Some of the fields I was at yesterday were borderline and then a storm rolled through so I could see them being unplayable today. A lot of the park district only run in house soccer on saturdays so no real incentive to open borderline fields for Sunday rentals.
OB Polo fields were a total disaster. The fields were saturated slippery and just muddy. Dangerous conditions, games should not have been played.
Actually got to go see the WNT game yesterday at Soldier Field. First match I've seen live in probably 5 years. Loved it even if the game was just ok. Miss being around the game as much as I used to when I coached. Cool to see some local players on the field in the pre-game and half-time shows. Had to have been an awesome experience for those kids. Gotta love the Brandi Chastain DA plug at half time lol. Back to the Chicagoland youth soccer nightmare: hard to really pin-down who the top local teams are in the DA and ECNL even tho we're over a month into the season. Eclipse OB has only played the bottom feeders in their conference, and their results are to be expected. Eclipse NB struggling to pick up points and they've played a little bit of both top and bottom opponents. FCU winning more than what most might have thought considering their losses over the summer but only recently played a top club and the results weren't great for them. Sockers probly have had the toughest schedule playing Nationals twice and Midwest already, their 19s look to be picking up right where they left off last year. Got the other Chicago derby this weekend with FCU/Sockers. Whats interesting about Sockers is when you look at their 19s roster there's 4 U17s that have been starting every game. Look even further and they have 4 16s on their 17s and 2 15s on their 16s. All starting or playing heavy minutes. Spoke to a friend who says its because they're taking the approach that their 19s is their first team and the top players play there regardless of their age. This creates opportunity then to move 16s to 17 and 15s to 16. No doubt their teams 17 and down would be better if they all played their own age but developmentally their approach makes sense. Not sure if any of this is by design but the evidence makes sense. Not sure what to make of FCUs rosters. Scattered all over with different ages and playing time. Any word on that program?
If you look at the rosters, it appears that most of the players on the 19 and 17 team are new to fcuda. That can’t be a good sign. Again the message on the board has been that the team lost a lot of players from last year to eclipse. I will take Sockers and give the points.
I just checked the NISL girls standings for the first time this fall. Yuck! While the girls side was never close to as strong as the boys, the decline in the quality of the girls divisions has been massive. The decline has been happening for a while but it appears this year the girls league has hit rock bottom. One age group only has five teams, two of which are Sockers preacademy teams. Most of the rest of the teams in girls NISL are middling community clubs or worse. DA, ECNL, and USYS have left nothing but crumbs. It may be time to end having girls divisions. Is making a few extra dollars worth the bad optics for the Palatine conglomerate?
Indeed. I think the location and fields are great but the Park District would do so much better to host MRL games. NPL for the girls has been in decline for years. It's really B teams with exception of some Sockers teams that are loaded with PT DA players for the sole purpose of making a run at Nationals. I am not certain how the NPL stacks up in other areas of the country but for Chicago - it's awful.
Halfway through Girls 07 Qualifying with 22 teams. Lots of garbage teams getting exposed. 8 vying for possible 5 top spots for Midwest League: Galaxy 07 , 08 Evolution ELA Wizard FC GLSA Chicago fire south FC alliance Looks like CSA, TC, Inter, northwind, FC United are out. FC united really surprising lack of results for a PRE DA that has shown well. interesting results thus far and clubs that are on the up and up showing well.
Sockers should have put their 08 team in MRL play - they are pretty decent. Instead they are wasting time in the IWSL.
It would be better to have part-time DA players and the rest of the preacademy girls teams playing in MRL Premier I or Premier II instead of playing against a bunch of donkeys in NISL. But, of course, they would get destroyed playing in those MRL divisions. This is a classic case of the chicken or the egg. Does the bottom drop out below DA because the club has preacademy teams playing in a horrible league, or does the bottom drop out because there is such a steep drop in talent after DA because good second tier players don't want to play in NISL? In any case, preacademy is not a very appealing option at Sockers.
Other then that u11 team they are all essentially B and C IWSL teams. That is the steep decline I've always spoke about at Sockers since 2015. When the stopped running the girls in NISL they began to become far less competitive. Most of the teams ended up lingering in the B or AB divisions for the longest time. Winning at tourneys and in good matches is the best form of marketing. This is what the girls were doing back in the day when these ladies came out of the NISL and trained with the boys. Now that they are out of that box, they are just plain losing. That's why other then the DA, they are not getting in decent players.
Problem is someone has to pay to rent the fields for MRL. Usually that falls on the home team. Also several of those fields at Olympic park are tiny for 11v11.
YMMV and a few other doubted this trajectory but I'll toot my horn. Post 537 Post 572 All boils down to arrogance.
This is not just Sockers. Do any of the other destination clubs have viable options for B teams? I think eclipse plays iwsl? The challenge is that aside from some older campton and TC teams, most of the top kids are ending up on the a teams at destination clubs. Kid on bubble at team x, calls up team y for top team spot. So with this movement, it hard to figure out where to plug in those b teams. It’s not like when Eclipse would have two teams in state cup semis.
I think it is everywhere - maybe more so Eclipse but less so FCU since they have Trevian. Some clubs are growing though. CSA expanded by the numbers and Chicago Inter is doing well. I know many clubs that are down in numbers for sure. My point with Sockers is that the loss of many quality teams - not just players, could have been easily mitigated.
I completely agree with this. Parents (maybe equal or more so than the players) do not want their kids playing on a 2nd team. If their kids do not make the first team they move to the next club. I also remember when Eclipse had very strong second teams but I agree those days seem to be gone.
I quickly looked at IWSL site and CSA's 2nd teams appear to play mostly in the C division of IWSL. Here's my own prediction: Next year a fair number of the top players from those second teams will leave CSA to go to some other club that promises them a spot on the first team. and this absolutely is not CSA specific. As I mentioned in my last reply on Orangcard's post parents are very quick to move kids to a club to be on the "top" team. 5-10 years ago it seemed Kids/ Parents would stick with a clubs 2nd team. These days they bolt at the drop of a hat to 'move up" to a 1st team.
Your point on players bouncing around to stay on top teams is on the mark. However, when it comes to sticking it out on a B-team, FCU girls, despite having a girls DA is fielding reasonably competitive preacademy teams. Their 2006s and 2003s are in MRL Premier I, their 2005s, 2004s, and 2002s are in Premier II (2001s were decimated by Eclipse N). While these teams are not setting the world on fire, they are mostly in the middle third of their divisions. I would contend that they are clearly stronger teams playing in a much better league than what Sockers is offering at the girls preacademy level.
They must have expanded them when they put in the new turf because they used to be tiny; like 105 x 55. Does MWC host weekends like MRL did where they would rent a complex and the teams come and meet in the middle or is it up to the clubs to arrange it all on their own ?
Indeed they do but they are not an Eclipse or Sockers. They cater to a larger group of players that incude those players who are not at the top of the heap. As for losing top players at CSA. I doubt it for several reasons such as the family like atmosphere - everyone knows everyone and high school soccer in that area is pretty big. They along with Campton and Strikers have the same problem that FCU does in that hs soccer is just bigger then club soccer. There are very few players who are going to drop high school soccer. Eclipse is a far drive and FCU is even further. TC is locked in at the top team and Galaxy is struggling at some ages - I think they may have lost some players in the fashion you are refering to. I once told a parent that Sockers DA kids would pass on high school and they just did not get that at all. These parents are not looking for a free ride in college or going pro. It was one of the things I first noticed when we headed that way. It's refreshing actually considering that only a handful of players who commit to the time and effort in DA and ECNL will actually do anything with that beyond high school. On Orange's comment, I think CSA would have to grow more to get to where they have a problem with top player overflow and thusly players being moved to the second team. There is also ways to mitigate that. I do see that problem at Team Chicago for example - happened to some folks I know in fact.
Yes - this is the "mitigate" process at work. FCU gets these teams in meaningful competitions and there is a whole lot of game and tourney time on the field. They also do one fly away on top of the 2-3 drive away tourneys and 1-2 local ones for both the second and third teams. FCU may have issues as a club but they take care of their teams and make them feel relevant. Compared to Sockers you are so right but to Sockers defense they do not have a Trevian or multiple other clubs feeding into them. Sockers 2005 PA team plays the 3rd FCU team this weekend so we'll see how that goes.