I think the kid you spoke to may be referring to "normal" Spring LEague play. I had a chat with a USL coach, their USL-A squad playing USYS league this Spring, then USL-A starting in like June. Not sure what they do in Fall... I evaluate them based on common opponents as my son as being like a competitive PREM 1 level... My .02... It's a good concept. More like a European academy, with an actual pipeline! Current MLS Next and other so called elite leagues are not developing their players, they don't have to as they are destinations. They sit back and watch the kids duke it out. 9 out of 10 coaches are old, tired and/or lazy! The key I think will be to prove that they can take kids U19 or below, DEVELOP them to their potential and get them to USL2->USL-C eventually. If they can do that they will change paradigm of American soccer... If they can not do this will they just collect U19 MLS N castoffs? hope not... I'm more skeptical of USL2 and above. USL is doing a poor job of marketing and communication and they better get their act together ASAP. Theirs a niche for their usl1 and 2 clubs to market themselves similar to baseball farm teams and make some sort of profit. Imagine at Olympic park where many teams and leagues play every day of the week... Get rid of two of those stupid baseball fields and put in a 1000 ( or 500 )seat stadium. What young kid isnt going to want to watch older players that are in a pathway to pro pipeline? Create that farm league vibe and youve got something, creating fans for life.. Hey, I saw Joey Ballz when he was just an amateur, noe hes the american ROnaldo..lol College soccer is not a very good pathway. 4 years of kickball and way too expensive. discuss!
I agree on a number of your points. I agree that USL is doing a poor job of marketing and communication, and that selling itself as the soccer equivalent of baseball's minor leagues is a way to go. I think they're relying too much on the individual clubs to market this narrative while it would be easier to have it be the narrative that comes from the top. An impediment that I see is the whole system that disincentivizes development. Our current structure incentivizes winning now, as opposed to developing now and winning later. From what I've seen so far, parents want to get their kids onto the programs that are connected from the bottom all the way to the top. It makes sense, right? Play for Chicago Fire Juniors, which will help you get to the Chicago Fire Academy, so that you can then play for the Chicago Fire. Makes sense, right? But Chicago Fire Juniors only sends a few kids to the academy and tries to pull as many top kids from other programs. The other programs, who don't have brand names like that, have to prove that they're doing well, and they can only keep their top talent if they win. Parents will only stay if they win. Now instead of that, if no pro team had a youth program, then all of the youth programs would be incentivized to develop their kids. If you had cutoffs like all youth programs could have programs from littles up to U13. The successful ones would be the ones who had the most actually get their players into top programs that start at U14. And there would be room for those who have academies, or high school and regional competition, etc. These, too, would have to work on development, but from what I've heard, it's a different approach once you hit U14ish. But to return to what you were saying, I think that it really depends on where you are. I think in a place like Chicagoland or other places with MLS clubs, the MLS academy is going to be where everyone tries to go, and the USL academies will get the castoffs UNLESS the USL academies prove that they more frequently developing players to pro or D-I or D-III. But we're still at the incipient stage, so we're all looking around wondering what's good, what's real, what's smoke and mirrors. From a personal perspective, I'm really tired of watching coaches undervalue what they've got and overvalue the grass on the other side of the fence. Overvaluing winning now results in poorer players and results tomorrow.
Fresh blood from outside soccer with past success would have been my target. I'm a little worried here...lol
Our system really seems to encourage this sort of thinking. Far too many youth 'coaches' work more at recruiting than actual coaching.
first USL A summer practice. Not looking like they will play games in East Central conference this summer but they are practicing, combined with USL2 - solid D1 players including power 5 guys. We're gonna do this all summer!!!
Jumping out from our PM's - things are looking really good for us this summer as well. My how the journey can produce so much stress and frustration for both player and parent!
From what I can tell from the USL-A League site, there have been games this summer/fall so maybe it's worth refreshing this thread. From what I can tell, at least at the transitional ages (say, 14-16) there's the opportunity to train with the Academy, but also play games in a player's regular ECNL age group. Kind of a hybrid design. So that seems like a good compromise relative to the MLS-affiliated MLS Next teams with the different age groups. So then is Is the pre-professional hierarchy essentially: MLS Academy USL Academy ECNL/Non-MLS-affiliated MLSNext Anyone have thoughts on how big the gap is between MLS Academy and USL Academy? When there's not a feasible MLS team within driving distance, what's the skill/potential level where moving close enough to an MLS Academy > staying and developing at a USL Academy? I'm also not 100% clear about the transition from UCL-A to UCL1 or UCL-C when there's not an obviously affiliated team. Are those players just transitioned based on interest from the higher-level club, subject to the player/player's family willingness/ability to move to wherever that higher level club is?
If the club doesn't have at least a usl2 program I don't know what good the usl-a program would provide In Florida we played teams that had a player or two who play usl-c. They were u18... Right now the age range is more u16 u17 on average when I was looking at rosters..not a ton of older kids which I thought was weird. There are many players I saw that I think are mlsnext caliber but even on the teams that played for championship , the bottom 3 to 5 starters not so much. I think the usl pipeline to pro is well thought out, usl-a will continue to get stronger and will be more relevant as college soccer becomes less relevant.
Stay to play is so dumb. Add whatever kickback you're getting as the tournament organizer onto the tournament fee and then let everyone choose where they want to stay: camp in the camper, stay with family in the area, use their hotel points, AirBnB with teammates families, sleep in their own car, whatever it may be. People have to stay SOMEWHERE. Just compete on based on providing a good place for families to stay... not locked into a handful of overpriced hotel rooms.