U15 - typically were you start seeing some degredation in terms of talent. U15 girls A division looks pretty bad in terms of talent. However Club Open has a few good teams: Team Chicago Prem Chicago Inter Red Galaxy Blue Campton - the play a nice Sockers style ball but lack in the 1v1 dept. This is a mini MRL from the looks of it. The rest are filler but light years above A and with less teams may have some decent games. NPL is just downright awful! It's the worst talent since my 20 year old played in that division. With all the rain we got last season I figured they'd pick up more teams - being on turf and with lights. But not at all. MRL still looks way better then any of the above - many teams would beat the lower end of ECNL and DA teams fairly easily. Season is nearly here!
Any reports? I know they are just friendlies... but some good (and rare) ECNL vs. GDA match-ups. Second weekend of competition where Eclipse ECNL East and North faced similar competition... how are things shaping up?
Sunday games were cancelled dur to weather. I know that the 06 Eclipse North team beat Midwest United 2-0 and that the 06 Oak Brook team I think were stuffed 0-11 by Nationals. North 05s lost 3-1 and our 07s lost 3-1 as well to Midwest United. 06 North won 2-0 vs Midwest United.
Games in Grand Rapids and Detroit cancelled? Those storms rolled through pretty quick I thought? However, Midwest United GDA is legit... I might have told everybody to get on the bus too at the first sight of clouds and a big '06 victory in the bag.
The problem with Club open is that with it not being 'round robin" those four teams will likely not play each other and instead schedule a couple cakewalk games each through Club Open. I am not too sure about 'many MRL teams fairly easily beating bottom end ECNL and GDA'. Maybe Team Chicago, Galaxy, and Inter could consistently beat the absolute bottom dwellers like FC Wisconsin and Varder in ECNL, and maybe Salvo (the team replacing Shattuck in GDA who I have never heard of?). And where does GLSA play? didn't they win state cup at this age or am I mixing up years?
Did the Eclipes teams play each other? Doesnt not look like they did. I am curious who has better teams.
No. The schedule was for the two Illinois groups to play the two Michigan clubs; one Saturday and the other Sunday
Early money lines suggest NB has edge in younger ages, OB favored with olders. Sept 1 and Sept 28 are the dates when the two clubs are scheduled to play... don't count on it actually happening. They can move the date around however they want, and they may not want to play each other early in the East/North era. I'm not sure if the Lunar and Solar teams ever played each other last year... nothing to gain, a lot can go wrong, and there are checks to be cashed.
LOL - copy and paste my friend... I'm happily at CSA Speaking of... First day back after a 3 week season break following Super Y and my kid was smile from ear to ear and could not stop talking about practice - despite the fact that they did a lot of conditioning and were droping like flies. Coaches riding all 4 teams pretty hard - you could see even the kids who played Super Y were having a hard time. Glad to get the show back on the road!
This is the core issue at so many clubs and in youth sports in general as far as I am concerned. We'll ring the school on many issues - but confront a coach or DOC... How in the world did these clubs and system become to be? Don't answer that - I know.
You are right - Open Club is a practice platform for many of these teams. I was sort of thinking NPL would end up that way as well - again with turf fields, weekday games and lights, you'd be able to get in some of those games that were cancelled due to rain. Of the top 20 05 girls teams in R2 last Fall, 5 were ECNL and 5 were MRL. 4 were DA and the rest were National League. MRL Prem1 and 2 are very much decent. Remember these are teams that in many cases are not part of clubs who have access to DA or ECNL. So by defualt - they are the best of the rest and I assure you that some of those teams would have no problem taking on the mid to lower end teams from ECNL and DA. BTW - none of the top 20 were from Illinois - no surprise there at all! I believe that the 05 GLSA team is in the MRL Conference Qualifier which is a waste IMO. That team turned itself around pretty quick under BM and is doing well. They should have been bumped to one of the First Divisions in MRL play.
Some interesting results from prelim tournaments prior to the Midwest qualifier season for 07 G as some have been interested in 2007 Girls teams. FC Alliance with a good performance against inferior opponents. Having said that they played a TC Premier team and beat them 6-1. Similarly, FC united and Evolution played the same team and won 14-0 weeks prior. Galaxy 08 who is playing up a year played D level teams and won handily. They are considered one of the top 08 teams in the city. Rockford 08, TC elite and Campton all struggled in their tournament even losing to a WI team with less than stellar credentials. The class of 2007 Qualifying is Galaxy 07, ELA (always impressive in direct play), Fire South, FC United, Evolution (possession team), Wizard ( one of the most underrated programs in Chicago). Wildcards include Galaxy 08, and possibly LG Celtics XI who have had success in 06. However that club formerly played in the IWSL B. KIXX is making the travel and is a good program. CSA and Northwind are very capable. Pretenders appear to be Palatine celtic, Berwyn, Eclipse select, FC united B team, and others listed above. 21 teams in 07 qualifying, and this is a good group to monitor in the future. There should be consolidation also and their has been a lot of movement from club to club.
Yes. Word out of Sockers camp is there's some internal issues that have some coaches on the way out. DR is definitely not running the club anymore. I guess ND was let go but there's a few others that might leave voluntarily. It's a shame because there's some big names rumored. This is second-hand info however. Could be wrong. Talk about changing landscapes. Fire actually beginning to ditch their academy, Sockers apparent internal issues, FCU and their ongoing DA v. HS coaches civil war. It's sad that our historically top clubs are in such a bad state.
Well now that someone else has brought it up... It's PR vs DR. Some very interesting family things in here that I am not even going to get into online but lets hope it rids the club of the arrogant stance it has on parents and players and opens them up for improvement across the board. They have the resources and some very good coaches - very close to being a decent club. Just need to look within and realize that they can get better in so many places.