ECNL ongoing debate......

Anybody care to explain the Difference in the business model between the ECNL and the USYSA , especially as it relates to how ECNL and the USYSA National Championships are funded?

I struggle seeing a difference.

 

You've placed this thread under the 'women's college' category. ECNL is basically a youth organization, where it's academy/select club members can be anywhere from u13 to u19(these days select clubs start as early as u6). What I like to see is a category made for youth soccer and threads that can follow under it be like select ^ high school clubs

the ECNL tries to boast itself as the top 'elite' org in the country(I tried asking how a similar group(US Club Soccer, stacks up to them, but got no responds at the other thread) The USYSA is really for everyone, it's suppose to be a non profit org., but it collects nominal fees at all levels, for instance; the head honcho(USSF) collects from youth orgs(like USYSA) in turn they collect s fee from the official state soccer orgs, they collect fees from the various rec & select clubs around the state, and of course those clubs charge a fee to every registered soccer player/member(so this should answer how everything is funded; fees everywhere!)
Now I can't vouch for the ECNL, but my girl played one year under US Club Soccer banner. What happened with her local select club; it got furious with the state's official soccer org. heavy fees(which they claimed were more excessive towards select) and un membered itself and joined US Club Soccer(which doesn't pay fees to either state or USYSA, since their not members but probably pay directly to USSF). Our select club(called Gulf Coast United) got banned from playing in various state sponsored tournaments(but held it's own tourney's/league games) The coming years, our state. org relented and let our select club enter their tourney's(which in turn the state charges high 'fees' for).

Hope fully that takes out a little of the confusion!

 

So, your daughter ( or you) paid lower or no fees to the ECNL?

 

I'm not going to read all this stuff on ECNL teams you guys are talking about, but I do want to say that I was at a tournament this summer hosted by Chicago's Eclipse Select lead by Rory Dames. I believe most or all of the teams were ECNL teams. Teams from all over the country were there and the difference between regular girls club team play, even the good ones, that I have seen around the country and ECNL play was huge, IMO.
ECNL teams are more professional about their training, approaches, tactics, players are much more skilled, coaches are much more intense, etc. In my opinion.

 

Interesting thread. ECNL teams in my area are very strong,(DC metro area) not in every age group but in most of them. However, when you look closely at those rosters it is apparent that many of those players were not developed by those clubs. When kids who have the talent and love for the game necessary hit those U14-U16 age groups seems like they jump to those teams for exactly the exposure reasons everyone is raising in this thread. But don't ever confuse that with talent development, that's talent selection. I am not sure that the ECNL clubs are very good at talent development, in fact based on the burn out rates I see in the younger age groups, I'm pretty sure they are not. At least that's the case with the ones here locally, can't speak to what happens on aggregate. I suppose they are no better or worse as a group in that regard than any other club system in the USA. In other words, sadly not very good at all.

 

I think you make an interesting point regarding burnout within the ECNL clubs on the development side. There is a definite cycle that is happening (where I am at and other places around the country) Most ECNL clubs are there because they had top youth and development in their early age groups. At U13-14 the talent pool tends to consolidate to the ECNL clubs and many of the girls that grew up with that club get pushed out by better talent coming in. It is a very precarious line the DOC's walk. Tough calls are made and feelings get hurt, but if most of these clubs stuck with their home grown, but less talented players they would eventually get bounced out of the league

 

FYI - I found the original thread on this.
http://forums.bigsoccer.com/threads...-us-youth-soccer-national-league-odp.1984497/

I have a question for you ECNL advocates:
Someone mentioned that ECNL holds the clubs accountable to standards and is selective about who joins. So, have any clubs been purposefully dropped from the ECNL? I know the USDA has made changes on the boys side and dropped clubs but haven't heard that any clubs have been dropped from the ECNL.

If you read any of my posts from that earlier thread, I maintain that the ECNL is not really about player development. Even in their own marketing, they talk more about the 'platform' and 'environment' than about developing players. The ECNL represents basically the "Americanization" of youth soccer. Big boastful events to showcase talent and keep as much money and control in house as possible. There are great clubs and great players playing there for sure, can't deny that at all. I don't have any axe to grind but see many problems with it, especially that it seems to have made youth soccer even more expensive and exclusive than ever.

 

I also think that you only have so many minutes of competitive soccer in your body. My daughter's club in the U9-U12 age group spend 180 minutes a week training in season. The local ECNL clubs at the younger ages spend double that. At the U12 level they are playing in multiple games every weekend because they play in multiple leagues. If they actually last in the Club's system they will have the body of a 28 year old when they hit 18, and not in a good way.

 

I am an advocate for the league, but I happen to agree with both of the points made above. In my view, talent develops itself. Very few kids - anywhere in the country - are developed from a young age thru the high school years by the same club. Just doesn't happen in the U.S. Not unique to girls soccer either. My kid followed the same path as I am sure many kids have - after playing for a local club, then a better one, then a better one, joined the local ECNL club that fosters an environment where practices are competitive, games are competitive, and those who work hard in this environment generally find success.

Works for her, not for everyone. Yes, the travel is too much! One less national event and having one playoff week would be an improvement. On the other hand, the exposure to colleges is incredible. Opens up options for kids that may have never been imagined.

 

We were a part of it with 2 (youngest - full time 4 years, oldest 50/50 her last year). In theory it is a great idea and I have no doubt it was started because of the following reasons

*the 'big clubs' didn't feel like they had control of the organizational decisions at local, state, regional, and national levels
*the old guard was losing customers to new and upcoming clubs and this was a way to get back and hold on to the quality customer base
*US staff could concentrate 99% of true national level talent in one group so they could play against each other and most importantly be easier to scout, id, and evaluate.

In the end, its no different than a company who sells out. The employess are the same and the management is mostly the same. You just change names and answer to a new CEO. The training has not improved because it is the same trainers at the same clubs doing the same thing they always did. It might be open for debate that development has improved because of the best playing the best every weekend, but I am not convinced of that. There are no experimental games. Heck in ECNL, even the showcases count toward the summer playoffs. Winning seems to matter more to trainers and the clubs now more than ever and anything and everything is sacrificed for a win. From my experience, there are more injuries, more burn outs, and more quitting. The clubs still do not have much control over anything. The old guard did get to hang on t0 their status as the club with the best local teams - at least for now. And with out a doubt, the US staff is the biggest victor. Sad thing is that 99.9% of the ECNL families are just pawns and financial sponsors for the .1% of the possible US team talent. ECNL hides behind the college placement stats and the quantity of coaches at showcases, but in reality all of that was already happening at all of these same clubs. It was just under a different title. If ECNL had never come around, these same players would still be recruited and still be getting scholarships. I think the model has to evolve again in the next 5 or so years, but we will see. IMO, ECNL only benefits the very top .1%, the rest are no better off than before including the college coaches who possibly might have drawn the shortest straw of all. Schools outside of the top 50 who have less staff and smaller budgets are forced to attend more showcases (less are regional and driveable) and their recruits are now split in separate showcases at different levels which has to make evaluation much harder.

 

Colorado club structure for the 3 ECNL club organizations in the state is a lot different then what you find in California.

Correct me if I am wrong, but in most cases, in Southern California, the ECNL clubs are composed of one ECNL team in each age group with maybe one additional team in each age group not being ECNL. The elite players from the other smaller non-ECNL teams eventually will end up with one of those ECNL clubs. The smaller clubs help develop and will eventually lose their better players. Guess you could call them the minor leagues. Do the smaller clubs have some kind of working relationship with some of the ECNL clubs in anyway?

In Colorado, the club organizations are much larger. They are able to play a more integral part in the monitoring and development of players. Two big reasons why, is the fact that they tend to carry four or five competitive teams in each age group, and sometimes even more, competing at different levels of competition . Plus they contract with the various counties to manage and run their recreational soccer programs. This insures that a consistent player development process is carried out at the younger ages, allowing them an easy way to track potential talent that can adapt to their system of play. In Southern California they lack that kind of control because the recreational program is run by AYSO, a completely separate organization.

Would be interested to know if there are other clubs with similar situations to the Colorado model?

 

This is absolutely not the case for my Kid. Before she played ECNL her NPL team played more than 50 games a year with league, state cup, tournaments and showcases. ECNL does not allow multiple games in a day and no more than 3 days in a row. Practice is exactly the same....2 practice days (180 minutes) and 1 conditioning (60 minutes). My daughter has gone 3.5 seasons and has not missed a game to injury. She missed regularly with her previous club. Minimizing games is a MAJOR part of the mission statement for ECNL. Check Got soccer and youll see some NPL/USsoccer teams that play 60-70 games a year

 

no, the only thing we payed is to the local select club, which usually averages $1000 to register & probably about an extra $500 in tournament fees(which sometimes individual teams can make up in fundraising) and of course plenty $$$ on traveling!

 

I know it was mentioned in a previous post (maybe in the hotseat thread) that the ECNL is easy for coaches to go to and tht some can be somewhat lazy in not looking for talent elsewhere (paraphrase). I do happen to agree as a Division I coach our program can be guilty of this but at every event you go to their are a lot of players who you can add to your recruiting pool instead of scouting other levels for talent. ECNL does make recruiting for us easier and it is also more economical. We do not possess a massive budget at the college I work at so we don't want to spend money on tournaments that are diluted. We go where there is a bigger pool of talent and it seems to work where we are at. I fully agree there are clubs outside the ECNL that are very good and wouldn't argue otherwise. But as a college coach I want to go to events with the biggest pool of talent. And that is the ECNL by a distance.

 

Rates I see here in the NW are in excess of $7,000 a season for U16-u17 ( $2000 to register).

That doesn't include uniforms or 'incidentals'. A conference away game is $275-$720 each. A showcase is in the $800-$900 range. Tournament is grand.
Travel seems to take up a huge chunk.
If you travel with the kid, it will of course be more.

 

That's a lot of money for one family to pay to get their kid looked at to possibly be recruited at a Div l college.

 

I understand this figure but it is not the norm......this is from a Portland club that has to travel to for most of its league play. Most are around 4-5k and most do fundraising. When you compare to the 60 game us club schedule its not to much different Either way, the cost is extremely restrictive up front...Most ECNL clubs have scholarship opportunities to help with costs, but definitely not what the boys get from DA

 

Still, looking at the ECNL clubs map it looks like Idaho and Utah clubs are even worse. The have to hike a ways to play anybody, looking at the Clubs map.Washington is just as bad.

Probably explains why the ECNL has been slow to catch on here.

 

Travel to ECNL events or travel to other showcases the costs are the same. If these clubs were not in the ECNL they would be attending Surf Cup, Las Vegas Showcase, Disney and the Final 4 showcase. Travel cost are expensive for ECNL and non ECNL teams.

 

I'll be happy if my kid gets a part time scholarship(worth 10 K?) at a local JC! And that's what the majority of the estimated 12,000 scholarships given an year for women's college soccer are; part time.
My kid did about 4 years of select soccer. The overnight trips to tourney's were a lot of fun for the kids and family's. There's the team dinner after the games and like our manager's always made sure to reserve rooms at a hotel with an indoor pool. The bonding was great for the kids and even more so for the parents! as we would non stop yepping all day long about soccer or similar interests at the tourney fields. You had to accept this as your real vacation time/money.
In fact the last year she did select was when our club decided to give up state membership to join something called NPL(National Premier League) under the unbrella org. US Club Soccer. The tourney's were cut down in favor of league games. That mean's traveling sometimes over 100 miles to just play one league game!
My kid started to get interested in other things like cheer leading(which can be even more costly), but she started loving soccer again in high school. And that's thing missing about conversation on youth soccer, most kids preferring to playing school ball. You obviously can do both, but combined with other sports/interests that high school offers is why a lot of kids quit select at the higher ages.
Here's an excellent website on select soccer, gives you all info from almost all tourney's to the highest rated teams nationally and state wise. There's almost no mention about the ECNL, which makes me wonder what all the hype is all about?
http://www.soccerincollege.com

 

The difference is ECNL teams are required to attend 3 showcases and then almost every team qualifies for the playoffs in June so that is 4 'national' showcases that are required and probably require airlines. Sure Non-ECNL teams will attend showcases, but they get to pick and choose and very few will choose to fly to 4.

ECNL is a good thing, but it is also a bad thing and most of the families are being used and abused for the few. Why are the teams forced to attend the showcases? $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ And that is what it is all about.

 

Thank you for making that point. All the ECNL club's teams have to do this so if you have a weaker age band come through...too bad. Anyone would tell you that playing kids up an age group is a good idea in the name of "development" (ask Jurgen) but these clubs can't send a weak team, weakened by vertical player moves, to these All-Club events year after year. So, the clubs should be motivated to work harder to 'develop' players right? which we all know in many cases means even more aggressive youth soccer moves- recruiting of players and even entire teams from other clubs to these weaker ecnl teams. I've even seen entire clubs 'affiliate' or merge or be absorbed by other ECNL clubs (and boys DA clubs as well).

And why are we doing this? For a scholarship? Really? The fees cited by Clive above look a lot like in-state tuition to me. So, your kid gets a good SAT score and will spend less on college tuition with no soccer scholarship than a year of youth soccer in a 'National' league?!?

If we don't get out of that "group of death" in Canada folks, hold onto your hats, cause the winds of change will be coming. Imagine if our WNT doesn't do as well as our men in a World Cup?! Would love to see how the ECNL folks react if US Soccer decided to create a Girls DA and hand pick 30 or so clubs and make the NWSL teams all start full-year youth programs, subsidized by USSoccer. Can't wait for those press-releases...
I stated in the previous thread, when it comes to true player development, that is: creating world class National Team players, the US youth system is getting in its own way and the Germans and Brazilians are laughing...

 

The ECNL teams aren't there because they have their own site for all info, policies, standings and schedule http://www.eliteclubsnationalleague.com

 

Ive been doing ECNL for 8 years. I have one kid at a PAC school and one soon to be at another D1 school. We are not rich people but we love our soccer and decided to play the game. I guess the bottom line is: every kid on our team has had a D1 scholarship since end of Sophomore year/start of junior year but one. The other ECNL team in my state has the same stats.

When ECNL teams produce these kind of numbers, it makes it difficult for us parents not to fall into the ECNL trap. Besides the opportunity for kids to play college soccer, I do believe it puts them with other kids who also have the same mentality as them. In high school often times these kids are made to feel like freaks because they are to serious about soccer and the ECNL programs allow kids to experience the same mental toughness that they will receive in college. Trust me, if we could get the same results for our kids at non ECNL, we would do it! As long as soccer coaches keep showing up ( 70-80 per game) to watch...it is where kids will want to be.

I was told by the by UH assistant coach that he gets frustrated with ECNL kids. They expect full rides and usually are rich kids who are difficult to coach. I've heard both sides. I think it really depends on the coach. Last year, one of the University of Pacific coaches also said they hadn't bought into the whole ECNL program.

I agree 100%, save the $10,000 a year and your college will be paid for anyways BUT being on a college soccer team is an experience we are willing to give our kids and so ...there is still ECNL.