kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
I definitely like the idea of ECNL placing teams in under-represented areas. Also, thank you for taking the time to provide additional context.
WWC 2023
- Thread starter espola
- Start date
How is that going to work? ECNL is expensive. Just because you put a team there doesn't mean it will be successful. ECNL only works where the demographic has the money to pay for it. How are they going to pay for travel, flying all over for events and showcases? ECNL is the pinnacle of the pay to play system adding a team to a poor neighborhood is not a solution unless someone subsidizes all the expenses. The only solution for that is something like DA where US Soccer pays the bills.
We could start by putting a few non-ECNL teams on the schedule. Not whole clubs. Just invite the top two non-ECNL teams in each age group, and offer them a chance to play in the ECNL league for one season. Then do the same thing next year.
It probably makes more sense for compact regions like Norcal. Our whole conference is about 2-3 hours across. Travel expenses for league games are relatively small.
Laufa and tfa make it work on the boys end but I’ve heard mls next is more financially forgiving than ecnl.
one point that isn’t touched upon in the article is the market. And that’s entirely the fault of the Mexican American community. It’s very chauvinistic when it comes to sports and for a long time it was not considered lady like for a girl to play sports. When I was coaching can’t tell you how many times I heard “my abuelita wouldn’t approve”. It’s changing but very slowly. Latino league teams can still get desperate to fill their girl quotas. Academies can cut through that by pursuading parents this is an opportunity and it doesn’t cost as much as ecnl.
kickingandscreaming
PREMIER
Agreed. I don't see how this works without an outside source of money. Considering what our government spends money on, an investment in the youth of an underserved community will top many current expenditures. In a country where the professional league is thriving, they could help with costs. I don't think we are there yet.
The travel requirement can be waived. Put a team in LA, and they will have plenty of "local" games to play. They don't even have to be part of ECNL, IF they can get agreement to be able to play ECNL teams and attend local ECNL events where college coaches attend. It would be wise to work in partnership with existing clubs, if possible. I feel like DA would have been much wiser to attempt this instead of directly competing with ECNL for ALL the girls instead of focusing on the highest level.
Nationwide, I don't believe you will need many to fill the gaps. I'm guessing that in most places, predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods are not "city" sized as the area in LA. It sounds like Phoenix has "enough" coverage. I'd say that's true for most of the Bay Area, except maybe Oakland.
While the focus in articles and this thread has been on barriers to entry because of club fees, how many of the elite players were actually developed by the club coaches and how many were developed through private training $$$$$ throughout the years only to get on a top team with minimal challenging games to maximize development? The number of challenging games for the top ECNL teams looks a whole lot like the number of challenging games the USWNT played in the last couple of years. I have likened many games played to shooting fish in a barrel. How do you develop to your maximum if you are not challenged on a regular basis? Look at the Thompson girls. In order to keep developing, they played on boys teams. That in and of itself should speak loudly.
We have a US club structure that caters to 16% of the population (Upper middle class and Upper class). Are we missing creating a large pool of great players because we do not have any sort of system that develops the middle or lower class to even be identified for scholarship on elite teams?
With the declining # of soccer players in the US and the current trend of 10% increase in club fees with larger roster sizes thus increasing the divide between the haves and have nots, what happens now?
We have a US club structure that caters to 16% of the population (Upper middle class and Upper class). Are we missing creating a large pool of great players because we do not have any sort of system that develops the middle or lower class to even be identified for scholarship on elite teams?
With the declining # of soccer players in the US and the current trend of 10% increase in club fees with larger roster sizes thus increasing the divide between the haves and have nots, what happens now?
I'm still fuzzy on the math as to how some of you imply that we don't (and won't) have good enough players on our 23 women roster to compete internationally, so we need to scour the poor neighborhoods to change that, when we have more women playing soccer in the US by a longshot over any other country and its the most popular girl's sport in our country. Sure we may not get every potentially great soccer player, but we can't find 23 others when we have by far the largest pool to choose from? If player identification is a problem, how does having a larger pool improve that? Is it because you believe we could have 23 Messi's instead of just 23 DeBruyne's. I guess its possible that we miss out on that once in the lifetime talent that completely changes the entire team, although even Messi didn't have that impact on Argentina....except arguably once.
I'm all for improving opportunities for underprivileged talent, but I'm not convinced that that would change the overall quality and results of our national team.
I'm all for improving opportunities for underprivileged talent, but I'm not convinced that that would change the overall quality and results of our national team.
One of the arguments on both the men’s and women’s side has been we underperform despite the large player pool because we don’t have a culture with high Soccer iq and soccer is not as popular as gridiron football and basketball. The solution we sometimes hear is its growing and hey look at that Latino community: that’s a good base to start.
I agree there’s an equity argument. I think there is something to be said about the argument in soccereconomics that poorer communities create better soccer players because those players don’t have much to lose by going off the academic track. But I agree it doesn’t move the national team needle because in the end I’ve concluded soccer iq is also poor in the Latino communities, hence mexicos recent struggles.
I think the main benefit is it illustrates we have a problem on both the girls and boys side that certain talent is getting locked out because of the cartels that control, for reasons other than merit, who gets to access to higher level soccer. The boys mitigate that by having an academy system that assesses players by development. The girls do not which means they have only the imperfect siv of ecnl with all the problems of pay to play soccer including the obsession for winning.
Orangeteam
SILVER ELITE
A larger player pool in the US means more kids are now in a disorganized USSF system.
US scouting structure is a different issue all together. I wouldn't bet that adding more players means they will find them.
I like the program and their purpose. There are several along the west coast from So Cal to Seattle.
I periodically get asked to go look at a player who's dual nationality, but its never from the US side of the coin. Some kids have been in the non alphabet soup leagues. I believve the boys side has hidden talent there.
One of the big issues especially with club soccer especially on the girls side is that we want it to be everything for everyone. We want it to be a fun activity where girls get to participate inclusively in sports on the same basis as boys. We want it to be competitive for a trophy, kind of like little league, to teach them the virtues of winning and losing. We want it to be a place for girls to get higher level training to get scouted and have scholarship opportunities for college. We want it to develop national team players. And of course it’s a business which supports some people. It simply can’t do all those things and when it tries it will fail in at least some of them. You can have your soccer competitive, developmental or accessible (pick 2).
With you 100% on this one.
Poor kids have opportunities to play soccer.
Where it deviates is that poor kids with the same natural talent level as rich kids do get locked out of high level play. But if your talking USWNT would these players matter? Poor kids with over the top natural talent will get noticed + clubs will find a way to give them high level play opportunities.
For me when I saw a Youth USMNT photo of 12 year olds + 3 were playing on the last USMNT team I new something was wrong. Statistically it's impossible for 3 players to be that much better at age 12 + all the way to the USMNT when they're 18. That photo proved it to me that the Selection process for USWNT players was corrupt + a buddy / who you know system.
Put another way imagine if there was a pic of 5 12 year olds on a team that funneled into the Raiders and they were all on the same professional superbowl team when they were 21. It's just not possible
And the example above is being generous. The USMNT would be like a pic of 3 football players at age 12 + all on a professional All Star Team at 21.
It's just not possible.
I guess I just haven't seen the "cartel" having a big impact on the boys side (and I can't speak for the girls side). In my experience with DA/MLS Next, those kids that didn't make a certain team because of politics (not uncommon), easily found a spot on another DA/MLS Next team. I also haven't seen a selection bias towards rich or connected kids. In fact, one DA team my son played on had a distinct and obvious Hispanic bias, and all those kids were scholarshipped regardless of need, although most were lower income. With the Academy teams, the vast majority of kids that were picked up from the other clubs were picked-up based on merit. A few might have gotten preferential treatment unrelated to merit, but they didn't last long in the academy program.
The biggest bias I see in club soccer, is the bias towards the "shiny new object". Clubs are quick to jettison a long time player in favor of a new kid, even if the long term player is competitive and improving. Of course on the flip side, parents are quick to pull their kid for another club in search of greener grass. So it works both ways.
The cartel isn’t directed against players. It’s directed against the non-in clubs and picks winners and losers not on merit (you know on the other hand I’m also against pro rel on the youth level but that’s another discussion). It’s a problem for development to the extent there are areas not covered— the northwest, val, deserts certain areas in Texas and Arizona for mls next, the downtown la triangle for the girls. It’s also a problem for development to the extent it creates large mega clubs that cause the grassroots to go extinct at the early years when parents may not want to commute an hour plus (as has happened on the boys side in the two Vals). It also causes problems for development when kids/parents may not know what team or coach they are signing on for because of letter league shuffles
I agree shiny new object is a problem. Another big one is the age line which I’ve ranted about here before.
Brian Kleibans when he was at LAG DA on the boys side made published comments that Caucasian players were inferior for different reasons and that Hispanic players were his preference to coach. However, we need coaches like him to promote the game technically, tactically and creatively.
Last edited:
He's probably speaking from experience + his limited player pool at LAG. Here's a list of World Cup wins. Do you consider Italy, and Spain "latin"?
Brazil 5 1958, 1962 1970, 1994, 2002
Germany 4 1954, 1974, 1990, 2014
Italy 4 1934, 1938, 1982, 2006
Argentina 3 1978, 1986, 2022
France 2 1998, 2018
Uruguay 2 1930, 1950
England 1 1966
Spain 1 2010
Orangeteam
SILVER ELITE
Roy Rees was probably the best U17 USYNT boys coach the US has had . He had them from mid 80s to I think '93
He knew the game was transitioning and said that the style of play didn't exist in the US and he needed to fill the spots kids who were dual citizens until the USSF could put a long-term plan in place.
In the end he got push back on the decisions, he had some words with some of the USSF suits, and he was let go. With his exit the newer possession style of play that was just starting to happen came to an end. I don't believe he was saying that US players were inferior, they just weren't given a blueprint of what to focus on from a really young age and the US was holding on to a 50's style of play while the rest of the world had been progressing.
By the way. Roy had the plan and funding put together for the first residential program that was going to be in Houston , and a youth technical program for all local coaches and leagues to follow but the USSF scrapped it after he was removed. The USSF did open Bradenton about 7 years later and had Tom Byer come back from Japan to pilot his program he implemented in Japan in the early '00s. They scrapped that too because they couldn't put a metric system around it, and the "generational" approach to the program was too long to for them to wait.
Tom's program, at its core, wasn't much different than Roy's which utilized Coerver as it's baseline.
People were saying the same thing to USSF 30 years ago. It' hard to believe that the USSF and all the leagues as we see them today was someone's master plan. It looks more like an invasive weed with a root system that's impossible to get rid of.
I have never heard of him. Great stuff. Going to read more about him. Thanks.
Not sure what your asking?
Thanks for your insight. The Byer termination is just a classic example of the USSF's arrogance. I don't think we can change the youth system without completely gutting US Soccer.
Do you happen to know whatever came of the Double Pass investigation? We're there any published results, or did it just die with the death of DA? I believe some "periodization" training methods might of been implemented by some clubs based on recommendations by Double Pass?
I'm saying that if you consider Italian + Spanish people Latin then Kleibans comments about Caucasian players being inferior might make sense. If you don't consider Italian + Spanish people Latin then the comment does not make sense.
My guess is that the pool of players at LAG is predominately "latin" + that's what is influencing Kleibans statement.