+100 we need less clubs that play in a national platform league, not more. On the girls side, between GA and ECNL there is 7-8 clubs for NOVA alone - if our best 20 in any age group are spread out 3~4 per team, how do we expect to compete at a National level? It's all about the $$$ the market is over saturated because the demand is high with families willing to pay (we're part of the problem). |
This person gets it! +1 |
Why do we need to solve for competing at the national level? If that were the case, there should only be 1 ECNL team in NOVA. The goal of ECNL is to provide a college recruiting platform for clubs. Having more clubs and players helps that goal. |
No because College coaches don’t want to waste their time on mediocre clubs and talent. They want to go to an event where they know they will see all quality players. Any League that isn’t putting the talent on the field consistently isn’t going to see the coaches come. |
Our teams need to compete at a national level to get more opportunities to be seen by college coaches. How many college coaches come to the Icebreaker tournament vs the Jeff Cup (of Jeff Cup level tournaments across the US)? |
Any ECNL team can go to the national showcases where all the college scouts attend. There was one in Phoenix last week. It doesn’t matter if your team is good or not. Coaches don’t just wander around at these events watching random games. They go to watch specific players who have contacted them with game film and they have them on their radar. Players on the worst ECNL teams have the same opportunity to be “seen” as players on the best ECNL teams because they can go to the same showcase events. |
Agreed college coaches just don't walk around looking for players, but college recruiting budgets are limited. If 20 players reach out that a coach is interested in and 15 are at a major national level event and 5 are at a local regional event...where do you think the college coach is going to go? |
That should be ODP VA, but then each league (ECNL/GA) wants to do their own thing. |
Never could and never will... |
This whole thread was about how too many ECNL teams in NOVA was hurting players ability to be seen at national events, and I’m saying that’s not true because all the ECNL teams in NOVA can all go to the same national events. |
| what's hilarious to me is that this has become an-all VA conversation. where are the maryland people? |
They're not salty as VA folks, just crabby. |
| Do MD clubs participate in ECNL RL? |
but coaches dont go watch bottom level ECNL teams. The word of out ECNL is not as Elite as it use to be. |
College coaches watch all the ECNL clubs. |