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Post by damonsta on Sept 10, 2019 10:15:09 GMT -5
Apparently in the 8/15 update to policies, for the 2020-2021 season, Piedmont is merging with Sunshine conference with only Premier 1 as the level of play and up to 14 teams per age group.
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Post by atlfutboldad on Sept 10, 2019 10:31:29 GMT -5
Dwindling participation creates necessity. As far as I could tell, South Carolina has largely dropped NL altogether in favor of SCCL.
Truth is, not many people WANT TO travel that far for regular season games. Having more games in-state is a much better and more enjoyable prospect. 14 games per season is about perfect.
In my opinion...NL, ECNL, NPL, etc SHOULD BE adjunct leagues. Or for ECNL it should be a larger pool split into divisions. IMO it would be awesome if the top 2-4 teams in Athena/Classic STAY in Athena/Classic but play 6-8 games against regional teams (2 away weekends, 2 home weekends). Treat NL as an adjunct "champions league" rather than a separate league. I don't know who runs these organizations who think "soccer families LOVE lots of travel".
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Post by girlsoccer on Sept 10, 2019 10:43:14 GMT -5
I just glanced at the sunshine league, which I had never even heard of before. Looks like mostly Florida teams? Does that mean the NL Piedmont teams will have the pleasure of traveling to Raleigh to S.C. AND to Florida for regular season games?
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Post by atlfutboldad on Sept 10, 2019 11:27:38 GMT -5
I just glanced at the sunshine league, which I had never even heard of before. Looks like mostly Florida teams? Does that mean the NL Piedmont teams will have the pleasure of traveling to Raleigh to S.C. AND to Florida for regular season games? That would be my assumption. Because soccer families love travel! At least one of the Sunchine League 6-team brackets is short 2 teams. |
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Post by oraclesfriend on Sept 10, 2019 12:18:23 GMT -5
Basically the old RPL was to SC and Florida so this would just put that back and add NC.
This is more travel than ECNL or NPL, but less than DPL (at the moment though that could change and they have very few games too in DPL).
This whole thing is a giant mess IMO. Didn't they (USYS) redo it in part to limit travel and now they made it worse than it was originally. Everyone keeps chasing the "top" leagues.
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Post by footyfan on Sept 10, 2019 14:03:36 GMT -5
Is there a link to the policy/change?
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Post by damonsta on Sept 10, 2019 14:21:59 GMT -5
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Post by putmeincoach on Sept 10, 2019 15:48:53 GMT -5
So they are adding the top 2 teams in the Sunshine Conference. I see this as a positive. Piedmont needed some depth as bottom third of the teams are terrible in the majority of the Conference. Premier 2 is also not needed, so that'll keep more teams in state by dropping it. I imagine GA teams will make 1 trip to SC and 1 to either FL or NC with the rest of the games in State. That's not a terrible travel schedule either. |
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