Big clubs in Cali leaving US Youth

Wow! That’s big news-my nephews play in the league. Those are some big, powerful clubs leaving USYS...going to leave a mark for sure.

...is dead. It’s a shame, but it is what it is.

Yes-and he has a financial incentive to make sure it dies.

...and it’s only destabilizing if you put out a crappy product.

Well, how about the teams that are destroyed by kids leaving for an ECNL team when their club isn’t “knighted” by Lavers and Co? I mean, if I were Lavers I’d love it...and I have to admit, USYS has essentially committed suicide...he has to be licking his chops.

My only real issue with any of these leagues is transparency in membership. IE what are the qualifications for membership? Are the rules applied evenly?


Those clubs in SO-CAL are terrific. Under the old system smaller clubs or teams from clubs could compete against them. This takes that away.
But, like I said, USYS is committing suicide...

Like everything else in life, balance is a beautiful thing.

Not having some form of pro/rel compromises the competition itself, even at the highest of levels. We see it in ECNL since the beginning, and we used it see it in DA. Women's DA in particular was the worst.

Some teams simply do not belong where they're placed, and nobody wins in reality when that happens. We know that to be true at all youth levels. But having strict pro/rel criteria with too many teams dropping down on the other hand (and has happened far too often) is also not good. It has destabilized/dismantled too many teams that still competed relatively well on the field, but couldn't get the points, and all they needed sometimes was just time.

Had they cared to truly find a balance between these two concepts, and had the powers that be put soccer and player development above business, they would have come up with a form of pro/rel within an all club inclusive system and transparent criteria that would make every truly quality in player development club -big or small- viable (not just because of winning), and any new start possible to grow the sport. But such system would raise competition and would ultimately be bad for the current big club business, wouldn't it?

The sport has grown and continues to grow not just here but worldwide. 12+ years after DA/ECNL started all the "Elite" club programs and split USYS, and all the resources, anybody who cares enough can research success and USNT results on his/her own, and figure out whether we have opened or closed the gap between us and the rest of the world in the last decade (both genders).

The other side of the development coin is that wins are evidence of development. Sometimes it just takes a year or two. If its not happening after a couple years, stop floundering and find a better club/team.

DA and ECNL were similar animals, but DA was so top-down with rules and structure whereas ECNL is bottom up, letting the clubs decide how they want to approach development (for better or worse).

Mens USNT declined and Womens USNT got stronger under their relative brand/leagues/hierarchies.

For boys perhaps the top league won't be ECNL, but it also won't be "play the game our way" like DA.

Winning is evidence of team development not necessarily player development. DA/ECNL have been exclusive leagues in order to attract all the top talent for reasons beyond soccer. Recruiting or attracting top talent alone takes care of winning all day long, while individual player development can fall behind. % of DA/ECNL players that didn't continue develop or got replaced has been too high for too long, but those stories are rarely told and are overshadowed by the next recruited stud that makes front page (developed somewhere else) who replaces them next year or the one after.
 
There is little accountability due to the closed market, less competition to worry about and less pressure to the big clubs to improve their development practices. The success the newly recruited players bring to an ECNL team helps sweep under the rug all those failures to develop replaced players who always seem to get the blame in the end (sometimes rightfully so, many more however no).  

They have the best talent after all for over a decade now. The problem has been that while they developed an exclusive market and succeeded to a large degree in top talent consolidation, neither USSF nor ECNL have held their clubs to high enough standards in terms of resources, human and otherwise, that should go well beyond coaching licenses.

You either leave it alone then as it used to be, or you go all-in and build those academies by INVESTING to become "true elite" with standards we see in most parts of the developed soccer world. What we have right now is neither. But we do have market oligopolies in major city centers like Atlanta. I call them cartels. You suggest this cartel environment is conducive to proper individual player development for tomorrow's USNT player, go ahead ...

To a larger scale this is the type of monopoly big corporations want to create through an exclusive league with the most successful European clubs and corrupt FIFA's blessings, and break away from UEFA and their local national federations they have been for over a century. Why do they want to do this? Two true reasons: MONEY & CONTROL. And if they succeed, the consequences to the sport and the federations will be dire.  

I think boys DA helped develop kids. Let's look at the current young guys in Europe. Pulisic, Richards, Reyna, McKennie, Adams all were DA players for several years. The key was DA as a young teen and Europe as an older teen. The two brightest of those guys also had parents (both parents) who played soccer at high levels and thus understood the game AND development. We will look back after 2026 and realize that boys DA was a success. Too late to save it but hopefully something else will have come out (MLS or ECNL or something new) that replicates that.

I do agree with the statement that in pro/rel they demoted teams too easily that were competing. In theory let's say we chose to demote teams from girls ECNL. Let's use the 05 age group. Chosen to demote 2 teams. At the moment that would be FKK and AFU. But both of these teams are on goal differentials of -7 and -8. Meaning they are losing games by an average of fewer than 1 goal per game. By definition doesn't that mean they are competing?? But at the same time there could be a team that was dominating the division below it. Let's say (for the sake of argument SCCL leaders) in the same age group would be Santos and GSA tied at the top with a +3 per game goal differential. What should have happened in youth soccer is to leave the two bottom teams that were competing and just add the dominant teams from the division below. Now if the bottom teams were getting crushed then different story. However one thing that always worried me was that in high school ages they only had (in athena/classic days) 9-12 games and sometimes fewer to get their act together. Injuries, illnesses and just being a new team with a new coach often affected these teams and got them demoted with so little time to adjust. That is why I am happy my older kid plays in an alphabet league with no pro/rel and has for the last 3 seasons. Give the kids time to adjust to a new coach, new teammates, etc.

Now you're getting somewhere. My argument all along has been that pro/rel has been an excuse for the youth soccer split, not the main rea$on  ... 

With or without pro/rel that happens in youth sports. Many follow the shiny new “top” league, or best coach...
I agree there are too many options...dilutes the talent pool. But it does give more kids opportunities to play on a “top” team.

I suppose our system is what the parents want or else we wouldn’t pay for it.

Spot on. Promotion/relegation should be used far more wisely, but should be used. Too many lopsided games are not good for anybody, even the winners hate it (sometimes).  

I don't have an issue with following a coach. Recently I have seen what a difference a really good, caring coach makes to my kids. I assume the majority of kids would feel the same.

Do you really... 😂

Club/player/coach PATHWAY needs to converge, not diverge at the top. Current “we’re better because we said so” system is simply broken.

USSF is Politics. Money and control as stated above is 100% accurate. Men like Sunil achieved quite a bit but it was mostly ephemeral. Temporary financial gains rather than a solid foundation. Just because you could and you did, didn’t necessarily make things better for the next generation. But keep slapping each other on the back during the open mic “good of the game” segment of each board meeting...