Proportion of men's to women's coaches listed is interesting.
By ECNL, do you mean girls and do you mean before it watered itself down with clubs like FC Stars more than doubling the number of teams it has calling themselves ECNL?
Proportion of men's to women's coaches listed is interesting.
By ECNL, do you mean girls and do you mean before it watered itself down with clubs like FC Stars more than doubling the number of teams it has calling themselves ECNL?
I mean that on the boys side there are currently over 140 colleges attending. Does that help?
Not sure if this is just clickbait or what, but the easiest way to see the differences between leagues like NEP or EDP and leagues like DA and ECNL is to look at the College Showcases for NEP/EDP clubs. EDP Fall Showcase and GPS Thanksgiving Showcase have mostly DIII schools in attendance (check their respective website).
Top D1 schools go to the top tournaments for the top leagues and mid D1's go to the top leagues regular showcases. That is the state of things today. Hard to get a coach/program interested if they can't see you and they won't see you play if they aren't attending the tournaments/showcases you play in. Yeah, they can come watch your team's regular season matches, but the reality is coaches don't have time to do that for every player interested in their program.
Sorry Dad, with the addition of DA and ECNL on both the boys and girls side, and the need to pull NEP players to fill out spots, the gap has closed allot, it is NOT getting wider. The bottom half of players on ECNL teams could literally be swapped with the top half of NEP team players with literally no change of quality or ability at all. If the player is that talented, they will be found, even on their High School teams. If the player is an average to good player, they need to self promote allot to get looked at.
Sorry Dad, with the addition of DA and ECNL on both the boys and girls side, and the need to pull NEP players to fill out spots, the gap has closed allot, it is NOT getting wider. The bottom half of players on ECNL teams could literally be swapped with the top half of NEP team players with literally no change of quality or ability at all. If the player is that talented, they will be found, even on their High School teams. If the player is an average to good player, they need to self promote allot to get looked at.
I used to think that too, until we started playing ECNL and saw the difference in the player pool, the difference in D1 college coach interest, and the difference in showcases. It's a signal, like anything else in life, but the signal isn't completely distorted yet. Yes, all leagues are a bit watered down, but the assumption is now D1 is only really looking at DA and ECNL because the talent is split between the two. Lower leagues don't have the depth of talent so it is more difficult to find the few players who might play D1. The showcases don't lie. The coaches are spending their time and limited travel budgets to go where their recruiting efforts are most effective. Look at the list of colleges for ECNL showcase above and then go look at the GPS showcase or EDP showcase.
Playing in college isn't the issue, playing D1 and scoring a scholarship is. I know a number of players who played low-level club or no club at all, playing D3. Not the case with D1.
You want D1, that's where you're going to be seen... not even close to the NEP/NPL/EDP showcases.
Actually, what you should be looking at is where the kids from boys ECNL and boys NPL in this area are headed. Far more boys are heading to Div 1 from the boys NEFC and GPS NPL teams than from the local boys ECNL outfits (Bolts and Stars).
I used to think that too, until we started playing ECNL and saw the difference in the player pool, the difference in D1 college coach interest, and the difference in showcases. It's a signal, like anything else in life, but the signal isn't completely distorted yet. Yes, all leagues are a bit watered down, but the assumption is now D1 is only really looking at DA and ECNL because the talent is split between the two. Lower leagues don't have the depth of talent so it is more difficult to find the few players who might play D1. The showcases don't lie. The coaches are spending their time and limited travel budgets to go where their recruiting efforts are most effective. Look at the list of colleges for ECNL showcase above and then go look at the GPS showcase or EDP showcase.
Playing in college isn't the issue, playing D1 and scoring a scholarship is. I know a number of players who played low-level club or no club at all, playing D3. Not the case with D1.
Why would a reputable D1 college even consider a player that already can’t commit to the highest level of soccer available for their age? They want players willing to go the extra mile, and make sacrifices to get the best training possible. If they can’t even devote the time to the da or ECNL training schedule, how would they do what’s expected of a D1 program?
That's last year's list, first off. Second, nearly 50% of the men's soccer scholarships will be taken by foreigners. Lastly, for a fully funded D1 men's program, that leaves about 1.25 scholarships per graduating class. With each class bringing in between 5-8 recruits per year, do the math. Oh yeah, and 4th, the majority of the 1.25 domestic scholarships are going to foreign kids playing DA (many of who also play prep school soccer). Good luck ECNL suckers; hope you like D3!
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