Saying The Quiet Part Out Loud

[Guest]

No. We would find a program with college showcases elsewhere.

This response validates the coach in the article who said ECNL is marketing plan for clubs so they can attract players even though they are not developing players properly. It also makes me wonder about something important: if your kid is not being trained properly and the club is not really developing them, then what are you showing off at the college showcases? It’s kind of like putting a used Nissan in the showroom of a Ferrari dealership, right? This reminds me of Eddie Johnson who tweeted in 2021:

”I’m literally watching the U-17 girls ECNL college showcase here in Orlando, Florida and I can’t believe the level of play of girls in our country at 17 years old and technically and tactically it’s embarrassing and disappointing to the the sport.”

[Guest]

It also makes me wonder about something important: if your kid is not being trained properly and the club is not really developing them, then what are you showing off at the college showcases?

We work with personal coaches every week. I know it doesn’t replace proper coaching with a team. But almost everyone there is in a similar situation. You just need to be better than most of the people around you. Kids are having fun and building towards their future outside of soccer. My 16yo kid and his close friends understand that professional soccer simply doesn’t pay well.

[Guest]

This response validates the coach in the article who said ECNL is marketing plan for clubs so they can attract players even though they are not developing players properly. It also makes me wonder about something important: if your kid is not being trained properly and the club is not really developing them, then what are you showing off at the college showcases? It’s kind of like putting a used Nissan in the showroom of a Ferrari dealership, right? This reminds me of Eddie Johnson who tweeted in 2021:

”I’m literally watching the U-17 girls ECNL college showcase here in Orlando, Florida and I can’t believe the level of play of girls in our country at 17 years old and technically and tactically it’s embarrassing and disappointing to the the sport.”

Eddie and you can go circle jerk in a corner and argue amongst ypurselves the best development model. The best league draws the best college scouts, which draws the best clubs, which draws the best players.

Yes, great marketing. But there is a purpose. ECNL is the best pathway to college soccer in the US on the girls side. PERIOD.

On boys, perhaps MLS Next first and ECNL second.

[Guest]

This response validates the coach in the article who said ECNL is marketing plan for clubs so they can attract players even though they are not developing players properly. It also makes me wonder about something important: if your kid is not being trained properly and the club is not really developing them, then what are you showing off at the college showcases? It’s kind of like putting a used Nissan in the showroom of a Ferrari dealership, right? This reminds me of Eddie Johnson who tweeted in 2021:

”I’m literally watching the U-17 girls ECNL college showcase here in Orlando, Florida and I can’t believe the level of play of girls in our country at 17 years old and technically and tactically it’s embarrassing and disappointing to the the sport.”

And this is why the women’s game in the US will go the same way as the men’s. The rest of the world is getting better and training their players to play creatively and focusing on skill and the soccer mind - not just on finding and stacking teams with the biggest players they can find. Colleges here do the same thing. Look at the typical college roster - 90% of the girls are huge and the game is so slow and boring. This will be the last World Cup that the USWNT are favored in - unless something drastic changes.

[Guest]

And this is why the women’s game in the US will go the same way as the men’s. The rest of the world is getting better and training their players to play creatively and focusing on skill and the soccer mind - not just on finding and stacking teams with the biggest players they can find. Colleges here do the same thing. Look at the typical college roster - 90% of the girls are huge and the game is so slow and boring. This will be the last World Cup that the USWNT are favored in - unless something drastic changes.

Moronic statement. Did you even look at the other top contenders in fifa? Here's the top 5 according to Fifa and Australia since they are the host.

Sweden: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squad/_/id/2764/sweden
Germany: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squad/_/id/2756/ger.w
Australia: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squ...2751/australia
England: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squ...d/5159/england

France: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squad/_/id/2755/france

Sorry which of these teams is small and plays creatively?

[Guest]

And this is why the women’s game in the US will go the same way as the men’s. The rest of the world is getting better and training their players to play creatively and focusing on skill and the soccer mind - not just on finding and stacking teams with the biggest players they can find. Colleges here do the same thing. Look at the typical college roster - 90% of the girls are huge and the game is so slow and boring. This will be the last World Cup that the USWNT are favored in - unless something drastic changes.

So what? Clubs and USWNT have enough money to attend all kinds of showcases and find promising athletes, and convince them to join an academy. It has to be funded by sponsors, not parents. I’m not going to throw time and money on a slim chance of making it to a short career in professional soccer.

[Guest]

So what? Clubs and USWNT have enough money to attend all kinds of showcases and find promising athletes, and convince them to join an academy. It has to be funded by sponsors, not parents. I’m not going to throw time and money on a slim chance of making it to a short career in professional soccer.

Spot on. Parents with money won’t prioritize soccer future for their children.

Alex Ferguson:

"Almost all football players have working-class roots. Understandably, middle-class parents want to make sure their boys go to college or acquire skills which means football never gets as much attention in those households. Around the world, football attracts boys for whom further education is unlikely and who have no choice but to work very hard on acquiring and improving their football skills as the path towards a better life.

For almost all the British players who played for me, football was their ticket out of miserable circumstances.

David Beckham came from a small house in East London and his father worked as a heating engineer.

Paul Scholes grew up in a council house in Langley and Nicky Butt hailed from Gorton - both places where you won't see a Bentley parked in the drive.

Wayne Rooney comes from a hard neighbourhood in Liverpool and gave serious thought to becoming a professional boxer.

Danny Welbeck and Wes Brown both grew up in Longsight, a Manchester neighbourhood known for gang violence.

Bryan Robson's dad was a lorry driver.

Rio Ferdinand grew up in Peckham, one of the poorest areas of London.

The list is endless."

Sir Alex Ferguson, 'Leading'

[Guest]

Eddie and you can go circle jerk in a corner and argue amongst ypurselves the best development model. The best league draws the best college scouts, which draws the best clubs, which draws the best players.

Yes, great marketing. But there is a purpose. ECNL is the best pathway to college soccer in the US on the girls side. PERIOD.

On boys, perhaps MLS Next first and ECNL second.

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.

[Guest]

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.

Yes and no. Colleges compete with colleges. It’s great to have international talent, but it’s almost certainly means giving full scholarships. The cost of education is over the roof. At the same time, US families are somewhat ok with paying the cost. They just want to be accepted by a good college.
Remember, everything in this country is about money.

[Guest]

Moronic statement. Did you even look at the other top contenders in fifa? Here's the top 5 according to Fifa and Australia since they are the host.

Sweden: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squad/_/id/2764/sweden
Germany: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squad/_/id/2756/ger.w
Australia: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squ...2751/australia
England: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squ...d/5159/england

France: https://www.espn.com/soccer/team/squad/_/id/2755/france

Sorry which of these teams is small and plays creatively?

Spain, France, England. I don’t expect the likes of Norway, Sweden and Germany to have particularly small players, and they have some very good players. But it’s not just the size of an individual player. It’s the utter reliance on it by some teams and the lack of technical and tactical training here in the US. And it shows - in the run-up and in the first game, not been impressed with the USWNT play.

[Guest]

Spain, France, England. I don’t expect the likes of Norway, Sweden and Germany to have particularly small players, and they have some very good players. But it’s not just the size of an individual player. It’s the utter reliance on it by some teams and the lack of technical and tactical training here in the US. And it shows - in the run-up and in the first game, not been impressed with the USWNT play.

This is 100 percent spot on. In the US-Wales friendly leading up to the World Cup, the best player on the field was OL Reign's Jess Fishlock, who plays for Wales. She's not big, but she has great vision and is clever and tidy on the ball.

[Guest]

Are you out of your mind. Please show your passport. Let me make it clear, the the women players in the ncaa are not international players.

pay for play sucks. But the money the mediocre player families are paying for ecnl is paying for the infrastructure that is allowing us to development a deep pool of players.

what game where you watch? Did you see the young on team usa? It is a nice mix of veterans and talent youth.

just keep dreaming that international are going to be the top players in ncaa Dl soccer.

[Guest]

Are you out of your mind. Please show your passport. Let me make it clear, the the women players in the ncaa are not international players.

pay for play sucks. But the money the mediocre player families are paying for ecnl is paying for the infrastructure that is allowing us to development a deep pool of players.

what game where you watch? Did you see the young on team usa? It is a nice mix of veterans and talent youth.

just keep dreaming that international are going to be the top players in ncaa Dl soccer.

Well, you might want to consider this article from Top Drawer Soccer published just about one month ago stating:

”International additions are a big part of DI women's soccer. Check out the confirmed players set to join in 2023 from outside the United States.”

check out the list of players:

https://www.topdrawersoccer.com/coll...gnees_aid51726

[Guest]

Spain, France, England. I don’t expect the likes of Norway, Sweden and Germany to have particularly small players, and they have some very good players. But it’s not just the size of an individual player. It’s the utter reliance on it by some teams and the lack of technical and tactical training here in the US. And it shows - in the run-up and in the first game, not been impressed with the USWNT play.

#Backtracking

I gave you the top 5 and Australia. Guess why they are the top 5?

[Guest]

This is 100 percent spot on. In the US-Wales friendly leading up to the World Cup, the best player on the field was OL Reign's Jess Fishlock, who plays for Wales. She's not big, but she has great vision and is clever and tidy on the ball.

Wales sucks.

The rest of the world catching up to USWNT has nothing to do with height. It has to do with the fact that the other countries didnt support womens soccer. Take a footballing country, make it cool to support womens soccer and watch it grow.

Stop trying to read into something thats not true. USWNT has tall women, and so do the other top womens programs in the world. Stop.