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Post by OTPSoccer on Feb 17, 2020 11:24:02 GMT -5
There are rumors of an SCCL expansion for the Fall 2020 season. Does anyone close to Ambush or AFC know if those clubs are committing to SCCL? I know both clubs are fielding teams for Summer SCCL. Curious if there is a bigger move on the horizon.
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Post by justwatching on Feb 17, 2020 11:33:14 GMT -5
I also have heard there will be significant expansion next season for SCCL that would include these clubs and more. Anyone able to confirm the rumors?
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Post by Keeper on Feb 17, 2020 11:50:46 GMT -5
Odd is we were told there would be no Atlanta expansion to SCCL in January.
Though I wouldn’t be surprised to see outer expansion especially with the other ECNL clubs looking for a Regional league like the new one in Carolina.
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Post by ultimatedad on Feb 17, 2020 14:08:16 GMT -5
I heard the SCCLP teams are going to be competing with the SCCL teams in a pre season tournament to determine league membership/alignment. Will be bigger than State Cup.
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Post by greenmonkey on Feb 17, 2020 21:21:32 GMT -5
Hot off the Facebook Page
We are pleased to announce our programming options for the 2020-21 Fall and Spring Seasons! Announcements on new clubs entering SCCL coming soon!
🆕SCCL Premier will be expanding into “team based” divisions which will feature promotion/relegation and a clear pathway for clubs to qualify for the SCCL “club based” top division.
🗓 All applications for the 2020-21 season need to be completed by March 1st.
💻 The application can be found online at bit.ly/SCCLapply
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Post by Keeper on Feb 17, 2020 21:34:35 GMT -5
One, where’s Atlanta Fire?
Two, bye bye Ga Soccer as we know it. Athena/Classic without any Big 5 teams will make another huge dent in competition.
Three, get ready for nothing but mediocre soccer!
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Post by soccermaxx72 on Feb 17, 2020 21:50:52 GMT -5
This is hilarious. Sccl premier 3, which would be the 4th best SCCL team at a club and 5th overall as ecnl would trump all SCCL. A 5th team at a big 5 club, might as well be Athena D, geez. Totally agree mediocre soccer is coming. From the Facebook page I also see Pro/relegation with arrows from premier 1-3 but don’t see arrow from premier to SCCL. Until SCCL teams can be demoted to premier then no real big changes except big 5 will be pulling their lower teams out of Georgia soccer.
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Post by soccernoleuk on Feb 17, 2020 22:46:28 GMT -5
One, where’s Atlanta Fire? Two, bye bye Ga Soccer as we know it. Athena/Classic without any Big 5 teams will make another huge dent in competition. Three, get ready for nothing but mediocre soccer! 1. They are in SCCL-P. My guess is they are staying in SCCL Premier 1. They will most likely then have their next lower teams fill into SCCL Premier 2 & SCCL Premier 3. 2. Correct. It doesn't look like much will be left for Athena/Classic 3. More than likely correct. |
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Post by atlfutboldad on Feb 17, 2020 22:50:10 GMT -5
Agreed, unless they get good better participation from other clubs, pro/rel won't make sense (especially by club into the primary tier). Not like any of the other clubs would really be okay with NTH having 2 SCCL girls or UFA having 2 SCCL boys teams. IMO boys and girls sides should be treated separately.
I believe that AFU expects the club will get a spot in SCCL first level next year. If they don't, this year will have proven a waste (finishing 1st overall on girls side of SCCL-P and possibly the league as a whole) and they club should petition to join other leagues.
Also, there's no way that CESA can field competitive girls teams in both ECRL and SCCL, they're really not that competitive in SCCL NOW (probably average about 5th place). If they delegate their 3rd team to SCCL, they'll get crushed.
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Post by soccernoleuk on Feb 17, 2020 22:56:00 GMT -5
 The way I read this, SCCL will remain the same for 2020-2021. It does look like they are adding a path to move from Premier to SCCL, but that would need to be on a club basis, and not an individual team basis. Also, SCCL Premier will have 3 divisions and will be Team based instead of Club Based. So, just because a club places a team in Premier 1, it doesn't mean they will also have teams in Premier 2 and/or Premier 3. This is also where the standard Pro/Rel will take place on a team basis. just my .02 cents. |
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Post by justwatching on Feb 17, 2020 23:31:10 GMT -5
I would like to understand the "clear pathway to SCCL" and also wonder how many new clubs will enter. With the bullet point "small club friendly" I expect SCCL-P X will add most decent clubs/teams that apply and will almost completely replace GA Soccer. There will likely be outliers at the really small clubs that get left out and really have no where to go. I also think this will potentially have clubs like AFC pull out of NPL and opt to join some SCCL-P/SCCL division.
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Post by atlfutboldad on Feb 17, 2020 23:53:06 GMT -5
No way AFC should ditch the dwindling/diminishing SA-NPL for SCCL-P and below path-to-SCCL. It's a perception and level issue.
SCCL itself can be seen as nearly NL-ish-level (half the teams are definitely weaker), but joining anything below puts a glass ceiling on your entire club (which helps the big clubs recruiting from your player base).
No medium-sized clubs (IAFC, Roswell, AFC, Impact, Red Star, etc) should join this model, as they would be candidates for NL. The majority of medium-sized clubs first teams should be in the top state league (in this case SCCL).
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Post by atv on Feb 18, 2020 8:00:18 GMT -5
I see this affecting girls teams more than boys, at least at first. Girls numbers and talent are much more consolidated at the big 5 clubs. The big 5 clubs are fielding many, many competitive teams at each age level. With further attrition out of GA Soccer with attrition of maybe 30-percent or more of the overall girls (swag) with whole teams as well as individual players leaving. I just don’t see GA Soccer being that competitive going forward or at least this is the beginning of the end.
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Post by slickdaddy96 on Feb 18, 2020 8:16:10 GMT -5
This will be the nail in the coffin for GA Soccer. I expected 1 more division but to put 2 more divisions in with promotion and relegation for Premier 1-3, I don't think other clubs not currently in SCCL will have any choice but to apply and play in SCCL-P divisions.
The Big clubs in the Champions SCCL division are still keeping their power though. It looks as if your are a big 5 club team that win SCCL-P(1) you will still be at the mercy of your club on whether they demote their current Championship SCCL division team to promote you. Also it seems if you are in SCCL-P(1) and not a member of the Big 5, it would mean most likely you have no pathway to the Championship SCCL division at all since it is club based, and your club is not currently in the Championship division.
Overall it will be run better than GA Soccer. There will be more games than the Classic/Athena system, so this will probably be a good thing.
As far as AFC goes, I don't see how they have much of a choice. They don't have DA after U14 on the Boys side, so I see them still playing NPL and then entering SCCL 1,2,3 for all their other teams on both girls and boys side. Inter Atlanta and all the mid size clubs will have to do the same or be shut out.
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Post by atlfutboldad on Feb 18, 2020 8:29:23 GMT -5
I agree with atv, it affects the girls more than the boys due to the already consolidated nature of the girls side. On the boys side it wont attract KSA, Athens, Rome, etc. On the girls side...Inter, CFC and Roswell would be dumb to put their top teams into this glass ceiling hierarchy when most of those teams are currently playing in NL. Stay in GA soccer and have easier access to 2nd tier NL is better than being outside looking in on SCCL. Will see what happens regarding AFU and AFC, but there's 2 clubs that probably should be relegated from SCCL THIS YEAR. I don't see a clear pathway to SCCL...only the vague statement of such. |
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Post by soccermaxx72 on Feb 18, 2020 8:35:03 GMT -5
No way AFC should ditch the dwindling/diminishing SA-NPL for SCCL-P and below path-to-SCCL. It's a perception and level issue. SCCL itself can be seen as nearly NL-ish-level (half the teams are definitely weaker), but joining anything below puts a glass ceiling on your entire club (which helps the big clubs recruiting from your player base). No medium-sized clubs (IAFC, Roswell, AFC, Impact, Red Star, etc) should join this model, as they would be candidates for NL. The majority of medium-sized clubs first teams should be in the top state league (in this case SCCL). Totally agree with you. On the girls side, Clubs like Roswell, interatlanta, CFC, AFC and the occasional competitive LSA team should absolutely stay in a Georgia Soccer as they have an now an even easier path to the NL which is atleast as good if not better than SCCL and clearly a step above SCCL premier which is so wrongly named as it is anything but premier. ** Also, if AFU is not guaranteed SCCL for next season they should crawl back to Georgia Soccer, they are too competitive for their second team to be in SCCL premier |
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Post by slickdaddy96 on Feb 18, 2020 8:59:31 GMT -5
I agree with atv , it affects the girls more than the boys due to the already consolidated nature of the girls side. On the boys side it wont attract KSA, Athens, Rome, etc. On the girls side...Inter, CFC and Roswell would be dumb to put their top teams into this glass ceiling hierarchy when most of those teams are currently playing in NL. Stay in GA soccer and have easier access to 2nd tier NL is better than being outside looking in on SCCL. Will see what happens regarding AFU and AFC, but there's 2 clubs that probably should be relegated from SCCL THIS YEAR. I don't see a clear pathway to SCCL...only the vague statement of such. On the boys side I think you are right. I see at least one club that should definitely be kicked out of SCCL Top Division. That would be GSA. They are consistently at the bottom of the top division on the boys side. Same goes for their teams in SCCL-P as well. Most of those SCCL-P team for them need to be playing SCCL-2 or SCCL-3 next season. Probably won't happen though, because if you think about it if GSA is going to get a team in each of their divisions, this team currently in SCCL and SCCL-P are the best two teams or their 2nd and 3rd best teams in their club. They don't have any team below them that are better than their current teams they got in there. |
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Post by atv on Feb 18, 2020 9:09:35 GMT -5
I could be wrong here but I just don’t see “girls” leagues outside of the big 5 associated leagues being that competitive. In terms of depth and numbers.
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Post by OTPSoccer on Feb 18, 2020 9:21:30 GMT -5
No way AFC should ditch the dwindling/diminishing SA-NPL for SCCL-P and below path-to-SCCL. It's a perception and level issue. SCCL itself can be seen as nearly NL-ish-level (half the teams are definitely weaker), but joining anything below puts a glass ceiling on your entire club (which helps the big clubs recruiting from your player base). No medium-sized clubs (IAFC, Roswell, AFC, Impact, Red Star, etc) should join this model, as they would be candidates for NL. The majority of medium-sized clubs first teams should be in the top state league (in this case SCCL). Totally agree with you. On the girls side, Clubs like Roswell, interatlanta, CFC, AFC and the occasional competitive LSA team should absolutely stay in a Georgia Soccer as they have an now an even easier path to the NL which is atleast as good if not better than SCCL and clearly a step above SCCL premier which is so wrongly named as it is anything but premier. ** Also, if AFU is not guaranteed SCCL for next season they should crawl back to Georgia Soccer, they are too competitive for their second team to be in SCCL premier On the boys side, AFU did not impress enough in Fall 2019 to get promoted club-wide to SCCL-1. They did have a couple of 2nd place finishes, and I suspect those teams would be welcome additions to the top bracket. As far as the comments on mediocre competition, I agree that Classic III is mediocre... much like SCCL-3 will likely be mediocre. There should be a league for every soccer player in GA. I don't see a need to lament the competitiveness of lower tier leagues. Having a pathway for a child that is improving at Classic III or SCCL-3 is more important. Last comment: I agree with the comments on the glass ceiling for smaller clubs. I'll be interested to see how the team-based pro/rel works. There are top teams at Santos & Ambush (as examples) that could win SCCL-1. I hope they get their chance. |
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Post by girlsoccer on Feb 18, 2020 9:23:53 GMT -5
I could be wrong here but I just don’t so “girls” leagues outside of the big 5 associated leagues being that competitive. In terms of depth and numbers. I guess it would depend upon what you mean by competitive- with who/what level? At the DA/ECNL level then you are correct. But Roswell, Rush, Inter and Impact NL teams could easily compete very well at the SCCL level (top SCCL, not SCCL-p). In fact, I’d bet some of those NL teams could win SCCL. Those clubs are not as deep though so couldnt field a team in SCCL and each of the SCCL- p brackets but doesn’t sound like they would have to do that under this new system. I am interested to hear details on the “path” to SCCL. It would need to be clearly spelled out. |
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Post by putmeincoach on Feb 18, 2020 9:28:26 GMT -5
I would agree with this. I think GA soccer won't have many levels or teams left to play. Seems like there will be maybe Athena A/B and that's it and the level will be all over the place. Outside of the occasional NL (real NL) teams GA puts out and ECNL/GDA the levels of all these leagues will be mediocre to poor at best. There will be a few quality NPL teams, a few quality SCCL-1 teams, and a few quality Piedmont teams all playing in leagues where half the teams are the near the proper level. Youth soccer has gone completely off the rails. I could be wrong here but I just don’t so “girls” leagues outside of the big 5 associated leagues being that competitive. In terms of depth and numbers. |
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Post by slickdaddy96 on Feb 18, 2020 9:55:54 GMT -5
I would agree with this. I think GA soccer won't have many levels or teams left to play. Seems like there will be maybe Athena A/B and that's it and the level will be all over the place. Outside of the occasional NL (real NL) teams GA puts out and ECNL/GDA the levels of all these leagues will be mediocre to poor at best. There will be a few quality NPL teams, a few quality SCCL-1 teams, and a few quality Piedmont teams all playing in leagues where half the teams are the near the proper level. Youth soccer has gone completely off the rails. I could be wrong here but I just don’t so “girls” leagues outside of the big 5 associated leagues being that competitive. In terms of depth and numbers. Agree it has gone off the rails, but GA Soccer had years of complaints and time to fix it, and they didn't. They then start making changes reactionary to their losing massive teams out of the GA Soccer system. It was too little too late at that point. My kid is on an SCCL-p team. There are more games than Classic. They have all been competitive for his team's level as well with the exception of 1-2 teams. They have trainers at the fields for games, they are getting turf fields most of the time so we play rain or shine, and most referees have been a step above what we were getting for Classic games. Overall its better than my experience in Classic. My only complaint would be that the "secrecy" of the league needs to stop. All this coded messages like "pathway to SCCL" etc... is just lip service until they spell out exactly how everything will work in writing. Also there needs to be more ability for the individual teams to work a re-schedule if there is an occasional conflict. How it works now is that the club schedules all the games on one day, and if for some reason 1-2 teams can't play that day they re-schedule everyone's game to a date that all teams can play. That is kind of stupid. If 1-2 teams can't play a particular weekend let the Team Managers and Coaches work it out for themselves. |
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Post by honeybadger on Feb 18, 2020 11:22:28 GMT -5
It won't be more watered down. Only the letters will change and those running the league. It's still the same amount of kids in Georgia playing soccer. If DA/ECNL ever went away, then the top kids would just play in whatever is considered the top whether its ABC, XYZ, ot whatever else they come up with.
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Post by justwatching on Feb 18, 2020 11:59:15 GMT -5
No way AFC should ditch the dwindling/diminishing SA-NPL for SCCL-P and below path-to-SCCL. It's a perception and level issue. SCCL itself can be seen as nearly NL-ish-level (half the teams are definitely weaker), but joining anything below puts a glass ceiling on your entire club (which helps the big clubs recruiting from your player base). No medium-sized clubs (IAFC, Roswell, AFC, Impact, Red Star, etc) should join this model, as they would be candidates for NL. The majority of medium-sized clubs first teams should be in the top state league (in this case SCCL). Totally agree with you. On the girls side, Clubs like Roswell, interatlanta, CFC, AFC and the occasional competitive LSA team should absolutely stay in a Georgia Soccer as they have an now an even easier path to the NL which is atleast as good if not better than SCCL and clearly a step above SCCL premier which is so wrongly named as it is anything but premier. ** Also, if AFU is not guaranteed SCCL for next season they should crawl back to Georgia Soccer, they are too competitive for their second team to be in SCCL premier The problem with this, specifically for AFC, is that other than a couple teams their top teams are not in GA Soccer anyways. They pulled out last year so they have a glass ceiling in NPL already. NPL is maybe a little better than SCCL but maybe not. My question would be is it that much better than SCCL to still do the travel that NPL requires versus SCCL? I doubt it but that's my opinion. I would have made the argument for AFC not to pullout of GA Soccer last year and still have potential access to Piedmont League and National League. I do ultimately agree those medium sized clubs should stay out but I don't think that will happen. I expect all those clubs that were listed above to enter SCCL at some level in the league. Only teams that are left will be the really small guys |
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Post by Soccerhouse on Feb 18, 2020 12:29:14 GMT -5
these clubs should just pull out of npl and put there top npl teams in sccl. and if a club deserves needs 2 spots in the top division of sccl, let them have it. Does it really matter??
NPL is hindering SCCL in my opinion, muddies the water a bit. Just get out of it.
have DA, ECNL and then SCCL.......
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Post by atlfutboldad on Feb 18, 2020 12:56:46 GMT -5
South Atlantic NPL is a mess at this point, it isn't standing under its own weight. Losing 5 clubs in 2 years tells you the league isn't as great as we'd like to think it is. Currently they have 6 clubs for 2020-21 and at this point and 2 of them are over a 5-hour drive from ATL, would arbitrarily adding more clubs be a step down? This is the only reason I'd postulate that AFC needs a better option for their first teams.
CESA and SCUFC should be pulling out of SCCL/SCCL-P, no reason for their 3rd teams (if they even have many 3rd teams) to travel much out of state for competitive soccer when there should be plenty of teams at that level in-state.
@soccerhouse ...add NTH and DPL to that statement also. I think all these big clubs want a "sellable" intermediate travel 2nd tier league for their 2nd teams (NPL for SSA/UFA, DPL for NTH), which for most of the clubs is justifiable.
And to what many have been saying relative to NL and SCCL, I think the top 2-3 SCCL teams can compete in NL, but the NL Piedmont should than SCCL overall as a league.
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Post by guest on Feb 18, 2020 13:53:05 GMT -5
I agree with atv , it affects the girls more than the boys due to the already consolidated nature of the girls side. On the boys side it wont attract KSA, Athens, Rome, etc. On the girls side...Inter, CFC and Roswell would be dumb to put their top teams into this glass ceiling hierarchy when most of those teams are currently playing in NL. Stay in GA soccer and have easier access to 2nd tier NL is better than being outside looking in on SCCL. Will see what happens regarding AFU and AFC, but there's 2 clubs that probably should be relegated from SCCL THIS YEAR. I don't see a clear pathway to SCCL...only the vague statement of such. On the boys side I think you are right. I see at least one club that should definitely be kicked out of SCCL Top Division. That would be GSA. They are consistently at the bottom of the top division on the boys side. Same goes for their teams in SCCL-P as well. Most of those SCCL-P team for them need to be playing SCCL-2 or SCCL-3 next season. Probably won't happen though, because if you think about it if GSA is going to get a team in each of their divisions, this team currently in SCCL and SCCL-P are the best two teams or their 2nd and 3rd best teams in their club. They don't have any team below them that are better than their current teams they got in there. Hmm I’m not so sure. If you exclude the U12 division which GSA still splits up into North and South teams, they finished middle of the road in the Fall. From U13 to U19, their teams finished 2, 4, 7, 6, 5 and 3rd. If anyone should be related it should be CESA. As of now SCCL is club based and CESA is about to move their 2nd team to ECRL. So their 3rd team (currently in SCCL-P) would really struggle in SCCL next year. This would be the time to relegate CESA and promote AFU. |
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Post by guest on Feb 18, 2020 13:58:51 GMT -5
I would agree with this. I think GA soccer won't have many levels or teams left to play. Seems like there will be maybe Athena A/B and that's it and the level will be all over the place. Outside of the occasional NL (real NL) teams GA puts out and ECNL/GDA the levels of all these leagues will be mediocre to poor at best. There will be a few quality NPL teams, a few quality SCCL-1 teams, and a few quality Piedmont teams all playing in leagues where half the teams are the near the proper level. Youth soccer has gone completely off the rails. Agree it has gone off the rails, but GA Soccer had years of complaints and time to fix it, and they didn't. They then start making changes reactionary to their losing massive teams out of the GA Soccer system. It was too little too late at that point. My kid is on an SCCL-p team. There are more games than Classic. They have all been competitive for his team's level as well with the exception of 1-2 teams. They have trainers at the fields for games, they are getting turf fields most of the time so we play rain or shine, and most referees have been a step above what we were getting for Classic games. Overall its better than my experience in Classic. My only complaint would be that the "secrecy" of the league needs to stop. All this coded messages like "pathway to SCCL" etc... is just lip service until they spell out exactly how everything will work in writing. Also there needs to be more ability for the individual teams to work a re-schedule if there is an occasional conflict. How it works now is that the club schedules all the games on one day, and if for some reason 1-2 teams can't play that day they re-schedule everyone's game to a date that all teams can play. That is kind of stupid. If 1-2 teams can't play a particular weekend let the Team Managers and Coaches work it out for themselves. Well their post does say ‘stay tuned’ and ‘announcements coming soon’ so I would not call that secrecy just an early promotional blast. Team application deadline is March 1st so after that I bet you will get some clarity about how promotion to SCCL would work, once they see how many clubs apply. I agree with you I am skeptical how promotion from team based SCCL-P to club based SCCL could realistically work. Also the game scheduling thing is one of the key points of the club based system. All clubs teams play another clubs teams all on one day. It may be ‘kind of stupid’ but that is the way the league is set up. It should be clear from the doc to the coach to the tm to the parent to the player. Here’s who we are playing and when. |
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Post by slickdaddy96 on Feb 18, 2020 14:56:55 GMT -5
Well their post does say ‘stay tuned’ and ‘announcements coming soon’ so I would not call that secrecy just an early promotional blast. Team application deadline is March 1st so after that I bet you will get some clarity about how promotion to SCCL would work, once they see how many clubs apply. I agree with you I am skeptical how promotion from team based SCCL-P to club based SCCL could realistically work. Also the game scheduling thing is one of the key points of the club based system. All clubs teams play another clubs teams all on one day. It may be ‘kind of stupid’ but that is the way the league is set up. It should be clear from the doc to the coach to the tm to the parent to the player. Here’s who we are playing and when. But this does not take into account clubs that have branch location teams playing in SCCL or SCCL-P currently. I'll give you an example. SSA always looks after their central and northern teams over other branch locations. They always make sure that certain weekends are blocked off for their kids that are in those school systems. For Spring break (where everyone is pretty much off the same week) it isn't a big deal. For other odds and ends breaks like Winter break this week for a lot of counties but not all, SSA didn't care to try to keep their teams from playing. So they played SCCL/SCCL-P games Sunday where certain teams didn't have enough kids to field a team due to kids being on vacation, and had to get guest players just to get to 11 players. Even after this was brought to the attention to the SCCL Director nothing got changed. This is an example of when letting one team change the date would have been useful. The flyer says SCCL 1,2,3 will be team based, and SCCL Top division is still club. I hope that means that for SCCL 1,2,3 the individual teams will have more options to schedule games next season since it is team based supposedly. I also hope that means that big clubs like SSA will allow branch location teams that are in SCCL 1,2,3 to be able to play at their actual home fields instead of always having to play at a Cobb based location. Don't get me wrong the turf fields are great, but driving an hour or more for a "home" game is kind of stupid. As it is if rain is in the forecast a turf field can always be arranged last minute to get the game in. Also to talk about CESA, I'm not sure they even have teams in SCCL-P currently and if they do they are in SCCL-P East because I know my kid's team doesn't play CESA. They play Carolina FC, but not CESA. I don't believe they are the same club correct? |
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Post by atlfutboldad on Feb 18, 2020 15:29:13 GMT -5
Correct on CESA, their 3rd teams are not in SCCL-P. They play in Carolina Youth Soccer's Challenge and Presidents leagues. Carolina FC is in the SCCL-P west, which was pretty stupid also.
I get it if the Big 5 want to keep their 2nd/3rd teams "grandfathered" in SCCL to have that recruiting bonus. Both CESA and BUSA didn't do very well (7th and 8th place overall). I think that a club having more than one team in SCCL would just further the consolidation madness that lead to Smyrna becoming part of NTH. See a club with good teams, acquire it, and try to buy your way into more teams in the top league (see the CF/Milton acquisition 2 years ago).
The only way promotion into SCCL would work if a club could get enough teams into SCCL-P1 and had a majority of them win the bracket. Thats a tall order IMO.
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