Best Football Level (Youth)

There's such a thing as Alliances leagues in England, where you aren't professional or being pid but you play in stadiums

 

The best level in the US is the youth national team. ODP used to be good, but now it kinda went down the drains. I will still do it anyway because I want to get noticed and its a pretty good way to do so.

 

The best US youth players are either on the youth national team and/or regional team via ODP, or play for top clubs like Nomads in CA, Delco in PA, Texans in TX which travel to Europe to play tournies. Some of the very best play in the PDL (Premier Development League) as amatuers (like Jonathon Spector of ManU prior to his ManU days). Of course there are some who play pro in Europe or MLS too.

The top youth clubs in each state end up competing against each other at top domestic tournies, of which there are many, so many top players spend their time doing these. From my experience, there isn't really a league that these teams are in because the travel is too much just for one game at a time. Rather, these teams go to the best tournies where they can play multiple games against quality competition while minimizing travel problems.

 

Nomads are still a strong club, but recently the U-16's disbanded and 9 players broke off to become something Fire. We played the Nomads 89's in the US Club Reigonals and I am convinced they do not live up to the hype of their older counterparts.

 

Well CA is a hotbed for soccer talent, and there are many many great clubs (Irvine Strikers, Nomads etc etc), and because the state is so big geographically, I bet that it is difficult for all the best players to get on the same team, so there are a number of teams over which the best players in the state are spread over, unlike most states. Still Nomads have a history of winning, and must be historically ranked in the top 5 in the US (though i think their rating is 9 or something currently by whatever that website is that ranks club teams). I've never played the Nomads, as I'm from the east coast, but I know they have some of the best players in CA and that says a lot because CA is probably the best soccer state in the country, producing more talent than anywhere else (other top states include TX, NJ, E-NY/E-PA, CO, and some others).

 

Here there are no real levels. You are either signed and playing under a pro teams academy, or are playing for an amateur club. There is no real in between.

 

Keep in mind all these Cali teams are beatable. They have great talent...but are defintely beatable.

 

Yeah there's no real bridge between Amateur and Pro in the UK is there, because there's so many teams and kids.

Either word gets round with the scouts you're good enough and they come watch you and offer you a place with a team or you don't get spotted at all.
You have to be good enough for people to talk about you though, so it is pretty hard to get scouted here.

You really have to be in a good team, or really excelling in a bad team at quite a high level (Bad e.g. Juninho at Middlesbrough). Or if you got a real pushy dad, he'll take you to a trial by threatening many club coaches and scouts, or is that last bit more in the US with the whole 'Soccer Dad' thing.

 

As a point of reference for the quality of US youth club sides vs. English youth sides, I played against the Middlesborough youth side when they did a tour of New England. My team was the NY West state champs 3 years running at the time, but we were U16 and the Middleborough squad was up to 18 years old (but I think there were players our age on the team and some 17s and 18s). They beat us 3-1. We played them in indoor (in upstate NY we play a lot of indoor in the winter months) and beat them 8-0 because we know all the tricks of indoor soccer like playing the boards etc.

Anyways, the point is that my club team was the best from NY West, but we never won our regionals (the best we did was go 2-0-1 in group play but didn't advance to the region 1 semifinals because of goal differential). So, for our age group, based on that, you could say we were outside the top 16 teams in the country for sure, and were probably in the range of 17-30.

I think that this means that top US club sides like FC Delco or Nomads or Texans or Magic would be very competitive with English Premier League youth sides (where most of the players have pro contracts but aren't eligible to play for the first team until they are 18). If you think about it, if a youth club side is able to recruit the best players from a major city like Chicago with how many thousands of youth players in that city, it makes sense that they could compete with an English Premier league youth side which does most of its domestic recruiting from a smaller pool of players, though the average player is less casual in England and more interested in pro soccer.

So basically the highest level of youth soccer in the US pretty comparable to similar European clubs. The top 10-15 youth clubs in the US could probably do quite well against European competition (Dallas Cup as an example).

 

How can you say it's really hard to get scouted when there are scouts everywhere in England? It's not hard to get scouted if you are good. It's hard to get scouted if scouts never come to where you are. That's the problem we're having at the moment.

I think teams like the Nomads, Delco, Texans etc. could play with the English teams. They defintely have pace and tenacity. The only problem is their size. More than 70% of the teams are made up of hispanic players. Not known for their size.

 

lol Canada we havve a oysl league which is the hiest league to be in at 14 and we have the a league but thats canada and the us .. i hope to get a scholarship but it is so hard to get noticed in canada

 

its so true, where do u live in canada?

 

Hamilton Academicals?

 

woodbridge ( Toronto, Ontario)

 

I never knew Hamilton had a good youth team, but then again i don't take interest in Scottish teams really, What age group are you Paddster?

 

so cal united!haa