I hope this league works out for the players who just want a chance to compete and are locked out of the ECNL and GA clubs. But, I’m very skeptical of what is being sold to everybody. My perspective is from the Girls side, so the Boys may be different. I don't see how a league that is going to be comprised primarily of teams that played at the Discovery League NPL (SOCAL Flight 1 teams who play other Flight 1 team from a different region of SOCAL, instead of the Flight 1 teams in their own area), is suddenly going to have stronger base of teams than the GA or DPL. If most of the clubs currently playing GA and DPL don’t make the move to Elite 64, certainly Elite 64 can’t spontaneously be at a higher level than GA. US Youth Soccer (former Development Academy now GA) was competing with US Club Soccer (ECNL) for the top league status. There are endless debates on the forums about who was better, but it’s a moot point now, because the DA folded up in 2020. The top players all migrated to the ECNL. Then US Youth Soccer rebrands the DA with a few new rules in 2021 (now allows player to play in High School), calling its new league Girls Academy (GA/DA 2.0) hoping to regain the players it lost. Most ECNL players and clubs stay in the ECNL. Currently the GA is struggling on the West Coast and showing signs of decline on the East Coast because the clubs and ECNL players are not coming back. Now US Youth Soccer starts yet another league (Elite 64), that is going to be at a higher level than GA, while the GA still exists…how? It doesn’t make any logical sense. The only way Elite 64 will be better than GA is if US Youth Soccer shuts down GA, which may be why the Elite 64 (DA 3.0) is being created. If GA is still around this Fall, then the pecking order will be ECNL, ECRL, GA, DPL, Elite 64, Local League Flight 1 (whatever cool sounding name they call it this year). Elite 64 is US Youth Soccer’s attempt to take a piece of the local leagues’ revenue, by creating a travel league for teams that don’t need to travel to find competitive teams to play. Why else would you create three “top” leagues (GA, DPL, Elite 64) that are competing against each other for players, if you are trying to compete with US Club Soccer’s ECNL and ECRL.