As much as I think I might know about the current local soccer scene (and only a little about the region), I occasionally want to take stock of what has happened in recent years (relatively speaking). So I quickly typed these fact-based, bullet points on how Ga. Soccer has gotten to this point in time.
With all of the changes that have taken place, it can easily be confusing to those that don't have the knowledge of where all of what we have today came from. So let me know where I am inaccurate and help others that have kids that are just now entering this crazy.
• USYS (which Ga. Soccer was a part of) used to run what was known as RPL (aka. R3PL) which would place the top two teams from Athena A
• If you did well in the RPL and were the top two there, you earned a spot in the SRPL and competed in the NL.
• The majority of those teams usually wound up being from the Big 5 Clubs (GSA, CF, NTH, UFA, SSA), with a few teams from midsize and smaller clubs tossed in here and there.
• The “Big 5” clubs broke off from from USYS/Ga Soccer and started SCCL, taking their top teams (including those already in RPL) and put them in their new SCCL League.
• USYS, after the creation of the SCCL, changed the name of RPL to NL-Piedmont. It still takes the top teams from Athena A in Georgia and places them in the NL-Piedmont.
*This is excluding the true top teams were in ECNL and then GDA (which only started 3 years ago). Those teams that made it all the way to NL back then, were on the level of the ECNL teams, on average. The difference being, RPL and NL were/are team-based and the ECNL was/is club-based.
Key for acronyms:
RPL= Regional Premier League
SRPL= Southern Regional Premier League
NL= National Premier League
SCCL= Southeastern Clubs Champions League
