The 8️⃣ Championship groups are 𝘚𝘌𝘛.↓ 𝙂𝙍𝙊𝙐𝙋𝙎 𝑨-𝙃 ↓ pic.twitter.com/xcUaoyLSTT— USL Championship (@USLChampionship) June 26, 2020
The groups: Group E: Indy Eleven Louisville City FC Saint Louis FC Sporting Kansas City II Group F: Hartford Athletic Loudoun United FC NYRB II Philadelphia Union II Pittsburgh Riverhounds SC Group G: Birmingham Legion FC Charlotte Independence Memphis 901 FC North Carolina FC Group H: Atlanta United 2 Charleston Battery Miami FC Tampa Bay Rowdies https://www.frontrowsoccer.com/2020...-philadelphia-pittsburgh-in-usl-championship/
Wikipedia is showing East Bay and Queensboro FC in 2021. Rhode Island in 2022 and Buffalo and Des Moines sometime after that. Is you reference to one of these locations or yet another one?
I won't be too surprised if a couple of that group don't pan out. It will be interesting to see how the conferences are set up if there are 5 teams added in the next couple of years.
No doubt. Don’t know too much about the league to be honest but I’ll certainly be tuning in to watch a lot more now.
That’s awesome that will make it super easy for me cause I’m no longer in the area so I can’t catch local broadcast.
Soccer America Daily TFC II pulls out of 2020 USL League One Toronto FC's second team withdrew due to what was described as the "current public health restrictions"
------------- I can't open the link , but was there any mention they may be playing in a Canadian League in the future? Glad to see Ottawa move from USL to CPL. If TFC2 moves its operations to a Canadian league, then we are basically left with the 3 MLS teams and the USL2 teams. We are getting a bit closer to having as many Canadian teams playing in Canada as possible.
The CPL has absolutely no interest in having a MLS2 team in their league and there isn't a suitable nationwide league below CPL. There is a "state league" in Ontario, but its more on par with PDL and isn't likely to meet TFC's criteria for a league to have their team in. Ottawa didn't move to CPL. The Fury closed up shop after last season and Atletico Madrid started a new team in Ottawa to replace them
Considering the quarantine restrictions in place for travel, as well as the fact that, to be frank, Toronto FC has never actually cared about TFC II as a program, is it truly a loss for League One?
I think it has to do with the complexities of reentering Canada after every away game. I don't know why you think TFC don't take their reserve team seriously when half their first team roster have minutes with TFC II.
Didn't they play several of their games last season in Rochester? I wonder if they could try to see if the city would let them do it again.
Being a reserve team, you'd expect there to be some semblance of player development, but given the fact that Toronto FC has been able to win in spite of having a reserve squad, their records haven't exactly helped with my beliefs. In each of their five seasons, they've never qualified for league playoffs (which, again, isn't the priority, but it helps prove you got some talent in your pipeline and aren't just relying on spending money on free agency), but in the four United Soccer League/USL Championship seasons they partook in, they ranked at or near the bottom of competition. Last year was easily their best season ever, but you can argue that the lower level of competition helped the playing field and made a horrific Championship team look like a below average League One team.
Well that's why they dropped a level. TFC II is an important stepping stone for kids that came up through the academy.
If there's a correlation between the success of first division clubs and their minor league affiliates, it isn't a strong one. My personal history of fandom is rife with counter examples. The top flight Atlanta Braves of the late 80s-mid 90s moved players through hapless Durham. Then expansion and woeful Tampa picked up the Bulls who became multiple AAA champions while the Rays propped up the AL East. The Royals were losing 100 games a year while several of their farm clubs (like the Wilmington Blue Rocks) were winning their leagues. In hockey, some of the Hurricanes worst years have been when the Checkers were at the top of the ECHL. Some of that is the cyclical nature of things. Some of it is the way drafting works (bad teams get better draft picks and better prospects for their minors). Some of it (like the Braves) is they way they use their minors - to build assets to sell/trade to get already developed players that can help them today. Having a bad or underperforming minor league club doesn't mean a club doesn't care about the minor league club. It may mean that having the minor league club focus on winning is something that isn't particularly important. Perhaps technical and tactical player development is more important. Maybe getting specific players minutes in general or in a specific position is more important than playing someone else who might actually be better at helping win a specific game. When the Durham Bulls were the Braves A-Advanced farm team, I was a season ticket holder who sat in a group that, frankly, would pass as a low grade supporters group. But when you go to 20-40 games year after year, you pick up on things. And we could always tell when a development memo was sent to the Bulls. Suddenly they'd be bunting in situations when bunting wasn't particularly tactical. Or they'd be doing hit and runs like mad. You could tell that player development and internal scouting was more important than seeing the Bulls at the top of the standings.
Maybe it's me, but I can't buy into that logic. My brain wants to think things as a one to one translation and views a team's performance on the field or pitch as a correlation to how things are in the organization, so if a team stinks in the standings, I view it as there being malaise while if they are dominating, then they are doing things right. Certainly as a Sporting Kansas City fan, you look at SKC II being the punching bag of the Championship as part of your team's development as they are motivated by other factors, which is why the reserve team is forced to play almost exclusively on the road this season, but I view it as an embarrassment.
If you look at the USL Western Conference over the last few years Timbers 2, Sounders 2, Whitecaps 2 and Galaxy 2 have pretty poor records. In 2017 comprised the bottom 4.