ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

What potential downsides? 🤣

No downsides if they just pull a DA and close up shop without warning.

DA didnt really "close up shop without warning". At least on the girls side everyone knew free soccer doesnt work if someone or some kind of action wasnt footing the bill. US Soccer wanted out and MLS wanted in. Which is why MLS Next exists today as a direct replacement of boys DA. Girls DA is a little more complicated because it never should have existed in the first place. Im sure US Soccer approached NWSL to take the girls side over and they simply said no. Which is when a bunch of clubs went back to ECNL and everyone else grouped together and created GA. If you read through the early GA documentation the intent was always to have NWSL take over GA and create Acadamies just like MLS did with the boys. When this didn't happen GA pivoted and copied ECNL. From a business perspective ECNL could have had it all if they would have just let all the DA clubs in. But they chose to only let certain clubs in. And now GA exists as their biggest competitor.

What i like about today vs 5 years ago is that because of the ranking app ECNLs mistake of only letting certain clubs in when DA blew up is easy to see. Before the ranking app there were ranking sites that were literally pay to play marketing and they'd print whatever they were paid to say. This still exists but nobody cares anymore if what's being written doesnt sync with the ranking app its garbage. I cant stress how bad it was when recruiters would contact clubs based on articles written by websites that were 100% paid for by leagues.

I see this same type of thing happening for players with stats as AI becomes better able to identify skills. As an example right now with forwards its easy to see who can finish. But, how do you identify mids and defenders? Eventually this will all be assessed by AI and coaches/docs will lose their power to pick favorites.

The rankings app is awful. It is MARGINALLY better than GotSport / USARank.

Give me a break.

Before the ranking app who was the best club was determined by who paid which site the most $$$.

For better or worse the ranking app provides a consistent and cearly defined way to rank teams. That isnt influenced by $$$.

You didn’t really respond to the PP. 🧐

You just made an unsubstantiated loosely related secondary claim about paying for rankings. Neither GotSport, nor USARank are paid rankings…so where is this coming from?

Soccer Rankings app is about as accurate as GotSport and USARank, none are very good, and they all pull from the same data sources.

Anyone that puts GotSport or USA rank in the same galaxy as soccer rankings knows absolutely nothing about data analytics.

Only saving grace is that it is Monday morning so they are back at their job at the CBO😂

Thanks for responding as I didn't have time earlier when I read that! Just to inform others, they absolutely do not pull from the same sources which is exactly why the app is far better than GotSoccer. Gotsoccer only pulls from events on their own platform and gives out points based on poorly defined tiers (championship/platnum/gold/etc). GotSoccer also heavily rewards just playing more events (hence the paying comment) vs quality.

Rankings app is just pure w/l with SOS adjustments as pointed out before - https://usasportstatistics.net/ They also do a much better job of capturing all the results vs. just what is on GotSoccer.

They do pull from the same data.

You’re clearly a parent and have no backend knowledge.

GotSports’ ranking pull is incomplete, so is USA ranking. And you can quibble with their tiering and incentives. (Protip, playing more, more matches, improves ranking accuracy…hence why it tends to reward teams for quantity)

Soccer app attempts to pull a more complete set from the same sources. And places more weight on quality of opponent, sort of a bastardized ELO system.

None of them are very good. But the obsession over soccer ranking app is absurd. As PP stated, it is marginally better.

Ranking soccer teams is actually really really hard. There are too many variables at play that make no one to one match especially meaningful from an analytics perspective.

Also not bastardized ELO system. It's straight up ELO and it's very accurate as someone with multiple kids playing in very different leagues.

No…it is not… you’re an idiot.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

What potential downsides? 🤣

No downsides if they just pull a DA and close up shop without warning.

DA didnt really "close up shop without warning". At least on the girls side everyone knew free soccer doesnt work if someone or some kind of action wasnt footing the bill. US Soccer wanted out and MLS wanted in. Which is why MLS Next exists today as a direct replacement of boys DA. Girls DA is a little more complicated because it never should have existed in the first place. Im sure US Soccer approached NWSL to take the girls side over and they simply said no. Which is when a bunch of clubs went back to ECNL and everyone else grouped together and created GA. If you read through the early GA documentation the intent was always to have NWSL take over GA and create Acadamies just like MLS did with the boys. When this didn't happen GA pivoted and copied ECNL. From a business perspective ECNL could have had it all if they would have just let all the DA clubs in. But they chose to only let certain clubs in. And now GA exists as their biggest competitor.

What i like about today vs 5 years ago is that because of the ranking app ECNLs mistake of only letting certain clubs in when DA blew up is easy to see. Before the ranking app there were ranking sites that were literally pay to play marketing and they'd print whatever they were paid to say. This still exists but nobody cares anymore if what's being written doesnt sync with the ranking app its garbage. I cant stress how bad it was when recruiters would contact clubs based on articles written by websites that were 100% paid for by leagues.

I see this same type of thing happening for players with stats as AI becomes better able to identify skills. As an example right now with forwards its easy to see who can finish. But, how do you identify mids and defenders? Eventually this will all be assessed by AI and coaches/docs will lose their power to pick favorites.

The rankings app is awful. It is MARGINALLY better than GotSport / USARank.

Give me a break.

Before the ranking app who was the best club was determined by who paid which site the most $$$.

For better or worse the ranking app provides a consistent and cearly defined way to rank teams. That isnt influenced by $$$.

You didn’t really respond to the PP. 🧐

You just made an unsubstantiated loosely related secondary claim about paying for rankings. Neither GotSport, nor USARank are paid rankings…so where is this coming from?

Soccer Rankings app is about as accurate as GotSport and USARank, none are very good, and they all pull from the same data sources.

Anyone that puts GotSport or USA rank in the same galaxy as soccer rankings knows absolutely nothing about data analytics.

Only saving grace is that it is Monday morning so they are back at their job at the CBO😂

Thanks for responding as I didn't have time earlier when I read that! Just to inform others, they absolutely do not pull from the same sources which is exactly why the app is far better than GotSoccer. Gotsoccer only pulls from events on their own platform and gives out points based on poorly defined tiers (championship/platnum/gold/etc). GotSoccer also heavily rewards just playing more events (hence the paying comment) vs quality.

Rankings app is just pure w/l with SOS adjustments as pointed out before - https://usasportstatistics.net/ They also do a much better job of capturing all the results vs. just what is on GotSoccer.

They do pull from the same data.

You’re clearly a parent and have no backend knowledge.

GotSports’ ranking pull is incomplete, so is USA ranking. And you can quibble with their tiering and incentives. (Protip, playing more, more matches, improves ranking accuracy…hence why it tends to reward teams for quantity)

Soccer app attempts to pull a more complete set from the same sources. And places more weight on quality of opponent, sort of a bastardized ELO system.

None of them are very good. But the obsession over soccer ranking app is absurd. As PP stated, it is marginally better.

Ranking soccer teams is actually really really hard. There are too many variables at play that make no one to one match especially meaningful from an analytics perspective.

Sure, but your first statement is patently false. Gotsoccer includes 0 from GA/ECNL league/tournament play so it's essentially useless.

I'll add to this. Pick a girls age group, and take the eight teams playing in ECNL finals this week. Look up their rankings in Rankings app - my guess is they are almost all at the top in the USA. Now look for the same teams in GotSport rankings. I am guessing most of them do not appear as they don't play GotSoccer events.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

What potential downsides? 🤣

No downsides if they just pull a DA and close up shop without warning.

DA didnt really "close up shop without warning". At least on the girls side everyone knew free soccer doesnt work if someone or some kind of action wasnt footing the bill. US Soccer wanted out and MLS wanted in. Which is why MLS Next exists today as a direct replacement of boys DA. Girls DA is a little more complicated because it never should have existed in the first place. Im sure US Soccer approached NWSL to take the girls side over and they simply said no. Which is when a bunch of clubs went back to ECNL and everyone else grouped together and created GA. If you read through the early GA documentation the intent was always to have NWSL take over GA and create Acadamies just like MLS did with the boys. When this didn't happen GA pivoted and copied ECNL. From a business perspective ECNL could have had it all if they would have just let all the DA clubs in. But they chose to only let certain clubs in. And now GA exists as their biggest competitor.

What i like about today vs 5 years ago is that because of the ranking app ECNLs mistake of only letting certain clubs in when DA blew up is easy to see. Before the ranking app there were ranking sites that were literally pay to play marketing and they'd print whatever they were paid to say. This still exists but nobody cares anymore if what's being written doesnt sync with the ranking app its garbage. I cant stress how bad it was when recruiters would contact clubs based on articles written by websites that were 100% paid for by leagues.

I see this same type of thing happening for players with stats as AI becomes better able to identify skills. As an example right now with forwards its easy to see who can finish. But, how do you identify mids and defenders? Eventually this will all be assessed by AI and coaches/docs will lose their power to pick favorites.

The rankings app is awful. It is MARGINALLY better than GotSport / USARank.

Give me a break.

Before the ranking app who was the best club was determined by who paid which site the most $$$.

For better or worse the ranking app provides a consistent and cearly defined way to rank teams. That isnt influenced by $$$.

You didn’t really respond to the PP. 🧐

You just made an unsubstantiated loosely related secondary claim about paying for rankings. Neither GotSport, nor USARank are paid rankings…so where is this coming from?

Soccer Rankings app is about as accurate as GotSport and USARank, none are very good, and they all pull from the same data sources.

Anyone that puts GotSport or USA rank in the same galaxy as soccer rankings knows absolutely nothing about data analytics.

Only saving grace is that it is Monday morning so they are back at their job at the CBO😂

Thanks for responding as I didn't have time earlier when I read that! Just to inform others, they absolutely do not pull from the same sources which is exactly why the app is far better than GotSoccer. Gotsoccer only pulls from events on their own platform and gives out points based on poorly defined tiers (championship/platnum/gold/etc). GotSoccer also heavily rewards just playing more events (hence the paying comment) vs quality.

Rankings app is just pure w/l with SOS adjustments as pointed out before - https://usasportstatistics.net/ They also do a much better job of capturing all the results vs. just what is on GotSoccer.

They do pull from the same data.

You’re clearly a parent and have no backend knowledge.

GotSports’ ranking pull is incomplete, so is USA ranking. And you can quibble with their tiering and incentives. (Protip, playing more, more matches, improves ranking accuracy…hence why it tends to reward teams for quantity)

Soccer app attempts to pull a more complete set from the same sources. And places more weight on quality of opponent, sort of a bastardized ELO system.

None of them are very good. But the obsession over soccer ranking app is absurd. As PP stated, it is marginally better.

Ranking soccer teams is actually really really hard. There are too many variables at play that make no one to one match especially meaningful from an analytics perspective.

Oh crap forgot to point out one more horrible flaw - playing more just gets you more points. It's essentially a counting stat (yards over the course of a season vs yards per catch). It doesn't get any more accurate. If you play 20 tournaments and get 100 points/tournament you have 2000 points. If you play one top flight and get 2000 you have 2000. Now, how are those points handed out? The status of your GotSoccer*TM tournament. Play 5 "top" tournaments get 5x points.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

What potential downsides? 🤣

No downsides if they just pull a DA and close up shop without warning.

DA didnt really "close up shop without warning". At least on the girls side everyone knew free soccer doesnt work if someone or some kind of action wasnt footing the bill. US Soccer wanted out and MLS wanted in. Which is why MLS Next exists today as a direct replacement of boys DA. Girls DA is a little more complicated because it never should have existed in the first place. Im sure US Soccer approached NWSL to take the girls side over and they simply said no. Which is when a bunch of clubs went back to ECNL and everyone else grouped together and created GA. If you read through the early GA documentation the intent was always to have NWSL take over GA and create Acadamies just like MLS did with the boys. When this didn't happen GA pivoted and copied ECNL. From a business perspective ECNL could have had it all if they would have just let all the DA clubs in. But they chose to only let certain clubs in. And now GA exists as their biggest competitor.

What i like about today vs 5 years ago is that because of the ranking app ECNLs mistake of only letting certain clubs in when DA blew up is easy to see. Before the ranking app there were ranking sites that were literally pay to play marketing and they'd print whatever they were paid to say. This still exists but nobody cares anymore if what's being written doesnt sync with the ranking app its garbage. I cant stress how bad it was when recruiters would contact clubs based on articles written by websites that were 100% paid for by leagues.

I see this same type of thing happening for players with stats as AI becomes better able to identify skills. As an example right now with forwards its easy to see who can finish. But, how do you identify mids and defenders? Eventually this will all be assessed by AI and coaches/docs will lose their power to pick favorites.

The rankings app is awful. It is MARGINALLY better than GotSport / USARank.

Give me a break.

Before the ranking app who was the best club was determined by who paid which site the most $$$.

For better or worse the ranking app provides a consistent and cearly defined way to rank teams. That isnt influenced by $$$.

You didn’t really respond to the PP. 🧐

You just made an unsubstantiated loosely related secondary claim about paying for rankings. Neither GotSport, nor USARank are paid rankings…so where is this coming from?

Soccer Rankings app is about as accurate as GotSport and USARank, none are very good, and they all pull from the same data sources.

Anyone that puts GotSport or USA rank in the same galaxy as soccer rankings knows absolutely nothing about data analytics.

Only saving grace is that it is Monday morning so they are back at their job at the CBO😂

Thanks for responding as I didn't have time earlier when I read that! Just to inform others, they absolutely do not pull from the same sources which is exactly why the app is far better than GotSoccer. Gotsoccer only pulls from events on their own platform and gives out points based on poorly defined tiers (championship/platnum/gold/etc). GotSoccer also heavily rewards just playing more events (hence the paying comment) vs quality.

Rankings app is just pure w/l with SOS adjustments as pointed out before - https://usasportstatistics.net/ They also do a much better job of capturing all the results vs. just what is on GotSoccer.

They do pull from the same data.

You’re clearly a parent and have no backend knowledge.

GotSports’ ranking pull is incomplete, so is USA ranking. And you can quibble with their tiering and incentives. (Protip, playing more, more matches, improves ranking accuracy…hence why it tends to reward teams for quantity)

Soccer app attempts to pull a more complete set from the same sources. And places more weight on quality of opponent, sort of a bastardized ELO system.

None of them are very good. But the obsession over soccer ranking app is absurd. As PP stated, it is marginally better.

Ranking soccer teams is actually really really hard. There are too many variables at play that make no one to one match especially meaningful from an analytics perspective.

Also not bastardized ELO system. It's straight up ELO and it's very accurate as someone with multiple kids playing in very different leagues.

The accuracy of the rankings is not the issue I have with rankings. The problem is what parents take these rankings to mean. You'll notice that it's only parents who talk about the rankings. Not the coaches, not the clubs, not the leagues, not the scouts, not the players. What does that tell you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

Crickets…

It wasn’t crickets. Someone asked a responsive question, which has gotten no response.

Most people are emotionally attached to SY / BY for emotional and personal reasons. At the end of the day in aggregate, the age cutoff DOESN'T MATTER. And it won’t matter that you have two leagues with different cutoffs.

It matters. Having 2 different age cutoffs would increase the number of high level kids available for National teams. And kids would be less likely to quit soccer and play other sports. Not sure BY can exist for more than another year unfortunately after the switch is allowed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

Crickets…

It wasn’t crickets. Someone asked a responsive question, which has gotten no response.

Most people are emotionally attached to SY / BY for emotional and personal reasons. At the end of the day in aggregate, the age cutoff DOESN'T MATTER. And it won’t matter that you have two leagues with different cutoffs.

It matters. Having 2 different age cutoffs would increase the number of high level kids available for National teams. And kids would be less likely to quit soccer and play other sports. Not sure BY can exist for more than another year unfortunately after the switch is allowed.

I guess if we take a Time Machine way way back to 2016, people must have similarly been clutching pearls about SY’s continued existence…

But rec, local and AYSO just seem to keep on going. I think MLSN and GA will be fine. I’ll pass along your prayers and concerns at the next support group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

Crickets…

It wasn’t crickets. Someone asked a responsive question, which has gotten no response.

Most people are emotionally attached to SY / BY for emotional and personal reasons. At the end of the day in aggregate, the age cutoff DOESN'T MATTER. And it won’t matter that you have two leagues with different cutoffs.

It matters. Having 2 different age cutoffs would increase the number of high level kids available for National teams. And kids would be less likely to quit soccer and play other sports. Not sure BY can exist for more than another year unfortunately after the switch is allowed.

On a meta level, 2 age cutoffs could increase retention to some degree , but a likely side effect would be worse development during u13-u16 by splicing the distribution of talent (less depth of competition within leagues).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

Crickets…

It wasn’t crickets. Someone asked a responsive question, which has gotten no response.

Most people are emotionally attached to SY / BY for emotional and personal reasons. At the end of the day in aggregate, the age cutoff DOESN'T MATTER. And it won’t matter that you have two leagues with different cutoffs.

It matters. Having 2 different age cutoffs would increase the number of high level kids available for National teams. And kids would be less likely to quit soccer and play other sports. Not sure BY can exist for more than another year unfortunately after the switch is allowed.

I guess if we take a Time Machine way way back to 2016, people must have similarly been clutching pearls about SY’s continued existence…

But rec, local and AYSO just seem to keep on going. I think MLSN and GA will be fine. I’ll pass along your prayers and concerns at the next support group.

Thanks for adding to the discussion and not getting defensive for absolutely no reason.

[Anonymous]

Clubs can't even manage one age cutoff let alone two! Look how long we have to wait to change the current cutoff...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

What potential downsides? 🤣

No downsides if they just pull a DA and close up shop without warning.

DA didnt really "close up shop without warning". At least on the girls side everyone knew free soccer doesnt work if someone or some kind of action wasnt footing the bill. US Soccer wanted out and MLS wanted in. Which is why MLS Next exists today as a direct replacement of boys DA. Girls DA is a little more complicated because it never should have existed in the first place. Im sure US Soccer approached NWSL to take the girls side over and they simply said no. Which is when a bunch of clubs went back to ECNL and everyone else grouped together and created GA. If you read through the early GA documentation the intent was always to have NWSL take over GA and create Acadamies just like MLS did with the boys. When this didn't happen GA pivoted and copied ECNL. From a business perspective ECNL could have had it all if they would have just let all the DA clubs in. But they chose to only let certain clubs in. And now GA exists as their biggest competitor.

What i like about today vs 5 years ago is that because of the ranking app ECNLs mistake of only letting certain clubs in when DA blew up is easy to see. Before the ranking app there were ranking sites that were literally pay to play marketing and they'd print whatever they were paid to say. This still exists but nobody cares anymore if what's being written doesnt sync with the ranking app its garbage. I cant stress how bad it was when recruiters would contact clubs based on articles written by websites that were 100% paid for by leagues.

I see this same type of thing happening for players with stats as AI becomes better able to identify skills. As an example right now with forwards its easy to see who can finish. But, how do you identify mids and defenders? Eventually this will all be assessed by AI and coaches/docs will lose their power to pick favorites.

The rankings app is awful. It is MARGINALLY better than GotSport / USARank.

Give me a break.

Before the ranking app who was the best club was determined by who paid which site the most $$$.

For better or worse the ranking app provides a consistent and cearly defined way to rank teams. That isnt influenced by $$$.

You didn’t really respond to the PP. 🧐

You just made an unsubstantiated loosely related secondary claim about paying for rankings. Neither GotSport, nor USARank are paid rankings…so where is this coming from?

Soccer Rankings app is about as accurate as GotSport and USARank, none are very good, and they all pull from the same data sources.

Anyone that puts GotSport or USA rank in the same galaxy as soccer rankings knows absolutely nothing about data analytics.

Only saving grace is that it is Monday morning so they are back at their job at the CBO😂

Spit my coffee out on this one. Ranking app is garbage. And it’s not data analytics

Ranking app is far and away better than any alternative. Is it completely accurate, of course not, but by last count it predicted wins at a greater than 80% rate. The algorithm is actually pretty impressive. It is explained at the link pp posted.

Instead of mocking what you dont understand (iT’s NoT dAtA aAlYtIcs) take time to educate yourself. it will help you in the real world when your anonymity doesnt shields you from ridicule……….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Clubs can't even manage one age cutoff let alone two! Look how long we have to wait to change the current cutoff...

It would be an absolute nightmare for them and wouldn’t be shocked if the is a deal breaker for some clubs, causing a switch over to ECNL/RL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

What potential downsides? 🤣

No downsides if they just pull a DA and close up shop without warning.

DA didnt really "close up shop without warning". At least on the girls side everyone knew free soccer doesnt work if someone or some kind of action wasnt footing the bill. US Soccer wanted out and MLS wanted in. Which is why MLS Next exists today as a direct replacement of boys DA. Girls DA is a little more complicated because it never should have existed in the first place. Im sure US Soccer approached NWSL to take the girls side over and they simply said no. Which is when a bunch of clubs went back to ECNL and everyone else grouped together and created GA. If you read through the early GA documentation the intent was always to have NWSL take over GA and create Acadamies just like MLS did with the boys. When this didn't happen GA pivoted and copied ECNL. From a business perspective ECNL could have had it all if they would have just let all the DA clubs in. But they chose to only let certain clubs in. And now GA exists as their biggest competitor.

This is just false at least on the girls side. GA was always -- from day -50 about setting up another ECNL. There were no discussions about NWSL.

GA is not a full competitor to ECNK. Just a partial one. They are doing what you said by taking the better clubs in over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

What potential downsides? 🤣

No downsides if they just pull a DA and close up shop without warning.

DA didnt really "close up shop without warning". At least on the girls side everyone knew free soccer doesnt work if someone or some kind of action wasnt footing the bill. US Soccer wanted out and MLS wanted in. Which is why MLS Next exists today as a direct replacement of boys DA. Girls DA is a little more complicated because it never should have existed in the first place. Im sure US Soccer approached NWSL to take the girls side over and they simply said no. Which is when a bunch of clubs went back to ECNL and everyone else grouped together and created GA. If you read through the early GA documentation the intent was always to have NWSL take over GA and create Acadamies just like MLS did with the boys. When this didn't happen GA pivoted and copied ECNL. From a business perspective ECNL could have had it all if they would have just let all the DA clubs in. But they chose to only let certain clubs in. And now GA exists as their biggest competitor.

What i like about today vs 5 years ago is that because of the ranking app ECNLs mistake of only letting certain clubs in when DA blew up is easy to see. Before the ranking app there were ranking sites that were literally pay to play marketing and they'd print whatever they were paid to say. This still exists but nobody cares anymore if what's being written doesnt sync with the ranking app its garbage. I cant stress how bad it was when recruiters would contact clubs based on articles written by websites that were 100% paid for by leagues.

I see this same type of thing happening for players with stats as AI becomes better able to identify skills. As an example right now with forwards its easy to see who can finish. But, how do you identify mids and defenders? Eventually this will all be assessed by AI and coaches/docs will lose their power to pick favorites.

The rankings app is awful. It is MARGINALLY better than GotSport / USARank.

Give me a break.

Before the ranking app who was the best club was determined by who paid which site the most $$$.

For better or worse the ranking app provides a consistent and cearly defined way to rank teams. That isnt influenced by $$$.

You didn’t really respond to the PP. 🧐

You just made an unsubstantiated loosely related secondary claim about paying for rankings. Neither GotSport, nor USARank are paid rankings…so where is this coming from?

Soccer Rankings app is about as accurate as GotSport and USARank, none are very good, and they all pull from the same data sources.

Anyone that puts GotSport or USA rank in the same galaxy as soccer rankings knows absolutely nothing about data analytics.

Only saving grace is that it is Monday morning so they are back at their job at the CBO😂

Thanks for responding as I didn't have time earlier when I read that! Just to inform others, they absolutely do not pull from the same sources which is exactly why the app is far better than GotSoccer. Gotsoccer only pulls from events on their own platform and gives out points based on poorly defined tiers (championship/platnum/gold/etc). GotSoccer also heavily rewards just playing more events (hence the paying comment) vs quality.

Rankings app is just pure w/l with SOS adjustments as pointed out before - https://usasportstatistics.net/ They also do a much better job of capturing all the results vs. just what is on GotSoccer.

They do pull from the same data.

You’re clearly a parent and have no backend knowledge.

GotSports’ ranking pull is incomplete, so is USA ranking. And you can quibble with their tiering and incentives. (Protip, playing more, more matches, improves ranking accuracy…hence why it tends to reward teams for quantity)

Soccer app attempts to pull a more complete set from the same sources. And places more weight on quality of opponent, sort of a bastardized ELO system.

None of them are very good. But the obsession over soccer ranking app is absurd. As PP stated, it is marginally better.

Ranking soccer teams is actually really really hard. There are too many variables at play that make no one to one match especially meaningful from an analytics perspective.

Sure, but your first statement is patently false. Gotsoccer includes 0 from GA/ECNL league/tournament play so it's essentially useless.

It’s not false. It pulls an incomplete dataset. Exactly what I said. You don’t need to like GotSport. I don’t. My pony point is that soccer ranking sucks too, but sucks less is fair.

just because you keep repeating something doesn't make it true (f trump for making this standard) - Gotsoccer pulls an incredibly incomplete data set. The rankings app pulls 99%+ of the matches available and probably 99.99% of the ones that matter. It's literally the most fair thing we have at the moment. And of course not all matches are created equally (if that's your angle) with weather/injuries/etc but it really is the best we have and you can make decisions off it based on how accurate it is over the long term. Just try it for yourself early next season.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:All this begs the question, is staying BY for MLSN/GA worth all the trouble and potential downsides?

What potential downsides? 🤣

No downsides if they just pull a DA and close up shop without warning.

DA didnt really "close up shop without warning". At least on the girls side everyone knew free soccer doesnt work if someone or some kind of action wasnt footing the bill. US Soccer wanted out and MLS wanted in. Which is why MLS Next exists today as a direct replacement of boys DA. Girls DA is a little more complicated because it never should have existed in the first place. Im sure US Soccer approached NWSL to take the girls side over and they simply said no. Which is when a bunch of clubs went back to ECNL and everyone else grouped together and created GA. If you read through the early GA documentation the intent was always to have NWSL take over GA and create Acadamies just like MLS did with the boys. When this didn't happen GA pivoted and copied ECNL. From a business perspective ECNL could have had it all if they would have just let all the DA clubs in. But they chose to only let certain clubs in. And now GA exists as their biggest competitor.

This is just false at least on the girls side. GA was always -- from day -50 about setting up another ECNL. There were no discussions about NWSL.

GA is not a full competitor to ECNK. Just a partial one. They are doing what you said by taking the better clubs in over time.

You might what to read though this link...
https://www.soccerwire.com/news/girls-academy-establishes-ties-with-us-youth-soccer-and-mls/

GA was intended from the beginning to be like MLS Next. Things might have slowed down a little when DA blew up and some clubs went back tail between their legs to ECNL. But GA has proven itself and the original plans are back on the table. This is why MLSN + GA reannounced their partnership ealier this year.

[Anonymous]

MLSN/GA is not a profitable model and relies on grants and transfer fees and assumes a steady growth in soccer popularity in the US. Also not a great deal for clubs as MLS owns all the players contracts. It is a house of cards.