year (when this season hasn’t even ended).
That doesn’t mean Legends won’t hit 24+ later because they do have that reputation and that’s the appearance on the ecnl app but I’m seeing 16 active right now in the 10s NL not counting any new signings.
A few girls have been out with injuries and some girls have left (a couple left to pats at the mid season mark).
At the end of the day, these kids are going into high school so we should expect larger roster sizes coming soon (to our chagrin as parents and consumers).
Slammers is a machine and ruler of the OC with 18 teams in the 2010 age group and an RL team ranked 5th in California with little promotion from within the club.
Surf is ruler of San Diego and all that talent. Those 2 clubs will continue to be top dogs in every age group with such large platforms.
Sporting is floundering around unable to find any recruits playing second fiddle to legends NL and fury NPL.
Options are limited as no one wants to go near blues or pats and it’s unrealistic for people to make the drive to Carson, Breakers, Pleasant Valley Fields and LAFC from that 57-91-210-15 freeway grid. Legends and Slammers will look to continue expanding their talent pools and talent consolidation continues to flock to these 2 clubs.
No word on a second ECNL team. Just the SCV branch moving their E64 teams to RL2.