Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud

[Guest]

The anger and insults seem unnecessary, don’t you think? here’ll the point: Let’s start with “best clubs”, as you put it. If the club is relying on having access to ECNL to attract players, and is not developing players, then how can they be “the best“. Let’s just be honest and say they are likely a big club whose access to ECNL has allowed it to attract players and pocket lots of money. But if they are really “the best”, then explain what they are the best at.

Now let’s turn to “the best players“. If we are talking about players coming from club stat, do a poor job or fail altogether to develop players properly, then how can they be “the best”? If players are being poorly developed in ECNL clubs, as the Yahoo Sports article
reports, then the best under-developed players are placed on ECNL teams. again, if we are honest about it, we need to acknowledge that players on the ECNL teams are really just that, the best of a group of poorly or negligently developed players.

Finally, is a ECNL, the best pathway to college soccer in the US for girls? I agree. there is no doubt that he’s here now takes a lot of money from member clubs in order to fund the airfare, hotels, meals, etc. for all sorts of college coaches, to assemble them at certain showcases. That certainly seems like a smart play by ECNL.

But in the end, as the Yahoo Sports article reports, which is consistent with Eddie Johnson’s observations, product on display at the showcases is disappointing and often embarrassing. And it won’t change until parents demand more professional player development standards in the day-to-day training environment at these clubs. But that’s real hard work that these ECNL clubs and coaches can avoid precisely because the overwhelming majority of parents don’t seem to care about the level of ability on display at the showcases, they just want to get there.

We will see this coming home to roost on the Girls side, just as it is on the boys side, when college coaches decide to focus their attention on signing players from European club academies who are developing in professional environments with high educational standards, and who may not make the first team there, but will be far and away better than the best of the underdeveloped players at any ECNL showcase. The best college coaches are looking for players overseas and increasingly looking beyond the under developed products from the American youth clubs.

This trend is analyzed here by the NCAA: https://ncaaorg.s3.amazonaws.com/res...ndsDivSprt.pdf

The writing is on the wall. Until US youth clubs enforce real educational standards, stop taking development shortcuts by relying on access to ECNL, college coaches will increasingly look to international players.

If you disagree with this, please explain without the weird keyboard anger.

So, how are parents supposed to tell clubs to improve their coaching so the players develop better? Also, how are we supposed to know what the club coaches should be doing and what they’re are not doing?

[Guest]

So, how are parents supposed to tell clubs to improve their coaching so the players develop better? Also, how are we supposed to know what the club coaches should be doing and what they’re are not doing?

Ah that is the mystery my young Padwan. Go to the Dagabah system. There you will learn from Yoda

[Guest]

New flash, most of the usa really does not care or know what fifa is.

we will continue to have a deep pool of talent on the girls/womens side because the goal is to go play soccer in college and have a great time.

we have the infrastructure of lots of facilities and leagues. Please let me know if any other country has an ECNL type system. Because their is ECNL and title lx, we will have plenty of talent to pick from.

Also, imo, we develop players and care about the World Cup. The rest is just noise.

[Guest]

New flash, most of the usa really does not care or know what fifa is.

we will continue to have a deep pool of talent on the girls/womens side because the goal is to go play soccer in college and have a great time.

we have the infrastructure of lots of facilities and leagues. Please let me know if any other country has an ECNL type system. Because their is ECNL and title lx, we will have plenty of talent to pick from.

Also, imo, we develop players and care about the World Cup. The rest is just noise.

The player pool for most female players in Europe is based on development in youth clubs that are formally attached to a professional clubs academy. The staff of the professional club Academy do outreach to the youth clubs to make sure the coaches are working in the same way as the staff at the professional club academy.. another words, the professional club academy sets the requirements and the standards. This makes sense, because both sides have an interest in making sure youth players are developing the right way. And there is less emphasis on leagues and more emphasis on educating and overseeing the youth club coaching staff. Like the Yahoo Sports article says. the DA was an attempt to impose coaching standards on youth club coaches but it failed, probably because US Soccer could not enforce the standards and youth clubs figured out quickly that DA was an excellent marketing tool allowing clubs to attract players because of the DA league, and they could ignore the coaching requirements and standards and skip the real development work. Again, like the article says when the DA failed the old DA clubs moved to ECNL, where there is zero, going on in terms of coaching and development, standards, and enforcement of the same.

[Guest]

Here’s how Twitter-verse deals with international players taking spots away from US players:

https://twitter.com/don_k_williams/s...nXvMiM_8iuwTHw

[Guest]

The Rec to Select to ECNL to College to NWSL/USWNT certainly works. Look at Sophia Smith, Naomi Girma, Savanah DeMelo. They’re all smart, creative, and technically sound players. Obviously they’ve learned something along the way.

Is there room for improvement with this pathway? Probably. Look at Spain; a much smaller population that's missing some of its best players and they're still able to compete with the best countries.

[Guest]

New flash, most of the usa really does not care or know what fifa is.

we will continue to have a deep pool of talent on the girls/womens side because the goal is to go play soccer in college and have a great time.

we have the infrastructure of lots of facilities and leagues. Please let me know if any other country has an ECNL type system. Because their is ECNL and title lx, we will have plenty of talent to pick from.

Also, imo, we develop players and care about the World Cup. The rest is just noise.

Tell me you don't know a GD thing about soccer without telling me you don't know a GD thing about soccer

[Guest]

The Rec to Select to ECNL to College to NWSL/USWNT certainly works. Look at Sophia Smith, Naomi Girma, Savanah DeMelo. They’re all smart, creative, and technically sound players. Obviously they’ve learned something along the way.

Is there room for improvement with this pathway? Probably. Look at Spain; a much smaller population that's missing some of its best players and they're still able to compete with the best countries.

I’m curious how they will do agains the good teams. They’ve had advantages from the young ages that none of these other countries had. The disadvantage was a real methodology of soccer. So big head start, but then running at a slower pace. How long can you hold onto your lead?

[Guest]

Don’t hate.

[Guest]

Don’t hate.

Well, the Netherlands has a population of 17.7 million. Isn’t that about the size of the greater Puget Sound area? We sure are getting this soccer thing right:

[Guest]

Well, the Netherlands has a population of 17.7 million. Isn’t that about the size of the greater Puget Sound area? We sure are getting this soccer thing right:

Closer to Southern Californias population.

[Guest]

I’m curious how they will do agains the good teams. They’ve had advantages from the young ages that none of these other countries had. The disadvantage was a real methodology of soccer. So big head start, but then running at a slower pace. How long can you hold onto your lead?

We saw how they would do against a good Dutch team Wednesday night. The US midfield was dreadful until Lavelle entered the match in the second half, which stabilized things. DeMelo and Sullivan were constantly being overrun, which left Horan having to do too much.

[Guest]

I am not a soccer guy and I could see how awful the mids looked. I had to look them up and where they came from, ahhhh.

[Guest]

The Rec to Select to ECNL to College to NWSL/USWNT certainly works. Look at Sophia Smith, Naomi Girma, Savanah DeMelo. They’re all smart, creative, and technically sound players. Obviously they’ve learned something along the way.

Is there room for improvement with this pathway? Probably. Look at Spain; a much smaller population that's missing some of its best players and they're still able to compete with the best countries.

Spain has been fun to watch so far - same with Brazil.

[Guest]

The US team looks soft and not like they’ll go far. Similar to our local soccer scene, there’s been too much distraction with agenda and cancel culture and not enough focus on competitiveness and fitness. The team changed when Horan got angry. Loved that she shoved van de Donk with no penalty. And they were completely fine after the game. A little yelling by the coach and physicality by players isn’t abusive, it’s showing passion and being competitive.