US Soccer holding us hostage

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The quality isn't very good, but you just have to grin and bear it.

This describes soccer in Oregon and the US. All the chatter on here is much ado about nothing. All of these programs are just lipstick on a pig.

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I do believe there is a place for GDA. It just needs to be much, much smaller. In the long run that benefits the NT players more as well. No one is improving their skill base traveling long distances for big blow out games. Shrink it, improve the quality. The travel will still suck but so be it. They could find some creative ways to get around that. All the players and clubs that don't belong still have other good options.

Good idea, we used to call this ODP and it worked. Even our mens teams were competitive

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Good idea, we used to call this ODP and it worked. Even our mens teams were competitive

Yes history reflects when USYS had the ODP as the only identification program for youth and the only competitive platform for clubs (USYS State/Reg&Nats) both our Men & Women were relevant outside our borders. But a handful of club's DOC's greed and personal ambition fractured this stable efficient model of competition/identification and present day the governing body of US Soccer can't stop the bleeding even with their own elite platform for youth to combat this epic downward slide. US Club's fight to gain status as a youth platform along with a market share of the youth pie has transformed the youth landscape into a giant mess of spilled alphabet soup. Now (US Club) cries when they watch the caretakers of US Soccer marginalize their efforts and move the ship to safer waters, away from the pay to travel fiasco.

[Unregistered]

GDA will probably stick around for a while. The quality isn't very good, but you just have to grin and bear it.

Just more dilution. Yuck.

[Unregistered]

Yes history reflects when USYS had the ODP as the only identification program for youth and the only competitive platform for clubs (USYS State/Reg&Nats) both our Men & Women were relevant outside our borders. But a handful of club's DOC's greed and personal ambition fractured this stable efficient model of competition/identification and present day the governing body of US Soccer can't stop the bleeding even with their own elite platform for youth to combat this epic downward slide. US Club's fight to gain status as a youth platform along with a market share of the youth pie has transformed the youth landscape into a giant mess of spilled alphabet soup. Now (US Club) cries when they watch the caretakers of US Soccer marginalize their efforts and move the ship to safer waters, away from the pay to travel fiasco.

So many words, Intern. You’ll be able to treat your pals to a round tonight. Well done!

Those of us who have been around a while recognize your feeble attempts to rewrite history. US Soccer developed a DA platform for boys. They had zero interest in the girls. In spite of that, our women’s national team thrived. After many years of this, a new platform emerged. This platform was successful and didn’t seem to hurt the success of the women’s national team.

It was only when US Soccer saw how much money there was to be made in a national girl’s platform that they developed an interest in a girls DA. And here we are. A few clubs, including our Thorns, subsidize their girls DA, although that subsidy is decreasing every year. But the vast majority of GDA clubs are fully pay to play just like ECNL.

GDA was launched with lofty goals. Every goal has failed. They haven’t made eite soccer more accessible to poor kids. They haven’t consolidated the best talent. They haven’t improved the quality of the national team.

Sorry, Intern. I’m sure it sucks to spend your time defending a failure like girls DA. On the bright side it’s great experience for the real working world.

[Unregistered]

So many words, Intern. You’ll be able to treat your pals to a round tonight. Well done!

Obviously, anyone who disagrees with you must be an "intern" or other shill working for the Thorns. Project much?

Those of us who have been around a while recognize your feeble attempts to rewrite history. US Soccer developed a DA platform for boys. They had zero interest in the girls. In spite of that, our women’s national team thrived.

Or to put it a different way: The US women's soccer program was the envy of the world, as the US dominated the women's game. The men were a different story; male US players were notoriously technically deficient, and the old club-prep-and-college system that worked in sports where the US had little international competition, did not work in men's soccer. Thus the DA was born, based somewhat on common practice as found in Europe.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" might explain the difference here.

After many years of this, a new platform emerged. This platform was successful and didn’t seem to hurt the success of the women’s national team.

It was only when US Soccer saw how much money there was to be made in a national girl’s platform that they developed an interest in a girls DA.

And here is the confession that gives the game away, for ECNL. The teams in ECNL are making money off of it. As are coaches, college scouts (whose job is made much easier by the combine model), and all sorts of other hangers-on in the travel industry. They LOVE the ECNL business model.

And where does this money come from? The parents, of course. Generally well-to-do ones who don't mind at all paying five figures a year so their little Mia can jetset to league games in Cali like she's Paris Hilton.

Folks, there shouldn't be this sort of money in girls and women's soccer--as you point out, few care about the professional game. There is no transfer market, no million dollar deal, none of that at the end of the line for girls. At best for most is a partial scholarship to school, and for the lucky few a gig with the national team. But if people are making money off of girls' soccer, then someone is getting ripped off.

ECNL folks assume that the USSDA is running the Girls DA because they want a piece of this action. But the Girls DA doesn't make money. The Thorns aren't making money off of their GDA teams; running these costs them money, lots of it. And when the ECNL apologists aren't claiming in one thread that "GDA is trying to co-opt the ECNL business model", in other threads they are making up nonsense about how the Thorns desperately want to be rid of the GDA and are pawning it off on various youth clubs in the Alliance. Both of these things cannot be true.

Your argument reminds me (nerd alert) of that scene in Lord of the Rings in which Aragorn wonders about the safety of Frodo and the Ring as they travel through Mordor to Mount Doom, and Gandalf reassures Aragorn that Sauron is convinced that the One Ring is on its way to Minas Tirith to be used against him. "He is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.".

The GDA isn't designed to capture and replace ECNL's shady business model. It's meant to get rid of it.

And here we are. A few clubs, including our Thorns, subsidize their girls DA, although that subsidy is decreasing every year. But the vast majority of GDA clubs are fully pay to play just like ECNL.

GDA was launched with lofty goals. Every goal has failed. They haven’t made eite soccer more accessible to poor kids. They haven’t consolidated the best talent. They haven’t improved the quality of the national team.

Another confession. Claims about who has the best coaching, the best training programs, the best curriculum, don't really matter, do they? It's all about "consolidating the best talent". ECNL managed to corner the market on talented girls, and GDA is now busting up their monopoly like Teddy Roosevelt. This is why ECNL hates the GDA so much; they give talented girls an alternate platform, a choice. ECNL teams (here in Oregon) have spent so many years being arrogant and hostile to the local OYSA sides, that it's beautiful seeing them hoist upon their own petard like this--having done to them (a wholesale raid on "their talent") what CU and FC managed to do to the various Alliance clubs a few years back. For ECNL, It's all about telling the girls "if you want a shot, you gotta come play for us and play by our rules"; about telling them and their parents that their future success requires them to be flown to Vegas or wherever to be paraded before college scouts like cattle at auction, whereas before the scouts would come to the State Cup to watch them play.

Even if GDA is terrible... if it deprives ECNL (or any other attempt to form an elite league and impose a defacto pyramid on youth soccer that isn't accountable to the national federation) of a monopoly, of being able to tell players "if you don't play for us, you might as well play rec ball", then it has done its job.

At any rate--GDA has only been around one year, and you claim it has failed? What nonsense. What it has failed to do is keep some of the pay-to-play clubs who joined because they thought it was a bigger and better racket, and quickly realized that it's not--the technical standards are higher, the training is year round (no taking fall season off for the coaches), and the profits just aren't there. So quite a few of them have switched back to ECNL, offering high school as the excuse why.

And if you ask me, there is (and ought to be) room for both. Some girls are interested in a college scholarship but have no intetion of playing beyond that, for them ECNL (or even their local USYS club) are great choices. Others want a full-time training environment, and care more about that than prep soccer. The DA program works for them

What is the shame is that the two programs, rather than trying to compliment each other, seem to be locked in a battle to the death. And if anything will set back girls' and women's soccer in this country, it's this.

[Unregistered]

Obviously, anyone who disagrees with you must be an "intern" or other shill working for the Thorns. Project much?



Or to put it a different way: The US women's soccer program was the envy of the world, as the US dominated the women's game. The men were a different story; male US players were notoriously technically deficient, and the old club-prep-and-college system that worked in sports where the US had little international competition, did not work in men's soccer. Thus the DA was born, based somewhat on common practice as found in Europe.

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it" might explain the difference here.



And here is the confession that gives the game away, for ECNL. The teams in ECNL are making money off of it. As are coaches, college scouts (whose job is made much easier by the combine model), and all sorts of other hangers-on in the travel industry. They LOVE the ECNL business model.

And where does this money come from? The parents, of course. Generally well-to-do ones who don't mind at all paying five figures a year so their little Mia can jetset to league games in Cali like she's Paris Hilton.

Folks, there shouldn't be this sort of money in girls and women's soccer--as you point out, few care about the professional game. There is no transfer market, no million dollar deal, none of that at the end of the line for girls. At best for most is a partial scholarship to school, and for the lucky few a gig with the national team. But if people are making money off of girls' soccer, then someone is getting ripped off.

ECNL folks assume that the USSDA is running the Girls DA because they want a piece of this action. But the Girls DA doesn't make money. The Thorns aren't making money off of their GDA teams; running these costs them money, lots of it. And when the ECNL apologists aren't claiming in one thread that "GDA is trying to co-opt the ECNL business model", in other threads they are making up nonsense about how the Thorns desperately want to be rid of the GDA and are pawning it off on various youth clubs in the Alliance. Both of these things cannot be true.

Your argument reminds me (nerd alert) of that scene in Lord of the Rings in which Aragorn wonders about the safety of Frodo and the Ring as they travel through Mordor to Mount Doom, and Gandalf reassures Aragorn that Sauron is convinced that the One Ring is on its way to Minas Tirith to be used against him. "He is in great fear, not knowing what mighty one may suddenly appear, wielding the Ring, and assailing him with war, seeking to cast him down and take his place. That we should wish to cast him down and have no one in his place is not a thought that occurs to his mind. That we should try to destroy the Ring itself has not yet entered into his darkest dream.".

The GDA isn't designed to capture and replace ECNL's shady business model. It's meant to get rid of it.



Another confession. Claims about who has the best coaching, the best training programs, the best curriculum, don't really matter, do they? It's all about "consolidating the best talent". ECNL managed to corner the market on talented girls, and GDA is now busting up their monopoly like Teddy Roosevelt. This is why ECNL hates the GDA so much; they give talented girls an alternate platform, a choice. ECNL teams (here in Oregon) have spent so many years being arrogant and hostile to the local OYSA sides, that it's beautiful seeing them hoist upon their own petard like this--having done to them (a wholesale raid on "their talent") what CU and FC managed to do to the various Alliance clubs a few years back. For ECNL, It's all about telling the girls "if you want a shot, you gotta come play for us and play by our rules"; about telling them and their parents that their future success requires them to be flown to Vegas or wherever to be paraded before college scouts like cattle at auction, whereas before the scouts would come to the State Cup to watch them play.

Even if GDA is terrible... if it deprives ECNL (or any other attempt to form an elite league and impose a defacto pyramid on youth soccer that isn't accountable to the national federation) of a monopoly, of being able to tell players "if you don't play for us, you might as well play rec ball", then it has done its job.

At any rate--GDA has only been around one year, and you claim it has failed? What nonsense. What it has failed to do is keep some of the pay-to-play clubs who joined because they thought it was a bigger and better racket, and quickly realized that it's not--the technical standards are higher, the training is year round (no taking fall season off for the coaches), and the profits just aren't there. So quite a few of them have switched back to ECNL, offering high school as the excuse why.

And if you ask me, there is (and ought to be) room for both. Some girls are interested in a college scholarship but have no intetion of playing beyond that, for them ECNL (or even their local USYS club) are great choices. Others want a full-time training environment, and care more about that than prep soccer. The DA program works for them

What is the shame is that the two programs, rather than trying to compliment each other, seem to be locked in a battle to the death. And if anything will set back girls' and women's soccer in this country, it's this.

Just to be clear this was wriiten by the lone paid intern.

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Just to be clear this was wriiten by the lone paid intern.

And he is raking in the cash this weekend. It takes a special talent to write 10,000 words and say nothing.

[Unregistered]

Just to be clear this was wriiten by the lone paid intern.

Looks like the "intern" is spot on. ECNL simply does not want competition. Maybe you should get an intern, because nobody is buying your arguments.

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GDA is so disappointing. Sad!

I feel bad for the kids and the parents.

[Unregistered]

GDA is so disappointing. Sad!

I feel bad for the kids and the parents.

Decorum would be that you keep Your mouth shut. People and kids are struggling and you have to run it in? Mean spirited.

[Unregistered]

Looks like the "intern" is spot on. ECNL simply does not want competition. Maybe you should get an intern, because nobody is buying your arguments.

Same can be said about GDA - they don't want competition. They desperately want ECNL to go away. It's why they went for big volume instead of for top quality only

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Decorum would be that you keep Your mouth shut. People and kids are struggling and you have to run it in? Mean spirited.

The guy said he felt bad for people. Reading comprehension is not your strong suit. I feel bad for families as well - they were sold a bill of goods. Some are happy but some are not.

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Same can be said about GDA - they don't want competition. They desperately want ECNL to go away. It's why they went for big volume instead of for top quality only

So much quality in ECNL! CU goes from bottom feeder to top dog in one season. Thank you GDA, saved our butts.
CU ECNL won 12 games total ‘16-‘17 season.

[Unregistered]

GDA is so disappointing. Sad!

I feel bad for the kids and the parents.

None of your business!