There are three National Affiliates with a youth soccer focus: U.S. Youth Soccer, U.S. Club Soccer and AYSO. These National Youth Affiliates have slightly difference models due to their focus:
- AYSO (1964)- Recreational soccer with a relatively new AYSO United program for higher level/competitive play.
- U.S. Youth Soccer (1974'ish) with 55 State Associations - Cal South, Cal North (Cal is big), etc. US Youth Soccer focuses on recreational and competitive soccer and here in SoCal the USYS affiliate, Cal South is the 800 pound gorilla sanctioning CSL, SCDSL Presidio as well as countless recreational leagues.
- U.S. Club Soccer (2001), which focuses almost primarily on competitive soccer. Leagues include ECNL, National Premiere League (NPL), etc.
USYS/Cal South and USCS are competitors have have been constantly jockeying for supremacy in their core space ... competitive youth. USYS was the top competitive program and created the ODP as a way to identifying top talent in the various States. Around 2009/2010 USYS faced its biggest challenge when US Club became the defacto top level National Association for girls with the ECNL.
Everything got thrown into disarray when US Soccer decided to bypass the various Youth National Affiliates and create their own league ... US Soccer Development Academy. Once the USSDA came about, many top level boys were pulled into the USSDA and the USYS programs: ODP, National League, Coast Soccer League, etc. lost their luster. Once the girls USSDA came about, ECNL (US Club) lost teams.
So here we sit with USYS and USCS jockeying for position, knowing they can't stave off US Soccer's incursion into their space for top talent, trying to develop programs in order to meet demand.
All these various leagues exist because of demand from the Club. The small clubs pick 1 or 2 programs. The large/mega clubs pick them all. Take Arsenal FC for example, Boys USSDA (US Soccer), Girls ECNL (US Club), Boys/Girls NPL (US Club), Boys/Girls National League [powered by CRL] (US Youth Soccer/Cal South) and Boys/Girls SCDSL League (US Youth Soccer/Cal South). Legends, Surf, Strikers, etc., all have similar "agnostic" views when it comes to participating in the various National Affiliate programs.
Up to this point, there has been no real connection between the Adult leagues and the youth leagues, except for the USSDA. What you are starting to see is the nascent Adult leagues looking to form their own youth feeder systems. So we have the Super-Y (sanctioned by US Club) associated with the USL and its lower levels. This new league associating with the UPSL, etc.
US Club Soccer is apparently more flexible when it comes to these various youth leagues and allows different rostering rules, whereas US Youth Soccer is apparently more rigid.
The UPSL is for the most part is regional adult amateur soccer (with visions of becoming more). The formation of a youth league is the natural expansion of any league that has visions of becoming more.
Youth soccer in the US is going through a Renaissance with expansion, contraction, and competition among the National Affiliates and their respective State Associations, clubs and leagues. Its giving the consumers (Clubs, Teams, Parents/Kids) choices. Not a bad thing in my book.