ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is MLS NEXT adding Quality of Play rankings specifically to U13 and U14?
There are just over 5,600 U13 and U14 players registered in MLS NEXT, more than 1/3 of the organization’s 16,000 players across the U.S. and Canada. They are the two most malleable age groups.

Robles referenced the book, "Outliers," in which author Malcom Gladwell tracked how American hockey players born in the first three months of the year were more likely to go pro.

They had been bigger and stronger when they were younger, and thus placed into a top-level national pipeline because they were fortunate enough to be born in January, February or March.

"If you're born in January, as opposed to someone that's born in December in the same year, it’s 10% of muscle development,” Robles said. “You're not even sure which direction that's going. We have to find ways to be able to mitigate that."

Because that is the last year before they enter “the sprint” of the academy….duh.

How are so many of you obsessed with the pathway but so obtuse about it too?

Who's obtuse? This is literally what the technical director for MLSN stated, it's his quote.

link?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why is MLS NEXT adding Quality of Play rankings specifically to U13 and U14?
There are just over 5,600 U13 and U14 players registered in MLS NEXT, more than 1/3 of the organization’s 16,000 players across the U.S. and Canada. They are the two most malleable age groups.

Robles referenced the book, "Outliers," in which author Malcom Gladwell tracked how American hockey players born in the first three months of the year were more likely to go pro.

They had been bigger and stronger when they were younger, and thus placed into a top-level national pipeline because they were fortunate enough to be born in January, February or March.

"If you're born in January, as opposed to someone that's born in December in the same year, it’s 10% of muscle development,” Robles said. “You're not even sure which direction that's going. We have to find ways to be able to mitigate that."

Because that is the last year before they enter “the sprint” of the academy….duh.

How are so many of you obsessed with the pathway but so obtuse about it too?

Who's obtuse? This is literally what the technical director for MLSN stated, it's his quote.

link?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/sports/2025/04/02/mls-next-quality-of-play-rankings-explainer/82772806007/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remember folks this is an anonymous message board! Check out MLSN newest post on Instagram, they will rank their U-13/14's based on quality of play, pretty cool program that every club/league should take part in eventually. Looks like the Q4's who have developed tactically because of their lack of size will be advantaged under this new ranking system.


Can you post a link or screenshot? I couldn't find this. Thx!

MLSN will do whatever they want. They will not be peer pressured into 9/1. Glad they are thinking outside the box.

Wrong. They will do whatever can bring in more money. The scam "MLSN2" is a good indication. The moment they rebarnd EA into MLS2 to bundle with MLS, so they can scam more money, we know they will go to SY.

Sorry BY hopeful, your days are counted.

Is there a league bigger than mlsn at the youth level we're missing
Or equal to

Are you talking about size (amount of teams or clubs)? MLSN has approx 150+ clubs and 700-800 teams. ECNL on the boys side is prob the same, so add the girls and ECNL is almost double MLSN (just boys). Add GA to MLSN and that made them bigger than ECNL. Adding MLSN2 and ECRL and GA Aspire (GA2), not really sure. I'm sure it's close, maybe bigger on the MLSN/GA side.
But USYS leagues are gigantic. One league in South Texas (Austin and San Antonio) has 200+ U11 boys teams. Those numbers decrease as they get older. But we're talking thousands of teams just for a portion of Texas. So, one USYS league in Texas is bigger than ECNL and MLSN. Obviously these leagues start at the ulittles as opposed to ECNL and MLSN, but USYS have these leagues throughout the US.

They probably meant higher on the pyramid

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"I don't know the birthdays of every kid but from what I have seen at our very big club, there are very few Q4s on any NL team (or at least the two my kids play on). "

I think we are agreeing on this point. There aren't that many Q4s on any of the NL teams. Which is why you can GENERALLY (not absolutely) say at the club level if you are a Q4 NL player you will LIKELY easily have a spot on the younger NL team in 2026. Lets say the older team has 4 players that are moving down, the team below has 3 that are moving down. It's not 1:1 but no one is getting cut because of it. There are roster size changes moving from 7V7, 9V9, 11V11. In 2026 we'll lose 3, gain 4, and because of the increase in roster size, we'll still have spots open. I can gurantee you there is not going to be this crazy mass replacement of NL teams with RL players. At the PRE-ECNL level, I have no doubt that there will be 1-3 Q4 RL players that move to the NL team the age group below, they are the same players that would would make their current age NL team as the roster size expands, and would need to be the Top players on their current RL team. 2nd team players who are talented and skilled always move up to the first team as the roster size increases and sometimes based on talent beating out the bottom level of current team. It's crazy to think that all of the sudden coaches of existing NL teams who are beating the older RL teams will be making any major changes.

Are people thinking the RL player that lacked the skill and IQ to be NL in '25 is all of a sudden going to be Pulisic or Wambach in '26 because of age cutoff shift?

Are people thinking that the Q1 or Q2 MLSN or ECNL player the lacked the skill and IQ but was bigger and faster because of age is all of a sudden going to be not as good relative to the new older kids because of the age cutoff shift? Um, yes. And somebody has to replace them.

Q4 players will have to worry about teams and coaches stuck in player lock though so switching teams could be massive next year.

MLSN is BY

They will lose players by staying BY alone. Club owners, unlike you, are not stupid.

They will not lose players. They have biobanding they do not follow the current strict BY system. They can literally put a January 2011 on a 2012 team if they wanted. They can stay By and still bioband Sept-Dec kids down if they want to.

As long as they have a high level of play and continue to send kids to college at high rates people will want their kids in the league.

What a stupid assumption. Do you know how many MLSN teams actually use biobanding? Very very few, your stupid ass. There is no single advantage to staying in BY alone for those p2p MLSN. It will switch to SY, unless the club owners are OK to lose $60K a year, keep 2 registrations among MLS/MLS2, and have headaches playing outside tournaments.

Dude, pull your head out. MLSN won’t lose money on BY.

SY is literally rec+ECNL. Rec, which is 90% of youth soccer could have any cutoff and it wouldn’t impact MLSN.

So you’re really suggesting ECNL being SY is a financial threat to MLSN. Your theory of the case is that SY cutoffs is a competitive advantage for ECNL. Not sure how that makes any sense. And best, it’s wishful thinking. But here it is straight. If the pendulum swings from MLSN to ECNL, your ECNL kid will end up at MLSN.

Wrong. My Q4 kid currently plays for MLSN, but he would like to join the #1 ECNL team here for the national playoff and also, as an upcoming freshman, would like to play HS soccer with friends as well.

Why all of that?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Remember folks this is an anonymous message board! Check out MLSN newest post on Instagram, they will rank their U-13/14's based on quality of play, pretty cool program that every club/league should take part in eventually. Looks like the Q4's who have developed tactically because of their lack of size will be advantaged under this new ranking system.


Can you post a link or screenshot? I couldn't find this. Thx!

MLSN will do whatever they want. They will not be peer pressured into 9/1. Glad they are thinking outside the box.

Wrong. They will do whatever can bring in more money. The scam "MLSN2" is a good indication. The moment they rebarnd EA into MLS2 to bundle with MLS, so they can scam more money, we know they will go to SY.

Sorry BY hopeful, your days are counted.

If MLSN was changing, don’t you think USSF would have just made a change vs split the baby with the “choose your own adventure” decision?

It was a diplomatic decision and I think it's why we haven't seen any information that was promised from USSF. They didn't want to get into another mess with mandating registration, the US is a massive country, it's why we have state govt vs fed govt, state govt (should) know what works for their constituents better than the DC.

[Anonymous]

ECNL deal with USSF is they will not make any changes until their new league policy changes are released in July. But ECNL is working on rules in place for Q3/4 to play down next season. No wasted year if that’s how you look at it. Players will not be required to play down.

ECNL has to wait until everyone’s tryout window time is over.

Be ready it’s coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ECNL deal with USSF is they will not make any changes until their new league policy changes are released in July. But ECNL is working on rules in place for Q3/4 to play down next season. No wasted year if that’s how you look at it. Players will not be required to play down.

ECNL has to wait until everyone’s tryout window time is over.

Be ready it’s coming.

Q3/4 girl Parents of ECNL/GA top players in my area already keeping tabs and starting to talk with each other as well as big ECNL club private trainer/coaches about merging together to make a new top team once it’s official.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ECNL deal with USSF is they will not make any changes until their new league policy changes are released in July. But ECNL is working on rules in place for Q3/4 to play down next season. No wasted year if that’s how you look at it. Players will not be required to play down.

ECNL has to wait until everyone’s tryout window time is over.

Be ready it’s coming.

BY advocates will be going into meltdown mode then. They thought they had one more year.

[Anonymous]

ECNL and GA starting next year will not allow players to guest with other leagues. GA will allow "late developer" for its clubs starting next year for U13-U15 full implementation in effect starting Fall 26.

[Anonymous]

ECNL players can play in RL league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ECNL and GA starting next year will not allow players to guest with other leagues. GA will allow "late developer" for its clubs starting next year for U13-U15 full implementation in effect starting Fall 26.

This is going to piss off alot of ECNL bench players who routinly play for other clubs to get game time. Is the excessive cost worth it if you cant play anywhere because of your patch?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL and GA starting next year will not allow players to guest with other leagues. GA will allow "late developer" for its clubs starting next year for U13-U15 full implementation in effect starting Fall 26.

This is going to piss off alot of ECNL bench players who routinly play for other clubs to get game time. Is the excessive cost worth it if you cant play anywhere because of your patch?

They will only be allowed to play 1 game a weekend either RL or ECNL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL and GA starting next year will not allow players to guest with other leagues. GA will allow "late developer" for its clubs starting next year for U13-U15 full implementation in effect starting Fall 26.

This is going to piss off alot of ECNL bench players who routinly play for other clubs to get game time. Is the excessive cost worth it if you cant play anywhere because of your patch?

Theyll have to pick one.

[Anonymous]

I guess the roster of 30 will be lots of fun.....

[Anonymous]

ECNL has always been 1 game per day, not weekend.