The All-Encompassing Pro/Rel Thread on Soccer in the USA

Discussion in 'Soccer in the USA' started by bigredfutbol, Mar 12, 2016.

  1. HailtotheKing

    HailtotheKing Member+

    San Antonio FC
    United States
    Dec 1, 2008
    TEXAS
    Club:
    San Antonio Scorpions FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Didn't they vote to adjust the D1 season?
     
  2. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I don't know what level of coaching there is a USL3, NPSL and UPSL level. I doubt it's as good as college.
     
    HailtotheKing and bigredfutbol repped this.
  3. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    One big problem with the summer leagues is that they have a lot of roster turnover even within a season. College players are often unavailable for large portions of the season due to other commitments. When I was more of a MLS draft junkie than I am now, I waded through PDL stats a fair bit, and I noticed that many teams didn't have a single player who appeared in more than half of the games. It was not at all uncommon for teams to use more than 40 players in a 16-game regular season. No matter how good the coach is, I'd imagine a team with that much turnover would have to use rather rudimentary tactics.
     
    bigredfutbol repped this.
  4. Expansion Franchise

    Chattanooga FC
    United States
    Apr 7, 2018
    I have never seen evidence of this in NPSL, fwiw. The squads in the SE conference and certainly the top clubs nationally not only have very little roster turnover during the season (at least, not for the gameday 18) and a lot of them have less turnover year on year than USL teams do.

    It's certainly possible that the Golden Gate Conference and whatnot that have much longer seasons (i.e. they start in late Feb/early March and run through June) see this and that wouldn't surprise me, really.
     
  5. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    How many 16 to 22 year-olds are going to commit to D3 soccer over a college scholarship?

    There's a real conflict in American soccer.
     
  6. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The top PDL clubs also tended to have much less roster turnover within the season, but probably 75% of the league had 30 or more players make appearances in the short season and a large minority used 40 or more players. I definitely saw some clubs that used 50 players, and at least once noticed that the third-ranked player on a team in minutes played had appeared in as few as six games.

    Back then it was harder to find NPSL stats and lineups; I remember seeing the NPSL website listing 50-man rosters for clubs but wasn't able to tell who was actually in the gameday 18 regularly. I did notice that the top NPSL clubs at the time seemed to have few NCAA D1 players -- they seemed to be less reliant on college players generally, and the college players they had were much more likely to be D2 or NAIA players.
     
  7. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    My son played a season in PDL and that was exactly his experience.
     
  8. CoachP365

    CoachP365 Member+

    Money Grab FC
    Apr 26, 2012
    Yep...like Gymnastics, where theres the track of future olympians, and the track for everyone else that enjoys it and gets viral videos of their floor routines on the interwebz.

    A pro track, ideally run by a club with a senior 1st team in some pro division, and a college track where the alphabet soups can do their thing. A kid washes out of the pro track, he cna probably get on a college team, like hundreds of current foreign academy products, and maybe once in a while, a late bloomer emerges from the college game.
     
    bigredfutbol repped this.
  9. CoachP365

    CoachP365 Member+

    Money Grab FC
    Apr 26, 2012
    Given the sparse movement of players from USL to MLS, I don't think any domestic league is really preparing players.
     
  10. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This is based on what exactly?

    Austin Trusty
    Brendan Arronson
    John McCarthy
    Ken Tribbet
    Mark McKenzie
    Tyler Adams
    Kevin Molino
    Marc-Anthony Kaye
    Aaron Long
    Florian Valot
    Nick Besler
    Matt Turner
    Enzo Martinez

    Just to name a few....
     
  11. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Dom Dwyer
    Christian Ramirez
    Kevin Partida
    Cameron Lancaster
    Michael Salazar
    Jerome Kiesewetter
    Alvin Jones
    Danny Musovski
    George Acosta
    Amadou Dia
    James Musa
    Adam Jahn

    I've tried to avoid ones moving in the same organization.
     
  12. jaykoz3

    jaykoz3 Member+

    Dec 25, 2010
    Conshohocken, PA
    Club:
    Philadelphia Union
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Dom Dwyer was on loan.

    Ramirez played in NASL, not USL

    Cameron Lancaster is still playing in USL

    Kiessewether played in Europe first he doesn't count (sarcasm)

    Adam Jahn played for the Crew first.
     
  13. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This path is common in the US because of the MLS draft. MLS teams draft a large percentage of the realistic pro prospects coming out of college soccer. As a result, USL players who get into MLS have often had a season or two in MLS at the beginning of their careers before dropping down a level and then eventually working their way back up. But most of them played few or no minutes in their first MLS stint.
     
  14. CoachP365

    CoachP365 Member+

    Money Grab FC
    Apr 26, 2012
    Transfermarkt shows 67 all time (08/09 to present) moving from a USL named league club to MLS. Not a great argument for USL being a development ground for MLS players. That's excluding II/2/Dos to the mothership movement.

    I think the change to the DP/TAM/GAM rules a few years back has only served to widen the gap in quality between MLS journeyman and USL starter, it makes more sense for MLS to get a medium quality international vs a cheaper USL veteran in most cases.

    I'm hoping to see more academy -> usl 2 team -> senior team stories, along with more USL Academy -> USL Senior team stories.
     
  15. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    It's still worth noting the age of the academies. Most of MLS didn't have age levels below U-16 until 2012. For most MLS teams, the first players to enter their academies at U-12 level are still eligible for the U-20 national team today.
     
    jaykoz3 repped this.
  16. ThreeApples

    ThreeApples Member+

    Jul 28, 1999
    Smurf Village
    Club:
    San Jose Earthquakes
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    Adam Jahn had 103 appearances over 6 MLS seasons. Went to USL for one season, had a monster year, and went back to MLS on a transfer fee.
     
  17. owian

    owian Member+

    Liverpool FC, San Diego Loyal
    May 17, 2002
    San Diego
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    No not like the prem at all. In the prem it's one vote per club and the smaller clubs have been very willing and able to stand up to the interests of the larger clubs. Do you really think the Prem and the FA would allow a rule that let a relegated West Ham could buy Brentford, move them across London to the Olympic Stadium and rename them? No. And this would be true of any clusb.

    And this is much wider than the system for a football league. Certain wealthy families basically run Mexico and are used to getting what ever they want. This extends to football.

    And this is not meant to bash Mexico, it's simply stating facts,and pointing out that both our sporting and corporate cultures are closer to the UK than to Mexico.
     
    M repped this.
  18. owian

    owian Member+

    Liverpool FC, San Diego Loyal
    May 17, 2002
    San Diego
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    This thread has been going to 4 years now (and previous threads WAY before that), and we keep returning to the same themes, one of which are the different sporting cultures between the US and Britain. My position has always been that the US and Britain are actually really similar.

    So like a lot of you I've been stuck at home for basically a week and a half now. During this time I've been reading David Bolt's "The Ball is Round", also binge watched "The English Game" as well as watching ESPN's series "Saturday's in the South" about the growth of the SEC conference.

    The result has been to reaffirm this belief. Our Sporting cultures at the start were incredibly similar and many of the same forces that led to the growth of Soccer in Britain led to the growth of football in America. To the point that the game College Football celebrates as the first, is also discussed in David Bolt's book about soccer.

    Does this mean we adopt Pro/rel tomorrow? Of course not but it's just more info that we aren't that different.
     
  19. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    EPPP is an example.
     
  20. owian

    owian Member+

    Liverpool FC, San Diego Loyal
    May 17, 2002
    San Diego
    Club:
    Liverpool FC
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I am not up on my acronyms, what is EPPP again?
     
  21. bigredfutbol

    bigredfutbol Moderator
    Staff Member

    Sep 5, 2000
    Woodbridge, VA
    Club:
    DC United
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    I'm reading "The Ball is Round" as well, and I can see your point.

    I'm of the mind that "sporting culture" is more by-product than driver of sporting institutions, but your argument is worth considering.
     
  22. Paul Berry

    Paul Berry Member+

    Notts County and NYCFC
    United States
    Apr 18, 2015
    Nr Kingston NY
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    New rules allowing top clubs to poach youth academies for peanuts. This has led to most lower division clubs closing their full-time academies.

    My point was that the Premier League gets what it wants. Other examples include ending cup replays and allowing EPL teams to field reserve teams in cup competitions.

    When Notts County beat Spurs 3-0 in ther League Cup in 93/94 we beat a full- strength Spurs team which included Jurgen Klinsmann. These days we'd gave their youth team.

    A few years ago a 2-2 draw after 90 minutes at Anfield would have yielded a lucrative replay with tv fees. But when we became the first away team to score more than one goal at Anfield in 2013 the game went to extra time.
     
  23. Well, maybe the corona thing is going to change things.
     
  24. How are the big 4 sports coping with the effects of the corona shut down?
     
  25. Elninho

    Elninho Member+

    Sacramento Republic FC
    United States
    Oct 30, 2000
    Sacramento, CA
    Club:
    Los Angeles Galaxy
    Nat'l Team:
    United States
    The NBA and NHL suspended their seasons after a NBA player tested positive for COVID-19. The MLB season was about to start, and has been postponed to mid-May with further postponements possible. The NFL is in its offseason and the season doesn't start until fall.

    Current status:

    NBA - Still plans to play out the full season if play can resume by July 1, in order to finish the season by early September. If that is not possible, the current season may be shortened or scrapped. NBA seasons normally start in late October.

    NHL - Announced today that the scouting combine and draft (both in June) are being postponed, asked clubs to work with arenas on identifying potential game dates through August (after previously saying July). NHL seasons normally start at the beginning of October.

    MLB - Officially still plans to play a full 162-game season, but sources say that was informally scrapped at least a week ago. Has agreed with the players union that there will be a new 4-week preseason before official games start.

    NFL - Ordered teams to close training facilities and suspend any offseason training activities until April 8. Draft will proceed as scheduled in late April, but by teleconference (with picks announced in a studio) instead of as a live event open to the public. Some team officials and coaches have expressed doubt that the season will start on time in early September.
     
    owian and Expansion Franchise repped this.

Share This Page