ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

My observations lead me to believe that rosters will be filled upside down and inside out when this SY change happens.

It’s going to be biblical.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That scenario sounds difficult for clubs to manage. There’s not a huge amount of upside to BY especially if all the other major leagues are going SY so I’m not sure why that approach makes sense.

You dont understand because all you know is youth soccer and likely under u12. Your kid is in elementary or maybe middle school. Because of this grouping by grade seems to make sense. Also in Americal college soccer a scholorship is a potential outcome. This doesnt exist in other countries.

Internationally clubs and national teams are more aligned to BY. This is because Acadamies are geared to identify top talent for playing on professional teams and national teams. Nothing else matters and college soccer doesnt exist.

MLSN is a league but its basically a funnel for MLS Acadamies. MLS Acadamies are a funnel for MLS and other pro teams. In this environment its not that college isn't considered if players have talent. Its just that theres so much money involved in playing professionally that by just playing a season or two all college costs are covered. So scholorships dont matter.

The girls parents that love to comment on MLSN have no clue how things work on the boys side. If they did they wouldn't comment that ECNL is "just as good" as MLS Acadamies. It's not, and never will be because the leagues target outcomes are different (pro vs college scholorships).

MLSN is a money pit that they are trying to turn into a cash cow. They see the cash at the lower ages and secondary leagues and are trying to increase their currently small market share of the youth soccer dollars. What they purport to be is just marketing fluff as they actually operate like a Nigerian scam. They are having to adjust their business model that didn't work for DA either.

Nope, MLSN clubs typically have 2x-3x the number of boys youth teams than ECNL or any other boys league. Its fairly obvious which environment youth players want to play in when they get older.

That's the issue. Clubs have so many younger and secondary teams in EDP, NCSL, etc. and so few MLSN teams that MLSN gets too small of a cut for their liking.

[Anonymous]

It’s an alphabet league and will be replaced in 5 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My observations lead me to believe that rosters will be filled upside down and inside out when this SY change happens.

It’s going to be biblical.

Yep, those 4v4 and 7v7 won't know what happened! Actually, they will. It really won't be as big of a deal.

[Anonymous]

"because of boibanding MLSN can make BY teams look like SY teams. All this can be done now without any changes or updates to the rules"


How many kids can be biobanded per team? Are there age cutoffs/restrictions for this (i.e. is it just for q4 kids)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"because of boibanding MLSN can make BY teams look like SY teams. All this can be done now without any changes or updates to the rules"


How many kids can be biobanded per team? Are there age cutoffs/restrictions for this (i.e. is it just for q4 kids)?

Exactly this is one of the more comical rationale. Surely there is some sort of medical analysis done to approve someone to be eligible for biobanding.... or are clubs just abusing the system. You can't say this will solve that problem without admitting biobanding isn't done correctly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"because of boibanding MLSN can make BY teams look like SY teams. All this can be done now without any changes or updates to the rules"


How many kids can be biobanded per team? Are there age cutoffs/restrictions for this (i.e. is it just for q4 kids)?

Roster Maximum: 24 player average per MLS Next team

Matchday Roster: 18 players per team

Over-age players: Max of 3

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"because of boibanding MLSN can make BY teams look like SY teams. All this can be done now without any changes or updates to the rules"


How many kids can be biobanded per team? Are there age cutoffs/restrictions for this (i.e. is it just for q4 kids)?

In reality, there is no strict enforcement on biobanding. As long as you are not too tall, you can play one year down. The biobanding player in my son's team is about 20 months older than my son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"because of boibanding MLSN can make BY teams look like SY teams. All this can be done now without any changes or updates to the rules"


How many kids can be biobanded per team? Are there age cutoffs/restrictions for this (i.e. is it just for q4 kids)?

In reality, there is no strict enforcement on biobanding. As long as you are not too tall, you can play one year down. The biobanding player in my son's team is about 20 months older than my son.

Nobody cares because biobanders aren't what Academy teams are looking for.

Play with your own age or play up if you want to get noticed by an Academy team.

[Anonymous]

Here's where we are at/what we know, don't know

1. Next year- nothing changes
2. Following year- ECNL clubs will go school year
3. MLS top tier will stay birth year.
4. We will know MLSN tier 2 in probably a few months- probably in time for California winter try outs.

Everything else is unclear and well over a year out. Otherwise, nobody has said anything new here in quite some time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's where we are at/what we know, don't know

1. Next year- nothing changes
2. Following year- ECNL clubs will go school year
3. MLS top tier will stay birth year.
4. We will know MLSN tier 2 in probably a few months- probably in time for California winter try outs.

Everything else is unclear and well over a year out. Otherwise, nobody has said anything new here in quite some time.

100% correct

I wish others would be as realistic/realistic as stop making things up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's where we are at/what we know, don't know

1. Next year- nothing changes
2. Following year- ECNL clubs will go school year
3. MLS top tier will stay birth year.
4. We will know MLSN tier 2 in probably a few months- probably in time for California winter try outs.

Everything else is unclear and well over a year out. Otherwise, nobody has said anything new here in quite some time.

100% correct

I wish others would be as realistic/realistic as stop making things up.

Long day...

I wish others would be as honest/realistic and stop making things up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s cute to see all the passion and chest thumping about whose kid is better and playing up vs grade level, but these alphabet leagues are a business and will do what’s in the best interest from that perspective alone. Is going SY like the rest of the pipeline better for MLSN clubs as it avoids alienating and reducing the potential player pool. Or, is needing BY from u13 on, in order to fall in line with identifying pro talent for contracts, more profitable?

Its cut that you dont understand that MLS Next Acadamies are run by and for MLS clubs.

Haven’t checked in since the age change drama or mlsn2 but straight from a hiiiggggh rankings horse mouthy at a top mls academy, they were having talks of closing shop. Juice hasn’t been worth the squeeze for them. For the investments being made, players that saw first team minutes were mostly due to injuries. Remember ynt success doesn’t correlate to the big dogs in most cases. Coming from someone that over saw a dominant 17 year in Spain, the lack of 21u in America seemed to be a big issue. Our current systems pushes and pushes but most aren’t ready at 18. Remember, mls has coaches who’s livelihoods are at stake with wins and losses

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's where we are at/what we know, don't know

1. Next year- nothing changes
2. Following year- ECNL clubs will go school year
3. MLS top tier will stay birth year.
4. We will know MLSN tier 2 in probably a few months- probably in time for California winter try outs.

Everything else is unclear and well over a year out. Otherwise, nobody has said anything new here in quite some time.

100% correct

I wish others would be as realistic/realistic as stop making things up.

Signed, all parents of q2/q3 MLSN kids with their fingers crossed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s cute to see all the passion and chest thumping about whose kid is better and playing up vs grade level, but these alphabet leagues are a business and will do what’s in the best interest from that perspective alone. Is going SY like the rest of the pipeline better for MLSN clubs as it avoids alienating and reducing the potential player pool. Or, is needing BY from u13 on, in order to fall in line with identifying pro talent for contracts, more profitable?

Its cut that you dont understand that MLS Next Acadamies are run by and for MLS clubs.

Haven’t checked in since the age change drama or mlsn2 but straight from a hiiiggggh rankings horse mouthy at a top mls academy, they were having talks of closing shop. Juice hasn’t been worth the squeeze for them. For the investments being made, players that saw first team minutes were mostly due to injuries. Remember ynt success doesn’t correlate to the big dogs in most cases. Coming from someone that over saw a dominant 17 year in Spain, the lack of 21u in America seemed to be a big issue. Our current systems pushes and pushes but most aren’t ready at 18. Remember, mls has coaches who’s livelihoods are at stake with wins and losses

I feel like this is always a conversation. I cant imagine them actually closing up shop from an academy perspective, but I do see them pulling back. Our level MLS Academy used to run U12, now their youngest age group is U13, and there has been a great deal of chatter about them possible pulling back to running youngest team at U15, and that seems to be pretty common. It's definitely net negative from a cost perspective for them, and theres good statistics to show the younger you join an academy the less likely you are to actually see first team minutes. (Which doesn't mean anything other than identifying truly talented kids at U12 is pretty much impossible for everyone)