How’s the 2023-24 season going?

way up said:
A couple things here. First of all, coaches basically build the biggest and best roster they can. They don't really say "Oh, your kid is #17 on the roster and won't be playing when we go to the playoffs!". The parent has to read between the lines. I see it every year, but most parents are not very astute about what's best for their kid. Worse yet, many coaches want to talk directly with the players rather than the parents, so you have a 14 year old vs a grown man/woman who don't share the same interests negotiating things.

Of course, coaches are playing to win and will use bigger rosters to mount pressure on all the girls to perform and play their best. RL isn't much better nor GA either with travel and even worse with coaches at times. Honestly, I am learning that having a smart, soccer knowledgeable parent is the best asset to a kid so long as the parent can not over burden the kid and take it day by day.

The most important thing is play time and if you have to drop in league to get it, it's much better for your kid. The play time will build skill and then confidence and then maybe if their athleticism keeps up and/or builds, they can take another shot at ecnl. I wish my daughter would play RL for a year or two just to keep it fun and more casual, but she will not play for mean coaches that yell and are hard to understand. She doesn't mind aggressive, loud instructions and pressure, but mean spiritedness without clarity is a non starter for her. I fear this may be how coaches are in college too!

All I'm saying is by the time you get to playoffs and nattys, you're kind of trapped. These top 8 bench players will want street credit for going to nattys to transfer to another team, so they kind of have to go, but I could not imagine watching my daughter only play for 5 min. a game after spending $8k or more for both trips. Now, what's that saying? Screw me once....shame on you, but screw me twice......shame on me!??? I bet there are a lot of parents making the same mistake as last year, so no pity from me for them!
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Damn, the truth hurts, ouch. I do NOT get a thrill watching other parents kids play soccer. I especially would not fly across the country to watch other kids play semi's and the finals for all the marbles. I don't care how much I have, I ain't doing that, If my dd just wanted street credit, she would have to pay her own way and I ain't going to watch.
 
soccermax2 said:
You have zero clue what you’re talking about. Been there, done that & won that with my kid on the field.

Have zero respect for clubs who gouge parents all season long, just to replace them with Blues players right before playoffs. That’s not earned. Win with your true roster, the ones who dropped the thousands in club fees at the beginning of the season.

That’s where ECNL needs to change the rules IMO.
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Why you sticking around ? Why not leave
 
soccermax2 said:
You have zero clue what you’re talking about. Been there, done that & won that with my kid on the field.

Have zero respect for clubs who gouge parents all season long, just to replace them with Blues players right before playoffs. That’s not earned. Win with your true roster, the ones who dropped the thousands in club fees at the beginning of the season.

That’s where ECNL needs to change the rules IMO.
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Maybe you should consider another club or go have her play RL like I’m doing with my kid.
 
soccermax2 said:
You have zero clue what you’re talking about. Been there, done that & won that with my kid on the field.

Have zero respect for clubs who gouge parents all season long, just to replace them with Blues players right before playoffs. That’s not earned. Win with your true roster, the ones who dropped the thousands in club fees at the beginning of the season.

That’s where ECNL needs to change the rules IMO.
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Don't blame the parent or player(s). Blame the coach and the club and those stupid rules. I took so much shit on here when Surf bought 5 Blues players (allegedly) bac in the day. I was blamed as the ringleader, head recruiter and one smart father that helped Surf win natty #10 and allow them to claim #1 club in the country and sell franchises every year. One dad said I was a medal chaser. It was within the rules, and it shook the socal to its core and pissed off a lot of parents. It was top rumor mill news. Crush was blamed for it as well which was not true. The jealous people got so jealous and watch out when jealously turns into hate. Anyway, it's within the freaking rules. Blame it on the rules and AR at Blues.
 
crush said:
Don't blame the parent or player(s). Blame the coach and the club and those stupid rules. I took so much shit on here when Surf bought 5 Blues players (allegedly) bac in the day. I was blamed as the ringleader, head recruiter and one smart father that helped Surf win natty #10 and allow them to claim #1 club in the country and sell franchises every year. One dad said I was a medal chaser. It was within the rules, and it shook the socal to its core and pissed off a lot of parents. It was top rumor mill news. Crush was blamed for it as well which was not true. The jealous people got so jealous and watch out when jealously turns into hate. Anyway, it's within the freaking rules. Blame it on the rules and AR at Blues.
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My favorite is how RL Teams can use ECNL Players within the club in playoffs. Can you imagine RL Players sitting, so the team can have their ringers and then the teams that use ringer can beat the teams that did not bring their ringers?

This is why I don't give much credit to playoffs at all. We got Surf Cup soon and league. We'll get to play those top 8 teams in San Diego for 5% the cost of going to nattys! Now that's a win-win!
 
way up said:
My favorite is how RL Teams can use ECNL Players within the club in playoffs. Can you imagine RL Players sitting, so the team can have their ringers and then the teams that use ringer can beat the teams that did not bring their ringers?

This is why I don't give much credit to playoffs at all. We got Surf Cup soon and league. We'll get to play those top 8 teams in San Diego for 5% the cost of going to nattys! Now that's a win-win!
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I don't think that's fair coming down a notch to beat up on RL players. Playing up, yes. 100% a win-win way up and a good way to see the better financial side, yet still get that competition. Based on what I've heard, parents whose kids saw no field are not happy with the parents whose kids were the stars. It's why the GDA failed. Parents who wanted to be guaranteed to see their player start and try and be that star. 25% of the games if they paid and paid for extra privates with the coach. Fact is, Surf Cup is the Cup of all Cups IMHO. Savings right now will help families and you can still get that rush for 95% off. This is a healthy way to spin bro. I love it
 
I agree with your talking points but don’t get it twisted… ECRL isn’t casual and it has the same atmosphere as NL
way up said:
A couple things here. First of all, coaches basically build the biggest and best roster they can. They don't really say "Oh, your kid is #17 on the roster and won't be playing when we go to the playoffs!". The parent has to read between the lines. I see it every year, but most parents are not very astute about what's best for their kid. Worse yet, many coaches want to talk directly with the players rather than the parents, so you have a 14 year old vs a grown man/woman who don't share the same interests negotiating things.

Of course, coaches are playing to win and will use bigger rosters to mount pressure on all the girls to perform and play their best. RL isn't much better nor GA either with travel and even worse with coaches at times. Honestly, I am learning that having a smart, soccer knowledgeable parent is the best asset to a kid so long as the parent can not over burden the kid and take it day by day.

The most important thing is play time and if you have to drop in league to get it, it's much better for your kid. The play time will build skill and then confidence and then maybe if their athleticism keeps up and/or builds, they can take another shot at ecnl. I wish my daughter would play RL for a year or two just to keep it fun and more casual, but she will not play for mean coaches that yell and are hard to understand. She doesn't mind aggressive, loud instructions and pressure, but mean spiritedness without clarity is a non starter for her. I fear this may be how coaches are in college too!

All I'm saying is by the time you get to playoffs and nattys, you're kind of trapped. These top 8 bench players will want street credit for going to nattys to transfer to another team, so they kind of have to go, but I could not imagine watching my daughter only play for 5 min. a game after spending $8k or more for both trips. Now, what's that saying? Screw me once....shame on you, but screw me twice......shame on me!??? I bet there are a lot of parents making the same mistake as last year, so no pity from me for them!
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TeamDadJokes said:
I agree with your talking points but don’t get it twisted… ECRL isn’t casual and it has the same atmosphere as NL
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It probably isn't shared as much as it could be on this board, but the insane competitiveness (and commitment, and money), doesn't only exist at these very top levels. As one example, just look at ECRL. A team that is .500 in league, ranks about 225 nationally in SR, out of ~2500 teams (for the 09G's). By one definition, it's a mid-pack team. By another, it's in the top 10% of all competitive teams in the country. By any expectation, it is highly unlikely that the sidelines aren't pressure packed during parts of the season, and it's also highly unlikely the kids don't feel a ton of pressure from themselves, and yes, their parents.
 
RandomSoccerFan said:
It probably isn't shared as much as it could be on this board, but the insane competitiveness (and commitment, and money), doesn't only exist at these very top levels. As one example, just look at ECRL. A team that is .500 in league, ranks about 225 nationally in SR, out of ~2500 teams (for the 09G's). By one definition, it's a mid-pack team. By another, it's in the top 10% of all competitive teams in the country. By any expectation, it is highly unlikely that the sidelines aren't pressure packed during parts of the season, and it's also highly unlikely the kids don't feel a ton of pressure from themselves, and yes, their parents.
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So there are very competitive RL and GA teams for sure, but are you saying that an RL Team would be just as hard to compete for game time as an ECNL Team? For some clubs, they do have great RL Teams, but as a whole, I can't imagine it would not be a more comfortable experience playing in RL for a player used to ECNL cometitiveness? I know parents with RL Girls and they have said that sometimes you get quality competition for the good teams, but there are a lot of less competitive games as well.

Some GA and RL TEams will even be competing with ECNL Teams at Surf Cup.
 
way up said:
So there are very competitive RL and GA teams for sure, but are you saying that an RL Team would be just as hard to compete for game time as an ECNL Team? For some clubs, they do have great RL Teams, but as a whole, I can't imagine it would not be a more comfortable experience playing in RL for a player used to ECNL cometitiveness? I know parents with RL Girls and they have said that sometimes you get quality competition for the good teams, but there are a lot of less competitive games as well.

Some GA and RL TEams will even be competing with ECNL Teams at Surf Cup.
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You're starting to see through all the BS. Don't do that ;-) Check out this post from almost 1 year ago.

How’s the 2023-24 season going?

I think this group need a fresh thread to talk about the happenings across this 2010 group. Some questions to ponder: 1.) Which teams got better? 2.) which ones took a step back? 3.) @Carlsbad7 is GA actually closing the gap on ECNL? 4.) @Surfer_dad what's truly going on at Surf? 5.) Where is...
socalsoccer.com socalsoccer.com
 
way up said:
So there are very competitive RL and GA teams for sure, but are you saying that an RL Team would be just as hard to compete for game time as an ECNL Team? For some clubs, they do have great RL Teams, but as a whole, I can't imagine it would not be a more comfortable experience playing in RL for a player used to ECNL cometitiveness? I know parents with RL Girls and they have said that sometimes you get quality competition for the good teams, but there are a lot of less competitive games as well.

Some GA and RL TEams will even be competing with ECNL Teams at Surf Cup.
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Not exactly, I'm saying that painting the competitiveness for gametime, game performance, money/time spent, with a broad brush that NL = competitive and RL = easier step back, almost never tells the whole story. There are pretty horrendous ECNL-NL teams. There are fantastic ECNL-RL teams. There are incredibly competitive NL teams, there are laidback RL teams, and vice-versa. Everyone in RL thinks they are working harder at this than 90% of the kids playing the sport competitively. Everyone in NL thinks they are working harder at this than 95% of the kids playing this sport. At the very tippy top of competitiveness, say top 5 in the country, of course playtime and everything else has a tremendous amount of pressure surrounding it - that may truly be different anywhere but those few teams you can count on one hand. It's just that there is no easy button where all of that can be shut off to just go to a league where that doesn't enter the conversation - there really isn't one.
 
soccermax2 said:
You have zero clue what you’re talking about. Been there, done that & won that with my kid on the field.

Have zero respect for clubs who gouge parents all season long, just to replace them with Blues players right before playoffs. That’s not earned. Win with your true roster, the ones who dropped the thousands in club fees at the beginning of the season.

That’s where ECNL needs to change the rules IMO.
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ECNL does need to make that change and so many agree with you!
 
JustaSpectator said:
ECNL does need to make that change and so many agree with you!
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Legends played by the rules and picked up some real good super stars. No one had this team going to the finals but me. I tried to tell you all. Yes, I thought they would win it all next year and I think we're all in agreement that Legends is clear #1 for next season. It all starts with Surf Cup. More rumor mill is Legends are picking up some nice players to make them probably not give up a goal.
 
JustaSpectator said:
Legends did a great job recruiting, recruiting, recruiting at the end.
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So do you think Koge developed all those players that came over to form Koge? Or Slammers NL? Pats? Insert team here…

Every team recruits… don’t have sour grapes when all teams are recruiting and even some of them are bringing in players from Hawaii and NorCal having normal starters sit on the bench for them all playoffs…

Great job to both teams getting as far as they did and putting it all on the field.


Imagine on the RL side when MVLA shows up with 4 girls wearing ECNL patches to play you in the playoffs after you beat them 2 weeks earlier 4-0 so they could lose in the semifinals in Virginia…

By the way congrats to Beach RL making it to the finals!
 
JustaSpectator said:
Legends did a great job recruiting, recruiting, recruiting at the end.
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Dude I gotta say you are hilarious… they only picked up 2 players for playoffs that started as many other teams did the same as did Koge. Think of it like adding 2 discovery players. Totally fine. The rest are coming next season. In actuality 1 transferred during season so you can’t count her and the other one was a discovery player from TFA.
 
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TeamDadJokes said:
Imagine on the RL side when MVLA shows up with 4 girls wearing ECNL patches to play you in the playoffs after you beat them 2 weeks earlier 4-0 so they could lose in the semifinals in Virginia…
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Sometimes an ECNL patch in an RL game just means the player recently got cut from the higher team. Moving down a team is bad enough. You're not going to rip the patch off their jersey, too.
 
Luis Andres said:
Dude I gotta say you are hilarious… they only picked up 2 players for playoffs that started as many other teams did the same as did Koge. Think of it like adding 2 discovery players. Totally fine. The rest are coming next season. In actuality 1 transferred during season so you can’t count her and the other one was a discovery player from TFA.
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No complaints here. We now have another top-notch opponent. That's a good thing.

Congratulations to your kids and her teammates on an excellent playoffs run.

See you next season.
 
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