It’s getting more stupid and complicated and spreading out the talent.
The reason for it is mlsn on the east coast rebelled against ea and formed its own ndl. They wanted more flexibility in being able to bring down bench and reserve players to get play time. So to resolve the split they formed mls 2 in cooperation with ea (which is supposed to administer here in SoCal). So mls2 is now where big clubs are supposed to put their 2nd tier teams. Ea is now 3rd and ea2 is now 4th (and they are pretty much letting anyone in now to ea2). Mls2 is a nation wide consolidation (at least in areas where there is mlsn…some like the pacific nw don’t have a large mlsn presence outside academies)
But in SoCal the reorg has no rhyme or reason. La surf lost a team. Albion Bakersfield didn’t get it. Neither did SoCal elite which had been let into ea a few years ago and in a short time had stronger records than say Laguna which they kept. They added two new ones out of the blue (juventus which was a coast club, and oaks which was ea2 which had some success but wasn’t exactly dominant…this follows the pattern of selecting lasc reds and bulls out of the blue into mlsn). Albion la is going to be forced to consolidate sm Albion (which prob has the best coaching staff), La Albion (which has the award but has struggled given what happened with Laufa), Santa Ana (which is the most robust) and new acquisition fc England. The Albion kids all most likely wind up with big commutes to Long Beach. Most established clubs like tfa or strikers are just moving their ea teams up to mls2 but some clubs have been struggling to build out their programs and there are rumors lasc and the bulls have been struggling with finding coaches and space to accommodate all the new teams (lasc is really spread out right now from the sgv to the sfv to downtown la).
So in the immediate future at least in SoCal mls2 is going to be a real disjointed league. If it works as intended and they bring down a substantial amount of mls futures and reserve players, it’s hard to see how clubs like juventus, the bulls, lasc, conejo, Laguna and even riverside are going to be able to keep up. Likewise the better players have now left ea or are in the process or trying out and ea is going to be hugely disbalanced with SoCal elite and strikers going against a bunch of newly promoted teams. While the structure likely makes sense in the long term, in the short term it’s going to be very unbalanced for both ea and mls2 (SoCal elite and sm Albion will probably wind up being shells of their former selves). Long term it probably also means the death of remaining little local clubs like newbury park elite or places like moorpark if they don’t jump into ea2 and SoCal league becomes just a league for littles.
Yes they are saying the mls2 players can play high school (at least the first year) though because of what’s going on with the age line and depending on what happens with the bench/reserve it might change down the road. The chief reason why no high school for mlsn is there is no national high school season and they can’t have the academies there without scrimmage partners for chunks of the year. The regular mlsn teams are cannon fodder for the academies.
