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Post by Soccerhouse on Mar 15, 2017 10:48:20 GMT -5
Interesting that none of the North Carolina or Virginia Teams were on board with boys ecnl (besides Braddock Road, Virginia)
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Post by zizou on Mar 15, 2017 11:03:01 GMT -5
Two things:
1. Girls map is not complete so I doubt the boys map is complete. There will be at least one GDA drop and ECNL addition this week. 2. Probably smart to start with a more compact boys league anyway. Also probably smart for new clubs to go with either girls or boys in first year. Might be tough to start two new programs from scratch.
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Post by zizou on Mar 27, 2017 18:49:49 GMT -5
Well, since this post there have been 2 former GDA clubs who are no longer separate entities. Eastside FC in Western Washington has been swallowed by Seattle Reign. US Soccer has a hilarious story about this on their front page ("Reign Academy Expands Through Partnership With Seattle United FC and Eastside FC"), making no mention of Eastside having been a GDA club until this "merger". I am not saying it is a bad thing Seattle Reign (who were already partnering with Seattle United even though the story makes it sound like this is a new thing; they are partnered already for their ECNL teams) are going to funnel elite players from Eastside to their Elite teams. But this story from US Soccer is like some sort of fake news report one might see from a political group that did not want to report the actual facts. On the positive side for US Soccer, they at least removed Eastside FC from the GDA map. As for De Anza Force, who evidently are staying with ECNL, US Soccer still has them listed on their webpage as a GDA club. Curious. De Anza had been working out contractual obligations with ECNL which lead to them not being included in the most recent ECNL alignment map (ECNL would not let them do both). De Anza were evidently supposed to be partnering with Portland Thorns, who were going to run a GDA in Portland and then another one in Northern California (called California Thorns). But see this: De Anza and ECNLEvidently the Thorns youth setup is not regarded positively in Oregon; they do not have Elite girls teams (or at least what we here would call that level of team), but they received a GDA by virtue of NWSL franchise. No problem there. Hope it works out (If you build it they will come and all). One wonders, though, how they would pull off managing TWO Elite youth team setups in different states when they evidently have no experience running one such setup. Nothing I can find on any Thorns webpage about GDA. Maybe someone else sees something. Just find it strange. Are clubs in our area shy about advertising such affiliations? In addition, there seem to be rumblings in Northern California that the California Storm (another Northern California GDA affiliate which on the youth side was a partnership between San Juan Soccer Club and Davis Legacy) is not happening. There is no information on GDA on either club's webpage, no information that I can find about team formation on the Storm webpage, and both San Juan and Davis are listed as ECNL clubs for next year. ECNL would not put them up there if they were in any way associated with GDA (part of the line in the sand). GDA should be a small number of clubs anyway to meet the stated objectives. Personal opinion that 3 GDA clubs in ATL and 1,000,000 such clubs in Florida is a terrible idea, but I know nothing.
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Post by SoccerMom on Mar 28, 2017 7:18:13 GMT -5
ECNL would not put them up there if they were in any way associated with GDA (part of the line in the sand). But they are willing to make exceptions -- TH, CF, Boca, Charlotte etc....
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Post by zizou on Mar 28, 2017 8:30:38 GMT -5
Boca and Charlotte are no longer in ECNL. The Charlotte club in ECNL is not the Charlotte club in GDA. Boca could not compete in one decent league let alone 2. Same with Weston. Boca and Weston should have cooperated to have one GDA team. Wait until you see those teams play. Good golly. Would not be competitive in Athena A across many age groups. TH and CF are in both leagues by virtue of qualification for Champions League of a minimum number of teams (I think 4 of 5 age groups). That is only happening for a very few clubs around country that have demonstrated top to bottom excellence. That is great for TH and CF. We will see whether they can maintain competitiveness in both leagues. Maybe a TH/CF person knows whether they have to maintain some level of excellence year after year for ECNL to agree to such an arrangement in subsequent years. Or maybe TH/CF are just signing one year contracts with ECNL at this point.
Also interesting to see that Naomi Girma (starting Center back for U17 YNT in recent World Cup) will be playing for De Anza U18 ECNL squad next year. She just moved to that club. Did not choose a GDA club in the area.
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Post by SoccerMom on Mar 28, 2017 8:40:12 GMT -5
Also interesting to see that Naomi Girma (starting Center back for U17 YNT in recent World Cup) will be playing for De Anza U18 ECNL squad next year. She just moved to that club. Did not choose a GDA club in the area. I am going to assume that will change. I expect US Soccer to require their female players to play DA just like they did the boys
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Post by zizou on Mar 28, 2017 8:51:18 GMT -5
Maybe, but that would be pretty dumb with the poor country coverage they have right now. Although "cutting off nose to spite face" would be about the level of operational sophistication I would expect from the USSF.
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