Any new ECNL teams?

[Anonymous]

The RL travel was also pretty reasonable, if not great. The NL travel is bonkers for them, I wouldn't do it.

[Anonymous]

Why can't MLS next and ECNL merge into one youth league so players in the DMV don't have to travel out of state? Makes no sense the way it is right now for customers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why can't MLS next and ECNL merge into one youth league so players in the DMV don't have to travel out of state? Makes no sense the way it is right now for customers.

That is happening in a way. Have you been tracking the news on US Soccer, USYS and Club Soccer? If not, may want to read up on it some. How, to what degree and when is subject to more information, but this appears to be the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't MLS next and ECNL merge into one youth league so players in the DMV don't have to travel out of state? Makes no sense the way it is right now for customers.

That is happening in a way. Have you been tracking the news on US Soccer, USYS and Club Soccer? If not, may want to read up on it some. How, to what degree and when is subject to more information, but this appears to be the case.

Where does one read up on this?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why can't MLS next and ECNL merge into one youth league so players in the DMV don't have to travel out of state? Makes no sense the way it is right now for customers.

That is happening in a way. Have you been tracking the news on US Soccer, USYS and Club Soccer? If not, may want to read up on it some. How, to what degree and when is subject to more information, but this appears to be the case.

Where does one read up on this?

This is the official press release. The last two ECNL podcasts talk about it. There are a few articles. I am still trying to piece it all together, but I think this change is very material.

https://www.ussoccer.com/stories/2026/01/us-club-soccer-launch-new-shared-services-partnership

[Anonymous]

interesting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:On girls side, no new teams being added from Virginia, and not anticipating anyone leaving. They wanted to add one NC and one VA to keep it balanced and have travel partners, but had no applicants from VA that met standards. Richmond United setup their whole Strikers/Kickers merger to position for second ECNL team, but the Blue Teams that are supposed to be the strongest, didn't finish consistently high enough in the standings and sometimes were not the best Richmond United team overall.

Richmond United never had any intention of making Blue teams a 2nd NL team. It was most likely something they told parents to stop losing kids to other clubs. Those teams are in 1st or 2nd place so the excuse that they didn't finish high enough in the standings is bs. most of their NL teams are at the bottom of their age groups, what's going on down there. The MA is middle tier at best and Richmond United NL doesn't produce.

[Anonymous]

One application pending.....not for ECNL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On girls side, no new teams being added from Virginia, and not anticipating anyone leaving. They wanted to add one NC and one VA to keep it balanced and have travel partners, but had no applicants from VA that met standards. Richmond United setup their whole Strikers/Kickers merger to position for second ECNL team, but the Blue Teams that are supposed to be the strongest, didn't finish consistently high enough in the standings and sometimes were not the best Richmond United team overall.

Richmond United never had any intention of making Blue teams a 2nd NL team. It was most likely something they told parents to stop losing kids to other clubs. Those teams are in 1st or 2nd place so the excuse that they didn't finish high enough in the standings is bs. most of their NL teams are at the bottom of their age groups, what's going on down there. The MA is middle tier at best and Richmond United NL doesn't produce.

The RU Blue teams have the multi-sport athletes. On the boys side the NL teams can't play school sports. The better athletes are succeeding against weaker talent in RL while the more technical NL teams struggle against better talent. Richmond is also getting diluted. There are three other clubs recruiting for the RL/NL type player.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One application pending.....not for ECNL

Another MLS Next academy club?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On girls side, no new teams being added from Virginia, and not anticipating anyone leaving. They wanted to add one NC and one VA to keep it balanced and have travel partners, but had no applicants from VA that met standards. Richmond United setup their whole Strikers/Kickers merger to position for second ECNL team, but the Blue Teams that are supposed to be the strongest, didn't finish consistently high enough in the standings and sometimes were not the best Richmond United team overall.

Richmond United never had any intention of making Blue teams a 2nd NL team. It was most likely something they told parents to stop losing kids to other clubs. Those teams are in 1st or 2nd place so the excuse that they didn't finish high enough in the standings is bs. most of their NL teams are at the bottom of their age groups, what's going on down there. The MA is middle tier at best and Richmond United NL doesn't produce.

The RU Blue teams have the multi-sport athletes. On the boys side the NL teams can't play school sports. The better athletes are succeeding against weaker talent in RL while the more technical NL teams struggle against better talent. Richmond is also getting diluted. There are three other clubs recruiting for the RL/NL type player.

You're right about the athleticism, Blue teams often best the NL teams in scrimmages. RU NL girls can play school sports, it is strongly discouraged. Futsal is the norm, basically more soccer, no diversity, more injuries. NL teams have flatlined a while ago without fresh legs along with each team has several injured players. Colleges know that multi sport athletes are they way to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:On girls side, no new teams being added from Virginia, and not anticipating anyone leaving. They wanted to add one NC and one VA to keep it balanced and have travel partners, but had no applicants from VA that met standards. Richmond United setup their whole Strikers/Kickers merger to position for second ECNL team, but the Blue Teams that are supposed to be the strongest, didn't finish consistently high enough in the standings and sometimes were not the best Richmond United team overall.

Richmond United never had any intention of making Blue teams a 2nd NL team. It was most likely something they told parents to stop losing kids to other clubs. Those teams are in 1st or 2nd place so the excuse that they didn't finish high enough in the standings is bs. most of their NL teams are at the bottom of their age groups, what's going on down there. The MA is middle tier at best and Richmond United NL doesn't produce.

The NL girls are near the top of the table for most age groups. For the boys, I suspect you will see that at the younger ages they are more competitive. They start to lose players as they get into older age groups.

[Anonymous]

My guess is that ECNL will eventually create another ECNL nl team in Nova. Maybe promote a couple of some large rl teams into another union type club. They should have done that already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One application pending.....not for ECNL

Another MLS Next academy club?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My guess is that ECNL will eventually create another ECNL nl team in Nova. Maybe promote a couple of some large rl teams into another union type club. They should have done that already.

The forced unions are why all the forced clubs abandoned ECNL for GA. They wont go this way again.