Looking at the USYSA regional sites. Some very interesting developments, certainly at least to some degree in response to Super Y and US Club. Regions now promoting spring AND summer Premier leagues. The spring leagues will produce wildcard entries into each regional championship. The summer leagues will produce entries to the new "US Youth Soccer Director's League Championship in August (sound familiar?). Here are some of the features for the summer competition - from the Region I web site at http://www.region1.com/ : FLIGHTS: There will be both a Premier flight and a Division I flight available. LEAGUE FEES: $350.00 Per Team due with application. DATES: Both the Premier Flight and the Division I Flight will begin June 1 and will conclude the end of July with Semi-Finals and Finals to be played in August. TEAMS: Premier Flight: Consist of 8 to 12 teams. Division I: Minimum of 8 teams and a maximum of 16 teams per section ROSTER SIZE: A maximum of twenty-five (25) eligible players may be listed on a roster at any one time. There will be a flexible add and drop policy. Teams will be allowed to multiple roster within same club organization (i.e. a U-16 can play on the U-16 team or U-17 team at the same time). Dual rostering will be allowed between the Premier Flight teams and the Division I teams. No adds will be permitted after a team’s 4th game PLAYER PASS: All teams will use a Region I Summer League USYS Member Pass. ROSTER: All teams will use a Region I Summer League USYS Roster. REFEREE GAME FEES: Each team will be responsible fro bringing to the field their half of the referee game fee. PREMIER FLIGHT SEMI-FINALS AND FINAL: The top four (4) teams will compete in the Semi-Finals. The winners of the Semi-Finals will advance to the Finals. Champions of the Premier Flight both girls and boys will represent Region I at the US Youth Soccer Director’s League Championships to be held mid August. DIVISION I FLIGHT SUB-SECTION PLAY OFF: The first place team in each sub-sections of an age group (both boys and girls) will play each other to determine their section's Champion The Champion of each section will advance to the Division I Flight's Semi-Final. DIVISION I FLIGHT SEMI-FINALS AND FINAL: The four (4) section Champions of each age group (both boys and girls) will advance to the Semi-Finals The winners of the Semi-Finals will advance to the Finals. Champions of the Division I Flight both girls and boys will represent Region I at the US Youth Soccer Director’s League Championships to be held mid August.
So basically USYSA is getting into the summer soccer business. I guess the thinking is, if parents are having their kids play year-round anyway, why not have it as a USYSA event instead of something else. But this could be the basis for a national youth league. I wonder what the individual clubs will think of this. So much depends on volunteers, and you've got Fall and Spring schedules already, could be interesting. Clearly the move continues toward having the best of the best play each other more, and against the masses less. Presumably this is good for player development. Nothing on this Director's Championship at the sometimes-woeful USYSA site, so time will tell on details. I wonder if there will be two tiers at the finals, for Premier and Division I, or if everyone from both is lumped into the same competition at the national level.
Gers, are other regions doing this?? I've seen nothing on the Region II web site. Reading the rules for the SPRING league, it appears that if you are the winner of the Spring league, you get an automatic slot in the Snickers Regional competition. What if you've won State Cup as well? Well, then the runner up in the SPRING League goes. Which provides some incentive to join the Spring league, I guess -- could give you TWO shots into the regional tournament. By the way, in Region II, with I think 16 slots but just 15 "state association" winners, there is always one state cup runner up, alternating every year for each age cohort, that winds up going to regionals. Wonder if that is the same with Region I, and that from now on it will be the Spring league team that takes this slot, not the alternating state cup runner up?? I could see this new venture on the part of Region I as being a bit of a political problem in those states where leagues are independent, but affiliated with USYSA, as opposed to leagues OPERATED by the State Associations (such as in Wisconsin). In effect, USYSA and by extension its state associations might be taking teams away from the very leagues they sanction -- and earn fees from!! We live in interesting times!
just to confirm that every region is mandated to put this competition on. with all the age groups and the possibilities of subsections at the lower tier for each region, you could have more than 1,000 teams involved per region (not the first year, but eventually). Early returns on this in the east are enthusiastic. Karl - the state premier leagues I'm aware of are Spring leagues. This new competition is all about the summer. The Region I Spring league winners will take the place of the wildcard entries to the regionals in the Spring, as you say - and I think it's much better for teams to earn those wildcard slots via merit, rather than by a draw. There may be situations, at least in Region I with a 4-year old Spring league, where such a league competes with a state premier league, but that will be up to a club to decide which one it wants. The Region league obviously will have more of a payoff for said club, but other factors, travel, competition, will figure in for the families/clubs making those decisions. Upon further review, I think there is great dissatisfaction with Super Y and how it was run. While I'm sure some clubs/teams had good experiences, there are way too many stories of forfeits for lack of players and other things. Ultimately I think Super Y and US Club will be seen as goads to keep USYSA from being too complacent, and now USYSA are responding comprehensively.
"Mandated", eh?? Haven't heard boo about this here in Region II. As for Super Y, I believe that there are four elements of disatisfaction. --Substitutions. In Super Y, once you are subbed out, you cannot come back it. This usually means that in close games, your starting 11 stays on virtually the whole time. While some may laud this as being more "professional" in nature, the fact is that if you drive your kid for 4 to 6 hours to get to a game, or get there the night before and pay for a motel, and he doesn't get off the bench, well, why bother? If this were a REAL professional club, and the club was paying, different story. --Goal Differential. Goal differential is a key tie breaker. As a result, in games where there is a significant talent differential (and there were a NUMBER of games like that, check the records), the incentive is to, again, keep your best 11 and really run up the score. Those extra goals can make a huge difference when you wind up playing, say, your TRUE competiton, and where a tie with them could put you over the top. --Goofy subsidiary rules. I haven't checked on the rules, but supposedly you get penalized in some fashion if you don't have ball boys/girls, and stuff like that. --Forfeits. This has wreaked havoc on some team calendars. I understand that this league is designed to "mimic" a professional league, but in reality this is still youth soccer in the USA, and they, too, need to make adjustments. Let's see if THEY do it.