ECNL-DA club jumping season is upon us

[Unregistered]

Hey, I’m with you. I’d like to tear the whole thing up and start fresh. Pick the top 100 clubs In the country right now and call the league whatever you want. But that isn’t going to happen. Trying to have a real world take on where we are, who won the battle and what is our best case scenario going forward.

Fact of the matter is the ECNL doesn’t want every GDA club, so there is not a seat for everyone at the table. Not my choice or my wish, just my opinion of where we are.

[Unregistered]

You understand how business works I assume? The ecnl clubs are license holders and none will be dropped.

To put it bluntly, GDA played the power game and lost. The clubs who chose GDA over ECNL (NEFC) chose wrong. IMO ECNL are going to cherry pick who they want and the rest will be forced back into NPL as their top platform.

Take the kids out of it for a second and think about what would be in the best interest of U. S. Soccer. If the better clubs were all in the same league and playing/training against each other it would be the best way to develop the players into the highest caliber possible. Coaches and clubs would be forced to play their top players and not carry 21 on a team just to keep the $$$ flowing despite many of these players being subpar. How awesome would it be to have just two leagues (major and a minor). Every year up to two teams drop out if they fall below a certain winning percentage and up to two graduate up. Let the players play high school if they want and allow the ones that don’t to continue playing/training with their club.

Much like the professional leagues in Europe/UK. Sounds too simple of a concept for it to make sense.

[Unregistered]

Take the kids out of it for a second and think about what would be in the best interest of U. S. Soccer. If the better clubs were all in the same league and playing/training against each other it would be the best way to develop the players into the highest caliber possible. Coaches and clubs would be forced to play their top players and not carry 21 on a team just to keep the $$$ flowing despite many of these players being subpar. How awesome would it be to have just two leagues (major and a minor). Every year up to two teams drop out if they fall below a certain winning percentage and up to two graduate up. Let the players play high school if they want and allow the ones that don’t to continue playing/training with their club.

Much like the professional leagues in Europe/UK. Sounds too simple of a concept for it to make sense.

^This point coupled with having the 6+ teams in close proximity in the same league makes the most sense.

[Unregistered]

No one wants to be in the same room as one of them, so very much doubt it.

Than whoever that person is needs to humble up and enter the room or lose out.

[Unregistered]

Take the kids out of it for a second and think about what would be in the best interest of U. S. Soccer. If the better clubs were all in the same league and playing/training against each other it would be the best way to develop the players into the highest caliber possible. Coaches and clubs would be forced to play their top players and not carry 21 on a team just to keep the $$$ flowing despite many of these players being subpar. How awesome would it be to have just two leagues (major and a minor). Every year up to two teams drop out if they fall below a certain winning percentage and up to two graduate up. Let the players play high school if they want and allow the ones that don’t to continue playing/training with their club.

Much like the professional leagues in Europe/UK. Sounds too simple of a concept for it to make sense.

Take the kids out of it for a second? The kids have been out of it for a very long time. Most of the nonsense going in youth sports has nothing to do with the kids or helping them develop their talent and everything t do with making money

[Unregistered]

Take the kids out of it for a second and think about what would be in the best interest of U. S. Soccer. If the better clubs were all in the same league and playing/training against each other it would be the best way to develop the players into the highest caliber possible. Coaches and clubs would be forced to play their top players and not carry 21 on a team just to keep the $$$ flowing despite many of these players being subpar. How awesome would it be to have just two leagues (major and a minor). Every year up to two teams drop out if they fall below a certain winning percentage and up to two graduate up. Let the players play high school if they want and allow the ones that don’t to continue playing/training with their club.

Much like the professional leagues in Europe/UK. Sounds too simple of a concept for it to make sense.

If you permanently appoint any club or team to something, you have already lost. Teams and clubs must have incentives (and "unincentives") to do better!! The top tier needs to be small and top teams need to be able to earn there way in every year ... and, conversely, crappy teams need to be booted every year. There needs to be incentive for clubs to do things correctly. No club should be admitted to anything. Teams have to earn their way in every year at every age group. Watch how quickly clubs start doing better. Watch how quickly kids and parents see which clubs are doing things the right way. Watch how quickly talent starts going to top teams/clubs that got noticed. If you keep shopping at walmart and target you will not find any unique, truly quality items! Set up regional leagues like EDP and have showcases 2-3 times per year. 1 national showcase and 2 regional ones where adjacent regions (or maybe 1-offs) play each other .... 1st divisions vs each other, 2nd divisions vs each other ...... no need for 3rd divisions (maybe not even 2nd) to play national showcase unless they want to.

[Unregistered]

If you permanently appoint any club or team to something, you have already lost. Teams and clubs must have incentives (and "unincentives") to do better!! The top tier needs to be small and top teams need to be able to earn there way in every year ... and, conversely, crappy teams need to be booted every year. There needs to be incentive for clubs to do things correctly. No club should be admitted to anything. Teams have to earn their way in every year at every age group. Watch how quickly clubs start doing better. Watch how quickly kids and parents see which clubs are doing things the right way. Watch how quickly talent starts going to top teams/clubs that got noticed. If you keep shopping at walmart and target you will not find any unique, truly quality items! Set up regional leagues like EDP and have showcases 2-3 times per year. 1 national showcase and 2 regional ones where adjacent regions (or maybe 1-offs) play each other .... 1st divisions vs each other, 2nd divisions vs each other ...... no need for 3rd divisions (maybe not even 2nd) to play national showcase unless they want to.

I’m all in. I might even pay a little more for this to finally be done right.

[Unregistered]

^This point coupled with having the 6+ teams in close proximity in the same league makes the most sense.

No it doesn’t and it won’t happen. Christian Lavers is a very level headed and thought guy. He won’t just screw over a club that deserves to be on ECNL. He truly ( I believe) has the best interest of girls and boys soccer in the US. No ECNL cannot absorb all the DA teams but the clubs that deserve it will be back regardless of how they went out. But, there is certainly a proximity issue in places that will have to be worked out.

[Unregistered]

No it doesn’t and it won’t happen. Christian Lavers is a very level headed and thought guy. He won’t just screw over a club that deserves to be on ECNL. He truly ( I believe) has the best interest of girls and boys soccer in the US. No ECNL cannot absorb all the DA teams but the clubs that deserve it will be back regardless of how they went out. But, there is certainly a proximity issue in places that will have to be worked out.

has the best interest of rich girls and boys soccer in the US...fixed it for you.

[Unregistered]

Before you do anything, you need a partner with NPL and ECNL. They are key to this.

Second, there HAS to be some pressure/coordination with high schools to allow for players to participate in both. If this goes nowhere, so does my post….

Next, vastly increase the size of ECNL. I see 8 conferences, make it 16 (call them Divisions) and put 8 teams in each. Some conferences have 9, some up to 12, so make them smaller and an even 8 per conference. That alone eliminates some travel.

You have 4 Conferences made up of 4 Divisions each: Northeast, Southeast, Southwest, Northwest.

Northeast Conference: New England, Metro NY, Mid-Atlantic, Ohio Valley

You play a H/A with each team in your Division (14 games)
You play a H or A with your next closest Division (7 games) * Possibly you could rotate with other Divisions similar to how the NFL does it, open to discussion

Results from previous seasons are your seeding for the Open Competition (all teams are entered)

You play 3 “Showcases”/Open Competition (December, April, June) where you each play 3 games. These are all pooled games. These are all knock-out games, 3 games over 4 days. Once you lose, you go into a “Friendly/Losers’ Bracket” and play similar. The “Winners” get knocked down from 128 teams, to 64, to 32 after the December showcase. In April, you get knocked down to 16, then 8, then 4 teams. Your June showcase knocks you down to two teams after the first day. They play 2 games, on aggregate over the last two games to decide your winner. As you get knocked out, you play other knocked out teams as friendlies/play for pride, but results don’t affect any future seedings (again, open to discussion). You won’t know who your competition after the first game, but I’m sure you could at least align it so the times are known.

That gives you 29 games for everyone.

Top teach in each Division gets a top seed for the next Showcase. Maybe as an incentive, they get to pick the start time/day of their games.
Bottom team (or 2?) of each Division drops out after the season and is replaced by top NPL team(s) - not sure how that is determined, figure that out later.

Showcase seedings would look similar to an NCAA bracket, just that it’s not win and you go home.

Travel would be vastly decreased. Local competition/dlck measuring would be increased and would have a better method of comparing clubs vs TS bragging.

Give USSoccer oversight and the ability to pull in players for Regional camps as needed, but they are out of the league-running business.

-GDA Parent

[Unregistered]

If you permanently appoint any club or team to something, you have already lost. Teams and clubs must have incentives (and "unincentives") to do better!! The top tier needs to be small and top teams need to be able to earn there way in every year ... and, conversely, crappy teams need to be booted every year. There needs to be incentive for clubs to do things correctly. No club should be admitted to anything. Teams have to earn their way in every year at every age group. Watch how quickly clubs start doing better. Watch how quickly kids and parents see which clubs are doing things the right way. Watch how quickly talent starts going to top teams/clubs that got noticed. If you keep shopping at walmart and target you will not find any unique, truly quality items! Set up regional leagues like EDP and have showcases 2-3 times per year. 1 national showcase and 2 regional ones where adjacent regions (or maybe 1-offs) play each other .... 1st divisions vs each other, 2nd divisions vs each other ...... no need for 3rd divisions (maybe not even 2nd) to play national showcase unless they want to.

Exactly! There is no incentive for the perennial bottom dweller clubs in any league to get better when they have a permanent spot in that league. Many clubs are happy to just offer the patch and nothing else. They believe as long as they offer the patch people will pay - and sadly there are many people that are blinded by the patch - but all this does is create inequalities across the league, the poorly run in name only patch clubs end up fielding very weak teams. Then teams travel far and wide and in many cases get little competition, and would be better off playing teams close to home.

When elite is no longer “elite”. The league loses some of its allure. There really should be some kind of incentive to make the bottom dwellers better, or maybe have a probationary period for those clubs that are continually at the bottom of the ECNL, GDA and if they don’t improve themselves during the probation give them the boot!

[Unregistered]

A minus to this proposal is you either promo/relegate an entire club, or individual teams. Nothing perfect with this, as club's have teams who could be in a top league, but not the entire club. That then means that the clubs are in two different leagues/travel which may be hard to coordinate.

[Unregistered]

Exactly! There is no incentive for the perennial bottom dweller clubs in any league to get better when they have a permanent spot in that league. Many clubs are happy to just offer the patch and nothing else. They believe as long as they offer the patch people will pay - and sadly there are many people that are blinded by the patch - but all this does is create inequalities across the league, the poorly run in name only patch clubs end up fielding very weak teams. Then teams travel far and wide and in many cases get little competition, and would be better off playing teams close to home.

When elite is no longer “elite”. The league loses some of its allure. There really should be some kind of incentive to make the bottom dwellers better, or maybe have a probationary period for those clubs that are continually at the bottom of the ECNL, GDA and if they don’t improve themselves during the probation give them the boot!

GDA does boot clubs who don't perform. It's new so you need to give them a little time to get established, but they do eliminate clubs. Not sure about ECNL but it doesn't sound like it.

[Unregistered]

GDA does boot clubs who don't perform. It's new so you need to give them a little time to get established, but they do eliminate clubs. Not sure about ECNL but it doesn't sound like it.

DA does but rarely; ECNL even less so. But ECNL has been also been in a battle for the last few years to survive and now are on a market share acquisition mode. They can cut the dead wood later on, or if they become large enough can go two tiered

[Unregistered]

DA does but rarely; ECNL even less so. But ECNL has been also been in a battle for the last few years to survive and now are on a market share acquisition mode. They can cut the dead wood later on, or if they become large enough can go two tiered

GDA has only been round for 2 complete years. So you can't grade them on it yet. The fact they started booting so early is admirable.