Where is it confirmed MLS next 2? It’s not mentioned at all on the MLS next website being called that.
MLS NEXT NEW TIER - SOUTHWEST
- Thread starter zags77
- Start date
Where is it confirmed MLS next 2? It’s not mentioned at all on the MLS next website being called that.
Our club is dropping EA2. Moving EA to MLS2 and EA2 to EA. In addition to MLS Next.
EA2 is easy to get into as a club. With enough teams most clubs are accepted.
A lot of clubs are misrepresenting their acceptance into MLS next 2 and are now calling themselves MLS next clubs. Prime example is Juventus in LA. Go check out their Instagram page.
I encourage people to report these incidences to mls next using this link. https://secure.ethicspoint.com/domain/media/en/gui/80091/index.html
I encourage people to report these incidences to mls next using this link. https://secure.ethicspoint.com/domain/media/en/gui/80091/index.html
Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
SILVER
They should go with the tried-and-true "pre-" prefix. I.e., "Pre-MLS Next Academy." Everyone loves that bit.
They should call it “MLS Next new slightly lower tier”. “slightly lower” must be in there. Oh wait, these all just EA teams.
Dale Earnhardt Jr Jr
SILVER
This is fantastic work. It DOES say MLS, so everyone should be happy.
Well it is and it isn't. There are winners (like Juventus and Oaks and some players already there from lower teams getting promoted) and some losers (mostly players). The biggest losers are the MLSN bench sitters, non-dressers and reserve players who, if this works as intended, won't be happy being told they have to play down (even though theoretically playing somewhere is better than bench sitting)....still they don't seem to like it much. There are players at the Albion clubs who will be forced to combine from 4 teams into 1, though theoretically it should provide a better overall team. There are players like those at SoCal Elite and Albion Bakersfield who just got what amounts to a demotion irrespective of the way their team or players performs. There will be the players themselves at hastily organized teams where league play will likely be more irregular than EA because some teams are going to scramble to form and can't draw upon their MLS reserve and bencher players, and some teams that might be using MLS2 as intended and bring down players to give them play time. Some people will be happy with the new MLS patch, but for a bunch of players and families this is going to be enormously disruptive. A few people in the know have told me they expect it to be a train wreck for the weaker side of the MLSN players and the current EA players, particularly olders. And if MLSN decides to let the non-academy teams go SY, everyone has that disruption to look forward to just when things start to get settled. And in the end, we'll be left with 4 boys letter league tiers to be a mess of it all.
Rollonyoubears
SILVER
Jeez man, take a step back from the ledge. It's not that big of a deal. Everyone knows It's a tier of MLS Next since all clubs used the same verbiage to announce they were part of it, so why wouldn't they market it using the MLS Next name? Nobody is trying to claim they are in the main MLS Next if they are not. FFS.
Playing in mls next new tier doesn’t mean you are a mls next club, don’t misrepresent it. It’s false advertisement. MLS next needs to know which clubs are doing these and perhaps kick them out of this “new tier of competition”.
Rollonyoubears
SILVER
Good luck with that. And maybe you should go read their webpage. https://www.mlssoccer.com/mlsnext/news/mls-next-announces-new-competition-tier-x7618
"MLS NEXT today announced a new competition tier that will increase the number of clubs in MLS Next..."
It's cool though, we get you don't think it's legit.
Rollonyoubears
SILVER
I will agree that clubs should be clear that they are part of the new tier. Leaving that off their IG ala Juventus is shady. That doesn't make them "not an MLS Next club" though...
Nowhere on the MLS next website does it mention MLS next 2. They call it a new competition tier which makes zero sense and not given a name.
If a club is now playing in the new competition tier, and there is no name but now MLS next says you can play under our umbrella in some capacity in their new tier, and these clubs are calling themselves MLS next club, how is that wrong? Until MLS next actually gives some name or some other indication or guidance of what this is called I think clubs can continue doing this. I don’t agree with it but I can see why they would. Laguna united seems to be doing this as well as a few other I have seen.
Like I said, use the hotline and report them. If enough people report these, mls next will be forced to come up with a clarification.
I took summer school in Harvard and that didn’t make me go around telling people I am a Harvard student.
Rollonyoubears
SILVER
Why does it matter, and why would anyone besides you want to do that? It's Karen behavior....
And who exactly would you report them to?
Do you think MLS will do something about how member clubs are advertising their league? (For free to MLS!)
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Not sure that's the best example. LinkedIn is full of thousands of profiles that list prestigious colleges for people, and then in the fine print they sometimes list that they attended a 3-day seminar there 22 years ago. Your skepticism of clubs that are doing this may be reasonable, your expectation that they "need" to do anything differently is comical.
Rollonyoubears
SILVER
MLS states very clearly that they consider clubs in this new tier an expansion of MLS Next clubs, which negates Jamisfoes' original point. Case closed on that.
Now if clubs are not being clear they are joining this new tier of competition, that's just a situation of "don't let the truth get in the way of a good marketing story"... It will all be very clear come try outs. This is, after all, a competition for parents who want their kids to be in a higher level of play, and from what it sounds like, a way for kids to play MLS Next but still play high school. I think that is a very important distinction.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Soccer marketing relies on parents not having a complete picture of how to assess the quality of any particular club or team. It does a club no favors to have a concrete and understandable hierarchy about the level of their individual or collective teams or the environments they compete in.
Of course clubs joining MLS N in any fashion would want to somehow get that across - and of course there will be customers, who at least initially, won't see any distinction between clubs that do or do not compete in its higher divisions.
Of course clubs joining MLS N in any fashion would want to somehow get that across - and of course there will be customers, who at least initially, won't see any distinction between clubs that do or do not compete in its higher divisions.
TheMountie
BRONZE
I'm curious to know what happened with LAUFA, they're LASC now right? What was the reason for the change.
No, they are Albion LA now. The supporters of LAUFA were big Hispanic leaders (Rocky Delgadillo) in the Los Angeles community. Then there was this gem below. However, after COVID, the funding ran out and the largely Latino parents of secondary teams (which were the financial support for the first teams that had a lot of success and were very generous with scholarships) couldn't afford the rates anymore with the Great Inflation. They also tried to build a girls program which wound up being a failure. It reached the point where the club stopped paying some people (like the GK and some assistant coaches) and some teams stopped paying their dues. Albion took over and renamed it Albion LA. Albion then took over Santa Monica Surf. There's a marriage going on between Albion Santa Monica and Albion LA where a lot of teams have been sent over to the westside to practice including some of the MLSN teams. The westside has more affluent families capable of financially supporting the organization and there are the new facilities the city of Santa Monica are going to build in the airport. LAUFA always struggled to find practice space particularly for the secondary teams and the facilities it used down in Long Beach like the community college are very expensive. Though it's unclear right now how deep that marriage is going to go (for example, in 4-5 years will Albion LA cease to exist and just be absorbed by SM or will it be vice versa depending on where they put the MLS2 teams physically).
LASC is entirely different organization....for one year they were touch and go too but then they got MLSN which was a huge lifeline.
The EA players at the Albion clubs in particularly are in for a challenge because not only will they have to deal with the MLSN first team players being sent down (and some of the LAUFA teams are huge), but Los Angeles, Santa Monica, Santa Ana and England FC will be combining into 1 team and 3/4 of them will likely have a much longer drive. The play styles are also very disparate though the talent pool is greatly expanded. The Latino teams tend to play Mexican physical style with a low block and having the GK pegged into the box. SM prided itself on teaching a possession based style. The two are incompatible so it will be interesting to see what style, if any, Albion imposes on the organization. They seem to be focused on we'll deal with the youngers first approach.
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