It won’t raise any eyebrows. Mlsn is controlled by the academies. They’d just say no. They don’t have to unless forced because the coaches will continue to go to flex and cup. That leaves you with a lot of expense and effort to not “move the needle” but get “a few get noticed”. Again because if the very internationals problem you point out, it’s a bunch of efforts and expenses that benefit the very few (the top mls2 teams already participate in flex and cup by making it through qualifiers and ecnl has its own showcases and playoffs).
Rant: League fracturing is asinine
- Thread starter sigmabody
- Start date
Not much you can do when pro teams get involved with youth programs.
But for everyone else it would make things better if all the leagues participated in a single showcase event vs 4-5 seperate league aligned events.
It will never be single for all teams. There’s not enough real estate. You are left with either playoffs, drawing a line by stats, or 4-5 separate regional show cases. Also not “everyone else”. The devils bargain the mlsn p2p clubs make (including the top ad clubs) is they get to go along. Ecnl has its own events. The only ones this would benefit are top teams in other leagues currently locked out…if you go with playoffs or stat line that’s just a handful and would hurt ecnl as a league.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
One of our kids is currently on a top 10 ECNL team nationally. It's clearly the strongest team he's been associated with so far. What is interesting compared to prior teams, is that from where we can see, it's just not as you describe. There aren't 1 to 3 good players, and the rest are average. It's more like everyone is pretty damned good, and tends to take things pretty seriously. Players still make plenty of mistakes, and everyone at any level always has the opportunity to improve their game. But anyone who isn't able to continue showing the coaches that they are currently the best choice for the roster - gets pretty quickly pushed to one of the club's other 8+ teams in age. I'm sure that out there somewhere, there really are standouts that appear so much more gifted than everyone else on the field, but we don't see them on this team. For what it's worth, haven't seen them on any of the other ECNL teams we've seen at this level either.
At the lower levels, I imagine it can be fun to dribble through players that aren't really on the same level. It's easier to pick out the kids that are not only really making a difference for their team, but also starkly separating themselves from the competition. It just doesn't seem to happen as often at the top levels - the entire team has to be decent, as if there really are any obvious weaknesses - the other team is almost certainly going to notice and be able to take advantage of them. What is also interesting, is when scrimmaging with one of the teams rated above them - that same team can look decidedly average, with none of the kids looking at all like they are supposed to be there. There's always a bigger fish.
I have no idea how many (or if any) kids on the team will turn out to be D1 prospects, D2/D3 prospects, or instead decide not to play competitively after this. The club places D1 pretty regularly, but there are still a few seasons to go - and who knows how things will turn out. I'm not a scout, coach, and don't possess any special ability to assess a player's attractiveness to recruiters. But I also can't think of any of his prior teammates on any of the lower level teams he's had to come through, being more likely to catch their attention than anyone he's playing with now.
I looked at the boys rankings for different age groups. From what I saw one league tended to have the most top 20 teams. I think they would probabaly participate in showcases put on by US Soccer if it used the ranking app for seeding. For the most part one league would be playing against its own teams. Nothing really changes. But, there would be an occasional match up between different leagues. The bigger issue would be player eligibility and SY vs BY alignment.
RandomSoccerFan
PREMIER
Rather than setting up an entire new tournament infrastructure, a quicker way to get the same result on the boys side is to convince MLSN to invite the top 3-4 ECNL teams nationally as guest entries to the one of the national MLSN events. Same hurdles to overcome about ECNL not wanting to show their players, and MLSN not wanting to be seen as "equivalent" to the top ECNL teams - but all of the other organizational/logistical issues would no longer exist.
Either way works.
The end goal is to only have one showcase event that all leagues attend so theres more cross league play and its easier for college coaches to evaluate players.