Canada Leagues question

[AussieVamp2]

would someone please explain how the USL and PCSL I think they are fit in?

Thanks :confused:

[NorCalFootballer]

would someone please explain how the USL and PCSL I think they are fit in?

Thanks :confused:


Could you ummm rephrase that please? :)

[AussieVamp2]

Ok, I have seen listed a USL a CPSL and a PCSL

is the USL the top level and other lower levels, for example?

Thanks

[beachesl]

Ok, I have seen listed a USL a CPSL and a PCSL

is the USL the top level and other lower levels, for example?

Thanks

The USL is an American association that has numerous leagues with teams in the US, Canada and Puerto Rico. It is composed of various development leagues and semi-pro leagues, including the professional men's A-League and the women's W-League (technically amateur so the Women can also play college soccer).

see: http://www.uslsoccer.com/

The A-League is composed of 16 men's professional men's teams, including 5 in Canada (Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver). Vancouver and Montreal are probably the best run soccer clubs, and the best in terms of quality, in Canada. It would be second division level, assuming the all-American MLS is first division.

see: http://aleague.uslsoccer.com/

The W-League is composed of 37 teams, 7 of them in Canada (Edmonton, Vancouver, Calgary, Sudbury Ontario, Ottawa, Montreal, and Toronto). Most of the Canadian National Teams women play there in the summer and in American colleges in the fall. I guess you could say that the league is second division North America, because of the suspended WUSA (still having a festival or two this summer), which has/had no Canadian teams. It is about the same level as the separate non-USL break-away "Women's Premier Soccer League", with only American women's teams ( 18 ).

http://wleague.uslsoccer.com/

http://www.wpsl.info/


The CPSL and the PCSL are two regional men's semi-pro leagues, which could roughly be described as third division level . The CPSL is the "Canadian Professional Soccer league", but it is a bit of a misnomer, as it is composed of about 11 semi-pro teams located in a confined area of southern Ontario, and notoriously poorly run. see: http://www.cpsl.org/ .The PCSL (Pacific Coast Soccer League) is a league composed of 5 teams from the Province of British Colombia and two teams from the American state of Washington. (The PCSL also has a division three women's league composed of 6 teams, one of them American) see: http://www.pcsl.org/

There are also lots of amateur leagues of various levels for both genders and ages, culiminating in National Championships going on for over a century.

There is no national league at all. A truly Canadian professional league existed in the late 80's and early 90's, but dissolved due to excessive travel and other costs and poor attendence.

There is no truly National Cup Competition like the US Open Cup. The 5
A-League Canadian teams have an informal "Voyageurs Cup" competition decided by some regular season results against each other (and some supporters would like to send the winner to the club Concacaf Champions Cup competition, but the Canadian Soccer Association is not interested in applying for an entry with CONCACAF). The CPSL also has a misnamed "Canada Cup'' which includes some eastern Canadian amatuer sides competing with CPSL teams, but it is a joke.

So, you can see that the Canadian soccer scene is in worse of a mess than Australia's.

[AussieVamp2]

Great,

Thanks very much.

Australia doesn't have a national league currently, so think that qualifies as more of a mess, although plenty of state leagues.

[AussieVamp2]

ah, I see, no national league there either

similar circumstances though, both leagues were/are crap I guess


and in Australia, 3 football codes more popular than soccer

in Canada, 1 (2 I guess with the NFL as well), and the NHL of course, and basketball, so another country where soccer is way down on the list of interests