Eddie, ECNL has always been regional based for league play. The conferences (league) are in a section of the country. Then a National playoff. The ECNL Showcases are clubs choice. So Cal teams typically play in Phoenix and New Jersey. But there are other options in other parts of the country. So ECNL is not changing anything regarding their platform.
I'm aware of how the leagues are run. Let me say the ecnl has become "more regionalized" and even created a 2nd tier for regional club-wide league play. The ecnl will always be evolving somewhat (they didn't start using the term "conferences" until a couple years ago) but I've argued for years that the entire concept of a 'national league' in this country is crazy, esp a club-wide league. It IS in the name and some of the national events are not optional. Those are on top of the overnights for league games that are common in the ecnl in many parts of the country. All pay-for-play craziness imho.
Huh? Conference play for league has existed in ECNL for many years. I have had daughters in it for yeas. They have played in the Southwest conference always. Yes, the Regional league is new as of last year. But I was referencing the ECNL top league. The National Showcases are not optional, but which ones you choose are. So a California team can choose two showcases in Phoenix if they want (and they usually do). If you don't like a national league, every state offers a local state league. Your kids can play in that. There are options for everyone.
The ECNL started as an events-based national league, Hence the name. History is right on their site. They "didn't start" using conferences as I said when there were only 40-50 clubs. Fact. So is the ECNL really a National League or not? Let's see if their marketing is working. And I'll stick to my statement that Coerver "stole" plenty of soccer stuff in his career as a player and coach. He was a master at presenting it on video tape! I hope he sold a lot of those VHS tapes.
What you said is they only started using conferences recently. In fact, you said: "they didn't start using the term "conferences" until a couple years ago". That is false. They have been using conferences for years. Fact. Yes, it is a national league when you all compete under the same structure, and against each other in a playoff for a national championship.
Really ytrs, that's your issue. I will revise my statement from "a couple" to "some" years ago so you can sleep tonight. My point is that many of the same clubs are participating in a similar structure against many of the same opponents they did years ago. There's a ton more travel depending on where you live and the big change is it's now club-centric so every team travels and the clubs now have control of it. Who do you complain to about ecnl fees? The quality of your ecnl schedule? The calendar or the coaching? Not any State office or US Soccer that's for sure and you can't really vote with your feet without as many options. It will be interesting to see what happens now that the encl is going to be in nearly full control of youth development in the country without much oversight. Lavers is just about the only person I've ever heard speak for the ecnl. Are they REALLY about development or about prestige and the money?
Based on my personal experience when US Club Soccer got established, it was clearly prestige and money at that time and I have no reason to believe that it has changed. As we saw (above) they were up to 2 million annual revenues several years ago, and with this windfall will possibly add a million more per year starting as soon as the COVID thing gets completely solved. Their business plan works. Truly focusing on development as the top priority? Nope.
ECNL was always Club controlled and I am sure that was one of the main issues USSF had. There was no oversight. No standards. No neutral party to raise issues with and there were plenty. The ECNL was in control of development and one example of how that looked was FC Stars 2000s. Look how many of those kids got YNT spots. Then go look at how those kids are doing now. Certain clubs used the control they had to show parents how powerful they were as opposed to being unbiased. GDA was always too big and I think that doomed it. Bt definition, elite players is a small group and no one gets rich in the youth soccer game by reducing numbers to make it about talent
ECNL has an office in Virginia that runs the league. I am not sure how that makes it club controlled. They do give clubs the discretion to run their clubs. But, ECNL sets the parameters that they must work within. And, ECNL organizes the structure of conferences, playoffs, showcases, etc.
Found his one website; charges 97 dollars to download his ‘challenge program’. It can’t be all bad/or otherwise you haven’t seen all those crazy fees ECLN, summer camps or personal trainers charge! and for what? Less than 5% of even PRO women’s soccer players make a six figure salary
I am not sure but my guess is that Number007 is alluding to the fact that the ECNL's governing body is US Club Soccer and not USYSA. While both US Club Soccer and USYSA are under the auspices of the USSF, US Club Soccer is set up to allow clubs more autonomy and does not have as many rules as the USYSA does. Clubs are allowed to administer more as they see fit and there is more of a "hands off" approach. The "no standards" comment that 007 brought up is partially in reference to there not being minimum education standards for the coaches and trainers. Additionally there is not a curriculum for the players themselves. This probably hearkens back to the US Club philosophy of allowing the clubs more autonomy and to do as they see fit. That said, most of the ECNL coaches and trainers that I know of a very high level of competence. I agree 007 in his comment about certain clubs having a disproportionate number of athletes being selected to YNTs. While politics exists in any organization, the ECNL is rampant with it. It is a "good ol' boys club." This is just my opinion but I believe that many of the players are promoted in order to favorably reflect on certain clubs. The ECNL states that selections to id2 (a US Club Program), Conference Selection Programs, and the National Selection Program are apolitical but that is just lip service. It sounds great but is not true. For what? College scholarships are still the carrot that is being dangled in front of players and players' families. For every player that knows the reality of what it is like being a collegiate athlete there is another that has no idea of what it is all about and clings to an idealized view of what the reality is.
All fair points. But in many cases certain clubs draw the top players consistently, so that could be a reason for those clubs having more players on YNT's.
What you're saying is true. Some clubs are over-represented, though. There are players at some clubs that should be given an opportunity to be in a YNT pool and they never sniff it because they're at the wrong club. The heavy influence of politics is a black mark on the ECNL. Look at Chicagoland. Do you really think that the 3rd largest metro area in the United States, and a region that is rich in talent,, should only have the Eclipse in the ECNL? The only reason that there is only one club is because Rory Dames of the Eclipse wants a monopoly on that market. The population of metropolitan Indianapolis is about 1.75 million. The metro population of Chicago is about 9.5 million. There are 2 ECNL clubs in Indy and one in Chicago. This is due to politics. Similar scenarios exist in other areas of the country. Despite all of this, the ECNL is probably still a superior platform to what the GDA was. The ideas behind the GDA were good but it was all poorly executed. If US Soccer was serious about advancing the state of the game they would have worked with the ECNL.
By Club controlled, I mean the founder member Clubs run that league - Cant recall all of them but its the usual suspects. Hawks, FC Stars, PDA, Eclipse, etc. If you recall, when GDA started I believe they were the only ECNL clubs permitted to offer GDA and ECNL . Other Clubs were forced by the ECNL to choose. These Clubs
You make some good points, but I disagree with the last paragraph. You would have to tell me your criteria for deciding. Both Leagues had pluses and minuses. For me, it was all about the best local choices for my child and family. If ECNL>GDA overall but in my area, the ECNL Club option is worse, then why do I care? Either league, and others, can improve players, and its a big if as to whether that is the goal for all. As far as working with the ECNL, the ECNL had no incentive to do so unless it was to provide an escape hatch IF the GDA really took off. Long odds given the were a large Trojan Horse on the inside. Thats the problem. When neither entity respects the other to begin with, negotiations are hard if not impossible.
These past dozen or so posts are interesting. Working backwards... The assertion above (US Soccer should have more worked with ECLN) has been around from the beginning of the girls DA. In my view, one has to take into account of the whole reason for the existence of ECNL (and US Club Soccer). Early on in the formation of US Club Soccer, they were sending a clear signal that they did not want to work with US Soccer, but wanted to be independent. Specifically, their vision was about several issues, the dominant one being to change the culture so that Clubs could be controlled by soccer professionals and make enough money to earn a full time livings from the clubs. They wanted a European vision of what the soccer club should be. No more "true" non profits of the US recreational scene where 501(c)(3) status was coveted so as to get tax deductible donations to run the club -- Chump Change. Those heading up US Club Soccer correctly perceived that there was a serious market that would support serious money from parents for the Pay to Play system. To make themselves attractive to parents with money, a very strong business plan was developed (over a few years) that was focused on marketing to parents and players on ego and pride. The prior restrictions of USYSA of local leagues and travel teams being able to play within a half day of driving (in state) was immediately ditched, and a schedule heavy with out of state tournaments soon appeared. (I'm speaking of the boys side at the moment). Poaching players (although this was denied) was rampant and forced many of the smaller clubs to consolidate. "To be the best you have to play with the best" was the recruiting ploy and I frequently heard this repeated as parents drove their kids to consolidating clubs to several practices a week up to 100 miles away. Weekend trips were longer to places where some of these poached players mostly sat on the bench. I experienced this as being prominently about ego -both of coaches who wanted to win all the time and the parents who encouraged this elitism from their kids. Some of these large ego coaches were very good, many were not. So I watched in with trepidation when US Club Soccer formed the ECNL for girls and it's "platform" was based on the same features as the boys --a heavy focus on out of state play and a thorough element of "showcase" tournaments along with mass emails to college coaches to register to attend. To say it was a developmental league was preposterous. Its focus clearly was a program ("platform") to market to wealthy parents with a dream of a college scholarship for their kid. Quite a success--many of these Clubs grew exponentially with regard to wealth and full time coaches, directors of coaching, and multiple staff members, and large bank accounts. An interesting part of this story is that most of these Clubs kept their tax exempt status from their early days before US Club Soccer...for good reason. For example, municipal fields are often more open to a "non-profit" rather than a for profit entity, but the big bonus is no taxes of significant amounts of revenue. (It is also interesting to watch the dance start up about players from US clubs being courted by international for profit clubs. To this point the traditional soccer non profit club in the US had no ownership rights over its players but I am starting to see the topic of player contracts being debated in clubs that have been bought by or are affiliated with pro teams.) So back to the issue of DA should have out of the box worked more with ECNL. Well for one reason, it was the club environment that the DA was concerned with, not the league itself. It was the Club training environment that, as I understand it, that the DA was wanting to focus on. So it went to the clubs and offered a range of support to bring the training to a more standardized and professional standard. The clubs, coaches, and players were to be the beneficiaries, which has nothing to do with the ECNL as a league. On the other hand, it is understandable that the clubs were torn because the ECNL "platform" was successfully working and did not want to see their cash cow threatened, and so many clubs fielded both DA teams and ECNL. The DA made a huge tactical error with regard to playing on high school teams. From a training and development point of view it could be soundly argued to be good policy, but from a teen age emotional point of view it was all wrong. It took a few years, but consistent agitation by ECNL (through partisans, such as at Soccer Wire) a number of the most prestigious Clubs whose first allegiance was to the ECNL model were able to remove themselves from the DA and this precipitated its collapse. And so here we are. How long will it be before this all gets to a sustained period of stability with a real and consistent focus on non-partisan scouting, affordable inclusion (no Pay to Play), and development of the top echelon of girl soccer players.
Agree with the above. I dont see how it changes. Too many established names are /were making too much money. The USSF had no chance of ever really working with them unless the ceded significant control to the very Clubs they wanted to reel in. Heinrichs was also a terrible leader if partnership and compromise was the goal. Was never going to happen. Correction though, many Clubs did not field both on the girls side. Only the ECNL founders actually allowed it beyond the initial phase. That was also a move designed to protect themselves. I have nothing against either league. I have kids that played in both because the Club itself never changed. Its League affiliation did. I would never move a kid based on the league affiliation. Its all about the Club and the coaches your child interacts with. Unless a league switch changes that then no reason to move. Some of the GDA license requirements were a threat to coaches and an extra cost. On HS soccer. It is always going to be difficult to convince players who are below an elite level that the trade off is worth it. Especially girls where the pro payoff is small AND its not an impediment to College. Making a YNT is really only a carrot to a handful of players. Nowhere near enough to sustain a national league.
Minus the top recruits, I’ve known kids that played select soccer all their lives, only to quit if they don’t get selected by their favorite school or got an better academic or other sport offer. Some might join the inter mural college soccer squad, but that be like paying again like select Then there’s a few I know that might get a full ride, only to hate living at the dorms, so their parents are stuck paying for the off campus rent. or just getting part scholarships(or just tuition payed) but the room & board can be more expensive as colleges force you to buy those ridiculous meal plans even though kids get tired real fast eating cafeteria food or they closed down the place by the time practice is over