Well, a topic a lurker can speak to.
It is true that Reign Academy is "alive",
but without money and troops, it is a
paper tiger. Reign FC the first team
doesn't have two nickels to rub together,
let alone support an academy system.
Only possibility however improbable
is Washington Premier who has ECNL
will switch to GDA, since they are close
by to the new home of Reign FC in
Tacoma. If that happens, PacNW ECNL
should send them flowers thanking them
for the new players.
@Savage is probably a Reign parent
pissed off that the Reign was a dead end.
Reign Dad, Reign is dead. Figure out where your
DD will land for tryouts in May.
Once again, Go Dawgs!
Maybe someone should create a Seattle local subgroup here since the local site has gone kaput. Although since the so cal GDA folks may be getting more travel to Seattle there may be some interest in this here as well.
The Reign’s fortunes may turn more on whether GDA gets its act together than on their internal challenges. Their coaches do not have any current affiliation with Eastside, work for the Reign, are generally well-liked, and have said they are sticking with the program for next year. Their national team players (5?) likely won’t be going ECNL given us soccer’s strong preference for GDA. They’ve done a very solid job on college placement with their two oldest teams (arguably on par with xf), and the younger kids’ families will see that. The first team seems to be on reasonably solid financial footing and now has a nice place to play, albeit in Tacoma. All of their teams are competitive, and they’ve come from clubs from all over the area rather than just their former partners (which is likely part of why their former partners concluded it no longer made sense to invest in the program). And they can now pitch themselves as the only local GDA option instead of 1 of 5 heavily diluted ecnl teams. So if GDA were on solid ground I’d think Reign probably would be too.
But GDA is a tophat or solar or two away from a complete cluster, and the people running the program at us soccer seem to have their heads in the sand and are up against an effective and competent marketing machine in ECNL. Travel in the northwest will be brutal next year with salt lake, Portland and Seattle having one team each, and a likely need for even more so cal crossover games to fill out a schedule. Unlesss GDA fixes things pronto I think they are toast, and I’m skeptical as to whether the folks at us soccer have the candlepower to do that.
