MLS Next - Is it worth the time and money

[Guest]

TSF doesn’t.

TSF repeatedly has players with MLS badges dropping into NAL, EDP games. Let’s not forget that they’re as guilty as others.

[Guest]

They all do that bud, rosters are usually 25+ and they only take 18 to games. The remainder gets sent to NAL team. This is the norm.

[Guest]

They all do that bud, rosters are usually 25+ and they only take 18 to games. The remainder gets sent to NAL team. This is the norm.

Not at CSA, my son's NAL team last struggled for players and the MLS team with 25 kids very rarely if ever sent kids down. When they did get sent down, they left the club very soon after.

[Guest]

TSF repeatedly has players with MLS badges dropping into NAL, EDP games. Let’s not forget that they’re as guilty as others.

That’s not bio banding, which is scummy and what the other poster was saying all clubs do.

[Guest]

Question for the families toward the end of their soccer journey where college ball is on the table – let’s first remove MLS academies (RB, NYCFC, PU) from the equation – if a kid is a top of the roster player at a top of the table team – does it make a difference if they play within the MLSn platform or ECNL platform for college recruiting?

There are many different kinds of colleges/universities, so this question is very hard to answer without knowing details. But since you know your player, you can find the answers you want with a little googling. Many programs have their team rosters with brief player bios available publicly on their web sites, and you can look at a college you're interested in to see if your kid is similar to who they usually recruit. You should ask: does your kid have the same kind of academic profile as the currently rostered players did in high school? Does he go to the same kind of high school as the currently rostered players did? Does he play in the same leagues and is he getting the same kinds of awards/distinctions in soccer as the program's current players did in high school? If the answer to any of those question is no, the odds of him being of interest to the coach will be much lower (not zero, but much lower).

The college recruitment process doesn't need to feel mysterious -- an hour or two of research on programs you're interested in will give you a LOT of answers.

[Guest]

Not at CSA, my son's NAL team last struggled for players and the MLS team with 25 kids very rarely if ever sent kids down. When they did get sent down, they left the club very soon after.

So what happens with the 7 players that don’t get rostered for the games? They don’t play that week? That’s even worse

[Guest]

So what happens with the 7 players that don’t get rostered for the games? They don’t play that week? That’s even worse

There are some, particularly in the 2010 and 2011 who don’t make a roster all season! Imagine paying that and your kid doesn’t make a game roster for months.

[Guest]

So what happens with the 7 players that don’t get rostered for the games? They don’t play that week? That’s even worse

We left CSA for this exact reason, our son would attend all 4 sessions a week and then be left off each game roster. No communication from the coach, no reasoning. New kids signed during the season would jump right into the roster while those who didn’t make the game rosters were cast aside during training. It became quite obvious when during training, our son was in the same “group” of boys who didn’t make rosters.

[Guest]

40% of d1 soccer players are foreign players and that number will grow unless ncaa steps in and the US born players that do go spend most of games on the bench , meaning that if you want to play college soccer as a male don’t sacrifice too much or skip out on other activities bc all college male players that play are D2/D3 and you don’t need to drive 2.5 hours to game to achieve that .

[Guest]

We left CSA for this exact reason, our son would attend all 4 sessions a week and then be left off each game roster. No communication from the coach, no reasoning. New kids signed during the season would jump right into the roster while those who didn’t make the game rosters were cast aside during training. It became quite obvious when during training, our son was in the same “group” of boys who didn’t make rosters.

That’s bad, really bad for progress, Building confidence at this age is critical for their development. I am pretty sure per the MLS rules they shouldn’t do that. This is due to coaches greed to win and have a strong record. It becomes at the expense of the player’s development, not fair I would never keep my son for a coach or an Academy to do that to him. Does that happen at PDA?

[Guest]

forgot to mention, You got me mad with your post. You reminded me of something similar happened to my child prior. I wouldn’t even stay at the team if my kid is getting respectful minutes, if I see my coach doing that with other players on the team. This is just me, I wouldn’t trust my son with a guy like that.

[Guest]

U13, U14 and U15 MLS Next is absolutely NOT worth it for MLS Next players. Not at all. Expensive travel all over the northeast or mid Atlantic and the level is NOT really any higher than ECNL or even EDP 1. There are a few very good teams in each of the divisions (5-6, mostly the professional teams) and a handful of not very good teams (5-6) and the rest of the competition is same as the EDP level.

If you wish to play college soccer at the division 1 level it is PROBABLY worth it for U16, U17 and U19 based on the amount of exposure, but only if you are a top player on your MLS Next team who doesn’t come off the field ever. If you wish to play soccer at the division 2 or 3 level it is NOT worth it ever. That can be achieved by playing in other leagues and not paying the MLS Next costs and travel.

The professional MLS academy teams are sending their top several players into their pro system. The majority of their kids are going to Division 1 schools after U19 though. The MLS Next teams are sending their top few players to division 1 schools and the majority of their rosters are going to Division 2 and 3 schools.

as other people have stated… the mathematical breakdown of college freshmen rosters for D1 is about 40-50 % international students. With the new NCAA college roster hard cap of 28 students…. You are looking at freshman class size of max 7-10 kids. 4-5 are International players at the division 1 level. That leaves 3-5 roster spots open per team. There are 205 Division 1 NCAA men’s programs. Say there are 4 roster spots available for non international students at each university that is 820 total open spots. 29 MLS Professional Academy teams are sending the majority of their rosters to play Division 1. Low ball that number and approximately 400 Freshman from professional academy teams which leaves a rough estimate of 420 open division 1 roster spots for MLS Next level and other players throughout the country. There are 90 non pro MLS Next teams at U19 sending kids off to college. Statistically speaking that is 4-5 kids per MLS Next team going Division 1 if colleges only took MLS Next kids. Those college roster spots also get filled by ECNL players and private school players. Roughly 4.out of 18 will go to division 1 (some teams more, some teams less). Check the college rosters incoming classes and the MLS Next clubs college announcements and you can verify.

[Guest]

Find a good USL2 team and try to start playing at U19 if you are at least a D3. They range from D1 players to D3 players but there are college coaches at every game to watch their players and look for others.