Betheda Soccer YDP Girls Team - Meaning of Levels?

[fkhmckensie]

Can someone please explain the different team levels in the YDP U8-U11. We are new to travel soccer and do not understand what the different levels mean. For example, for U9 there are four levels: ECNL I, ECNL II, Pre ECNL and Blue. I presume that ECNL I is the top team and ECNL II is the second top team? Is that accurate? So does that mean Pre-ECNL is third team and Blue are the bottom teams? Is there a difference in skill level with who made Pre-ECNL and Blue? Also, is there more than one team per level? Meaning, are there a couple of teams for the same age in ECNL I? Also, are the top teams typically made up of girls who have played with Bethesda before and the Pre-ECNL and Blue teams mostly new girls? During tryouts the coaches told the girls that there is a place for everyone. This gave me the impression that the tryouts were just to place people on appropriate skill level teams. Given that, I am just trying to get a realistic idea of where my daughter's skill level is. Thanks.

[akindc]

Bethesda changed their naming structure a few years back, getting rid of most of the colors in an effort to make it sound like your kid was in a higher program than they actually are, and try to retain more people that way.

So instead of Blue being the highest, then Green, etc, they moved to league designations.

For the boys, you have Academy 1, Academy 2, Academy 3, and then Blue is the fourth team.
For girls, you have ECNL 1, ECNL 2, Pre ECNL and again, Blue is the fourth team.

A full chart of the girls teams is here:
www.bethesdasoccer.org/girlsteams/

There is normally one team for each level.

As to placements, if your kid is trying out off the street, and they haven't seen her play, it's really rare to get onto a top team.

And as for "a place for everyone", that's true for most big programs now...they'll form as many teams as they have kids that want to play, even though some of those bottom teams will barely be better than rec teams.

Not picking on Bethesda here...most of what I said here can be applied to most of the top programs.