United Soccer League Launches “USL YOUTH,” New Platform to Elevate the Youth Player Experience

[Carlsbad7]

People are identifying that the cost of club soccer is crazy and the travel is ridiculous but they're not identifying one of the major contributors to this.

It doesn't matter if it's boys or girls soccer the fact that there's multiple competing leagues just doesn't make sense if you're trying to lower costs and amounts of travel for games.

Boys = MLS Next, ECNL/RL, EA, NPL, Socal, and now USL, etc
Girls = GA, ECNL/RL, DPL NPL, Socal, etc

Imagine if instead of above there was Youth Amature Boys Soccer and Youth Amature Girls Soccer with several different levels of play. Also at the highest level there's Acadamies that play each other professionally and train players coming up in the highest level of amature soccer.

If everyone was playing in the same pool Socal soccer would be incredibly cheap. You wouldn't have situations where B and C teams are flying out to play league games. Only the top teams would need to travel for games. Everything else would be local.

Unfortunately clubs and leagues make much more money splitting everyone apart and creating 5-7 National Champions for both boys and girls. Also what makes things hard is that some parents know that the current system is stupid but they like it because it gives their kid (who is obviously 2nd tier) a opportunity to be master champion of the universe. Kind of like if you want to look thin and you don't want to go through all the effort it takes to lose weight just hang out with even fatter people and you'll look like you're thin.

Even high school sports is fragmented. Trinity League anyone? Which is frustrating if you're looking for high quality play, less travel, and lower costs.

 

[Carlsbad7]

I personally believe (and I'm sure several would disagree) that the way to bring everyone together at the youth level is to do two different things.

1. Implement NWSL Next with professional club support and participation and have it mirror MLS Next

2. Let all the clubs that want to play in MLS Next or NWSL Next into the league.

If above happens you end up with something very close to what the rest of the world has. Both boys and girls talent are funneling into professional acadamies.

Obviously when you have all the different clubs playing in a single league there will need to be multiple levels of play. This introduces promotion / relegation between the different levels.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

All good thoughts - but it's more how youth american sports has changed over the decades, rather than an american soccer-specific problem that isn't matching up with what the rest of the world might be doing. The same $, and the same unnecessary travel, and the same preponderance of "elite" leagues, is a very similar story for basketball, baseball, football, pretty much any even somewhat popular sport that kids (and their parents) are tied to some level of perceived potential success in. US Soccer, whatever the organization, isn't likely to make a dent in the problem - nor will the MLB, NBA, NFL, or the Olympic-related organizations for any of the other sports that could have pull at the national level.

 

[Grace T.]

Obviously when you have all the different clubs playing in a single league there will need to be multiple levels of play. This introduces promotion / relegation between the different levels.

This is where you lost me. Can't do that as long as soccer is tied to college admissions. The stakes are too high for people, which is what makes the coaches take short cuts. It then would become about winning instead of developing the players or a pool of potential academy players because you can't under any circumstances afford to be relegated out of the top area. That means ruthlessly recruiting instead of developing the players you have, booting the ball if necessary, don't play your benchers, scream at the refs when they make a stupid mistake, don't make stupid mistakes by experimenting in the back, players need to be at the age line. You either have to take college out of the equation, or have the unified soccer organization (US Soccer or otherwise) take direct control of the highest non-academy levels and disperse by geographical area, not financial profit and players can't transfer between the zones with tryouts being ruthlessly individualistically based on not team based. That's not what the rest of the world is doing. Outside of the academies, the rest of the world basically plays Latino league (which BTW is also tiered)

 

[whatithink]

Madison also quickly learns all of Sally's tricks. After a while, my GK son knows where a shooter will shoot from, what they'll do, what kind of shot they'll try to develop (cutback v. through ball), what foot they'll use, even against in club teams. A new team surprises him and forces him to adapt. Very good point.

I think it's an interesting idea. Sockma is trying to recreate the academy experience given what we have to work with without building an academy (the limited time, the expense). Since the boys have a [somewhat limited compared to Europe] academy option, it's more of a necessity on the girl's end, as sockma justly notes for serious players. I agree, however, that the kids would miss the games, and most importantly the parents would demand what's up (I've just about come to the conclusion we parents are the worst thing about soccer in the US). It also would seem like a lot of work for the coaches to actually get it right, which is also part of the Chesterton's Fence of the issue. Soccereconomics pointed out, IIRC, that the best games (at least from a spectator point of view) are the ones where the team you are rooting for have an 80% chance of winning, not necessarily the close ones that are an actual contest....turns out humans like their teams winning by being challenged but not overly challenged...they want the Harlem Globetrotters but with the Washington Generals winning every so often

A coach once explained to me that we are paying for the coaching so I should ignore the games. He had no answer when I pointed out that the only way (as a parent) to evaluate and measure the coaching was by seeing the impact in games versus other clubs/coaches/players/styles.

Academies play games. They may not be focused on the results, but they are focused on the players and how they apply the principles they are being taught. If they don't/won't/can't, they will be kicked from the academy.

Everything else is rec (varying levels). So yeah, your kid playing ECNL etc. is really playing high level rec. Even college is just high level rec.

 

[Carlsbad7]

All good thoughts - but it's more how youth american sports has changed over the decades, rather than an american soccer-specific problem that isn't matching up with what the rest of the world might be doing. The same $, and the same unnecessary travel, and the same preponderance of "elite" leagues, is a very similar story for basketball, baseball, football, pretty much any even somewhat popular sport that kids (and their parents) are tied to some level of perceived potential success in. US Soccer, whatever the organization, isn't likely to make a dent in the problem - nor will the MLB, NBA, NFL, or the Olympic-related organizations for any of the other sports that could have pull at the national level.

It all comes down to money and control.

There's a lot of people that like ECNL (specifically for girls) but what they're not seeing is how vulnerable ECNL is to something like NWSL Next.

If the same group that implemented MLS NEXT was able to get Professional NWSL clubs to implement academies and play in a NWSL Next league you'd have a similar effect for girls as it did for boys.

- Top tier would be MLS/NWSL Academies
- Second tier would be clubs/teams that play in MLS/NWSL Next league
- Third tier would be clubs/teams that play in every other league

If you opened up MSL/NWSL Next to all clubs instantly participating in GA/ECNL/NPL/ETC wouldn't matter because they'd all become 3rd tier.

Add in level of play and pro/rel and all the top teams are suddenly playing against each other. While everyone else plays in leagues are 3rd tier.

Unfortunately, while everything listed above would create much better professional level players it would also take a lot of money out of club/league pockets. eventually there's going to be a showdown and it will become a choice between development and $$$. Which do the people that control youth and professional soccer want?

 

[Carlsbad7]

This is where you lost me. Can't do that as long as soccer is tied to college admissions. The stakes are too high for people, which is what makes the coaches take short cuts. It then would become about winning instead of developing the players or a pool of potential academy players because you can't under any circumstances afford to be relegated out of the top area. That means ruthlessly recruiting instead of developing the players you have, booting the ball if necessary, don't play your benchers, scream at the refs when they make a stupid mistake, don't make stupid mistakes by experimenting in the back, players need to be at the age line. You either have to take college out of the equation, or have the unified soccer organization (US Soccer or otherwise) take direct control of the highest non-academy levels and disperse by geographical area, not financial profit and players can't transfer between the zones with tryouts being ruthlessly individualistically based on not team based. That's not what the rest of the world is doing. Outside of the academies, the rest of the world basically plays Latino league (which BTW is also tiered)

It all depends on how many tiers and the number of teams participating at each level.

If there's 10 tiers of teams and 100s of teams per level pro/rel doesn't really matter as long as your only moving up/down 3-4 per year.

If there's 3 tiers and 10 teams at each level pro/rel really matters especially if there's 3-4 moving up/down per year.

 

[Carlsbad7]

It all depends on how many tiers and the number of teams participating at each level.

If there's 10 tiers of teams and 100s of teams per level pro/rel doesn't really matter as long as your only moving up/down 3-4 per year.

If there's 3 tiers and 10 teams at each level pro/rel really matters especially if there's 3-4 moving up/down per year.

My guess is that if something like MLS/NSWL Next was implemented and if they both became completely open for any club to participate is that you'd end up with 3 nationwide levels.

Gold (plays Academies), Silver, and Bronze.

If both leagues were nationwide and if both leagues were 100% open clubs would participate in MLS/NWSL Next whenever they feel that they're good enough in whatever closed league that they play in. When this happens they'd start in the Bronze level and work their way up to Silver and Gold via pro/rel.

I would think that Bronze is a local MLS/NWSL league, Silver is national but decided by a series of tournaments throughout the year, and Gold is a full travel team that plays across the nation against MLS/NWSL Academies who also travel.

 

[Carlsbad7]

Where everything I've written becomes murky is that coaches would need to be tied to a single team. Because of the travel as you go up the chain.

Unfortunately, coaches make a lot more money coaching multiple teams and clubs need to hire less coaches with ECNL/GA because clubs play each other in league every weekend. This allows a single coach to coach/manage 2-3 different age groups/teams.

 

[Karlton Athletic]

This is where you lost me. Can't do that as long as soccer is tied to college admissions.

I grew up in the UK and no one gives a crap about college sports. Our intramural team beat the University's official soccer team which would have been a big story here, but over there meant little more than a few free pints at the pub afterwards. Once we moved here, it took me a while to understand the obsession with high school and college sports, especially as in the UK, any really talented kids might already be playing professionally by high school age.

One of the parents on our club team noted that if college is the end game, then you may as well put all your club soccer fees into a college savings account instead and you'd be better off.

 

[chipmonk]

Apologies for the confusion. The reference was to the reference are there teams that deliberately pursue a strategy that causes them to lose. You are quite correct to characterize the TFA strategy as a high press and counter, not park the bus. I agree Manchester was lucky the score was not more lopsided. But there I think your characterization ends.

Apologies for the confusion? You explicitly chose this game as a direct comparison to the SWE vs USA game. Your quote: 'It’s literally what happened to the Manchester team when they played tfa.' Then you make some nonsensical comment about how many touches the MU keeper had when the ball was never intentionally played to him. This example and your erroneous arguments and self-contradictions actually discredit your point (which I ultimately agree with).

If what you really meant to say was: MU 11 year olds were really bad at building out from the back against a good press, but they kept trying it anyway against a team that has an effective press because they are looking at longer term development over short term wins. I wish more US clubs/academies would have that attitude at the younger ages.


IIRC TFA also played Barca that same year and Barca completely dominated them since they could beat the press and TFA just tried to play kickball, no attempt at possession at all in any of the thirds. Barca tends to do that against almost everyone at all age groups (because they teach it so well and so young). Use that next time.

 

[Carlsbad7]

I grew up in the UK and no one gives a crap about college sports. Our intramural team beat the University's official soccer team which would have been a big story here, but over there meant little more than a few free pints at the pub afterwards. Once we moved here, it took me a while to understand the obsession with high school and college sports, especially as in the UK, any really talented kids might already be playing professionally by high school age.

One of the parents on our club team noted that if college is the end game, then you may as well put all your club soccer fees into a college savings account instead and you'd be better off.

Frustrating, isn't it?

People in the US know how to win at soccer/football but they're being held back but groups and originations that shape the sport into what serves them best (not the players).

 

[Grace T.]

Apologies for the confusion? You explicitly chose this game as a direct comparison to the SWE vs USA game. Your quote: 'It’s literally what happened to the Manchester team when they played tfa.' Then you make some nonsensical comment about how many touches the MU keeper had when the ball was never intentionally played to him. This example and your erroneous arguments and self-contradictions actually discredit your point (which I ultimately agree with).

If what you really meant to say was: MU 11 year olds were really bad at building out from the back against a good press, but they kept trying it anyway against a team that has an effective press because they are looking at longer term development over short term wins. I wish more US clubs/academies would have that attitude at the younger ages.


IIRC TFA also played Barca that same year and Barca completely dominated them since they could beat the press and TFA just tried to play kickball, no attempt at possession at all in any of the thirds. Barca tends to do that against almost everyone at all age groups (because they teach it so well and so young). Use that next time.

I have readily admitted in the past that precision is not one of my forte's here. Moving too fast so as not to spend too much time on it. Again, apologies for the confusion.

 

[sockma]

Numbers are always going to be fuzzy, and locations are going to vary - but $15K per year per player as an average cost to the family seems very, very high. Every few weeks someone posts up the same "Wait, so how much does everyone pay" question on all the various online groups, and it sure seems to be closer to $5K for most of the top leagues, with a possible range of almost nothing up to that 5 digit cost you estimated. Of course some can factor in traveling to multiple out of state tournaments, flying with a family of 4, while on the other end there are others who have all direct costs covered by the club and have theoretically nothing out of pocket. Thinking that there is an average of $15K per player, so $300K per team, to allocate in various better ways - seems wildly optimistic. For what it's worth, MLS Next and ECNL parents are paying nothing close to this, in a HCOL area in NorCal.

I wish it was 5K total. With required "donations", fundrsaising, gear and club fees - it's 5K, without travel and extra tournaments.

Once you add the cost of traveling to Arizona, Dallas, Maryland, Richmond, Tennessee, Colorado, Florida, etc with the cost of car rental, hotels, eating out, and flights, it definitely hits another 10K a year because you're also paying for a team of coaches to travel with you. Plane tickets range are bt 300-700 for flights. Hotel rooms range from $200-350 a night. Food is about $50-100 a day per person. Car rental ranges from 200-1000 based on how long the trip is.

Yes, you could split the hotel and car rental, but you can't split the flight and food cost. Maryland, at it's cheapest, was $1400 a kid without any other family members attending. Tennessee cost the girls approximately $1200 for the very basics and splitting everything, without other family members attending. There's at least 3 showcases a year, other tournaments, and finally post-season (which are two very expensive trips because they're long trips due to addition of nonplay days).

That is a total of 15K.

My suggestion is a 10K cost for each player, with a local league and traveling only for 1 national competition showcase/tournament/championship. On a team of 18 players, that's 180K. A coach and club could definitely do some great training, scrimmages, fitness, film review and technical training with that amount of money. This would be better for coaches too because their family would appreciate it.

Suggested Strategy:
Cost=10K club cost
Games= 1 local league game every week and scrimmages if needed (excluding holidays and break periods)
Tournaments = 1 National Tournament per year and unlimited local tournaments as desired

I think this is a win for clubs, a win for coaches, a win for player development, and a win for parent cost/family & personal time.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

Once you add the cost of traveling to Arizona, Dallas, Maryland, Richmond, Tennessee, Colorado, Florida, etc with the cost of car rental, hotels, eating out, and flights, it definitely hits another 10K a year because you're also paying for a team of coaches to travel with you. Plane tickets range are bt 300-700 for flights. Hotel rooms range from $200-350 a night. Food is about $50-100 a day per person. Car rental ranges from 200-1000 based on how long the trip is.

If you think the average ECNL player across the country is going to Arizona, Dallas, Maryland, Richmond, Tennessee, Colorado, and Florida in one year - I think there are quite a few ECNL parents who would disagree with that assumption. But yes - if someone is budgeting for 7 flights + hotels, and they are including family travel along the way, and they are not doing it on the cheap - it's going to be pricy - which I guess is the point.

 

[sockma]

If you think the average ECNL player across the country is going to Arizona, Dallas, Maryland, Richmond, Tennessee, Colorado, and Florida in one year - I think there aare quite a few ECNL parents who would disagree with that assumption. But yes - if someone is budgeting for 7 flights + hotels, and they are including family travel along the way, and they are not doing it on the cheap - it's going to be pricy - which I guess is the point.

I was combining the MLS and ECNL schedules but if you just look at 4 traveling trips per kid, on the cheap without parents and without post season, the cheapest would be 5K per kid just for the travelling tournaments. That's 10K total with the other $5K for the club/gear/fees costs. You add in the cheapest post season tournament and that's easily 3K more, for $13K. 13K is the very basic cost bc it includes splitting travel and no family travelling.

All those weekends in Ventura, LA, San Diego, and Arizona for two leagues games add up to about 1.2 K, that's budgetting only $300 for travel, hotel, food, and coach costs. If you're lucky, you can stay with family in those cities and cut out some hotel sharing costs but that's only $300 savings because you still have to pay for transportation, food and coach costs.

Most of us try to take a trip or two with our kids, which then adds a few more grand.

 

[sockma]

I personally believe (and I'm sure several would disagree) that the way to bring everyone together at the youth level is to do two different things.

1. Implement NWSL Next with professional club support and participation and have it mirror MLS Next

2. Let all the clubs that want to play in MLS Next or NWSL Next into the league.

If above happens you end up with something very close to what the rest of the world has. Both boys and girls talent are funneling into professional acadamies.

Obviously when you have all the different clubs playing in a single league there will need to be multiple levels of play. This introduces promotion / relegation between the different levels.

NWSL doesn't have enough teams or finances to do this and they need the big club support, therefore are very unlikely to compete against ECNL clubs. We are a long ways from this. I would love to see NWSL teams create supplemental training programs for local club players at the ECNL/GA level.

 

[sockma]

It's an interesting idea. Certainly would help with the over use injuries.

Games are fun, though. I don't know if mine would keep playing if there were only 12 games a year.

Of course, they only get about 12 good games per year anyway, so maybe.

Madison is better, but no one notices her because she plays defense.

You are correct about Madison. Good defenders and good versatile players are not recognized enough.

I'm not advocating removing all games. I'm actually advocating more local games and using the games as REAL learning tools. After the games, teams should go to classrooms and learn from it the same day. Then they should go to fields and go through those scenarios to see the different ways they could have worked through it offensively and defensively. This helps players think on and off the field. In the future, this helps players learn how to analyze their own play and opponents. The soccer IQ would improve dramatically.

 

[whatithink]

It all depends on how many tiers and the number of teams participating at each level.

If there's 10 tiers of teams and 100s of teams per level pro/rel doesn't really matter as long as your only moving up/down 3-4 per year.

If there's 3 tiers and 10 teams at each level pro/rel really matters especially if there's 3-4 moving up/down per year.

That reminds me of someone saying their kid is playing D1 soccer in college, and I look up the college and they are ranked 300+, so really they are playing D15+ soccer (if split in divisions of 20 teams each ranked), and knowing that there are D2 etc teams that are better. I've watched some lower ranked D1 one teams play in person and on TV, and they suck ... but living the dream!

 

[Carlsbad7]

That reminds me of someone saying their kid is playing D1 soccer in college, and I look up the college and they are ranked 300+, so really they are playing D15+ soccer (if split in divisions of 20 teams each ranked), and knowing that there are D2 etc teams that are better. I've watched some lower ranked D1 one teams play in person and on TV, and they suck ... but living the dream!

Yes but in this case there is promotion and relagation between the different levels.

People would quickly figure out that D1 Gold is much different than D1 Silver, and D1 Bronze. (Using the college D1 analogy)

The big downside of pro/rel at the youth level is that if you get relagated it's usually the end of the club because everyone leaves for other teams/clubs when it happens. Likely before relagation occurs clubs would join a pay to play league to save face and not lose $$$.

 

[Zeke]

I wish it was 5K total. With required "donations", fundrsaising, gear and club fees - it's 5K, without travel and extra tournaments.

Once you add the cost of traveling to Arizona, Dallas, Maryland, Richmond, Tennessee, Colorado, Florida, etc with the cost of car rental, hotels, eating out, and flights, it definitely hits another 10K a year because you're also paying for a team of coaches to travel with you. Plane tickets range are bt 300-700 for flights. Hotel rooms range from $200-350 a night. Food is about $50-100 a day per person. Car rental ranges from 200-1000 based on how long the trip is.

Yes, you could split the hotel and car rental, but you can't split the flight and food cost. Maryland, at it's cheapest, was $1400 a kid without any other family members attending. Tennessee cost the girls approximately $1200 for the very basics and splitting everything, without other family members attending. There's at least 3 showcases a year, other tournaments, and finally post-season (which are two very expensive trips because they're long trips due to addition of nonplay days).

That is a total of 15K.

My suggestion is a 10K cost for each player, with a local league and traveling only for 1 national competition showcase/tournament/championship. On a team of 18 players, that's 180K. A coach and club could definitely do some great training, scrimmages, fitness, film review and technical training with that amount of money. This would be better for coaches too because their family would appreciate it.

Suggested Strategy:
Cost=10K club cost
Games= 1 local league game every week and scrimmages if needed (excluding holidays and break periods)
Tournaments = 1 National Tournament per year and unlimited local tournaments as desired

I think this is a win for clubs, a win for coaches, a win for player development, and a win for parent cost/family & personal time.

Works for GA and the bottom 2/3 of ECNL.

Teams like Koge and Surf are going to want to go play the other big dogs.

Then, if you restrict it, everyone else is going to be upset that they aren’t big dogs. They break off and start “super elite big dog academy”, and you’re back where we started.