GA is now the B or C league.

[Anonymous]

I am a DMV resident with a DD playing outside of ECNL and DA/GA. I still don’t understand why people encourage their ex-DA club to join GA. The better situation would have been to enter EDP/National League and attend showcases. Staring a new league does not make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am a DMV resident with a DD playing outside of ECNL and DA/GA. I still don’t understand why people encourage their ex-DA club to join GA. The better situation would have been to enter EDP/National League and attend showcases. Staring a new league does not make sense.

It is not hard to understand. Clubs wanted a higher level of play and standards than EDP/NL. The 60 clubs in GA are better than the NL. Also GA clubs have similar model to DA. 10 month development program, 4 days a week of practice. It is what DA families wanted as well.

[Anonymous]

What elite league doesn't play 10 months? Dec and July are off basically. Many ECNL teams practice 4 days a week, and both leagues play 1 to 2 games a weekend. Only difference at HS ages is that ECNL crams all their games into a long fall season so kids can play HS. Don't really care which league is better, but there really is not much difference. The difference is with each team, their coach(es), and their players. That's it. Arguing over these two leagues is silly. Competition is stiff in both. Too bad they won't play each other more often. Its a shame really that adults want to prevent this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What elite league doesn't play 10 months? Dec and July are off basically. Many ECNL teams practice 4 days a week, and both leagues play 1 to 2 games a weekend. Only difference at HS ages is that ECNL crams all their games into a long fall season so kids can play HS. Don't really care which league is better, but there really is not much difference. The difference is with each team, their coach(es), and their players. That's it. Arguing over these two leagues is silly. Competition is stiff in both. Too bad they won't play each other more often. Its a shame really that adults want to prevent this.

Taking three months away from club practices and games to play HS is significant.

“Craming” more games in the fall does not make up for a loss of three months of quality club practices. The quality of any particular HS program is far to variable to be considered good for development.

Craming nearly a spring and fall season worth of games into 4-5 months before a kid plays an intense HS season of 2-3 games a week is also not healthy.

[Anonymous]

Yeah we are not interested in taking 3 months in a row off from playing competitive soccer. That’s why ECNL is the B league in our eyes. An A league should be year round soccer and that’s the GA.

[Anonymous]

OP here. Those are fair reasons. The get it now. In terms of quality of play, I still believe that ECNL is the stronger league and I am happy to see that everyone will get to play each other in non-league showcases.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Those are fair reasons. The get it now. In terms of quality of play, I still believe that ECNL is the stronger league and I am happy to see that everyone will get to play each other in non-league showcases.

The benefit of ECNL is maximized if your team is good. In our area there are just not enough top level teams across all age groups to warrant worrying about league patch locally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Those are fair reasons. The get it now. In terms of quality of play, I still believe that ECNL is the stronger league and I am happy to see that everyone will get to play each other in non-league showcases.

The benefit of ECNL is maximized if your team is good. In our area there are just not enough top level teams across all age groups to warrant worrying about league patch locally.

I don’t agree. In MD, teams play in ECNL NE where you have six or more clubs which produced competitive teams at every age group. PDA, World Class, FC Stars, SUSA, Pipeline, Penn Fusion, Pipeline, Bethesda and MUFC. Even the ECNL MA has McLean and several other clubs that are strong. Again, the GA is not as consistent. It is a competitive league but the fact just don’t support the GA being at the same level as the ECNL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Those are fair reasons. The get it now. In terms of quality of play, I still believe that ECNL is the stronger league and I am happy to see that everyone will get to play each other in non-league showcases.

The benefit of ECNL is maximized if your team is good. In our area there are just not enough top level teams across all age groups to warrant worrying about league patch locally.

I don’t agree. In MD, teams play in ECNL NE where you have six or more clubs which produced competitive teams at every age group. PDA, World Class, FC Stars, SUSA, Pipeline, Penn Fusion, Pipeline, Bethesda and MUFC. Even the ECNL MA has McLean and several other clubs that are strong. Again, the GA is not as consistent. It is a competitive league but the fact just don’t support the GA being at the same level as the ECNL.

You lost me when you said McLean was strong. At our age group, McLean is a joke. If we lived in MD, I can see your point. The ECNL NE division would make sense. In VA, no. GA is better. The MA ECNL teams are B league. I don’t care if PDA or LA Surf is in my league when we will never play them whether we are GA or ECNL MA. Moving to McLean would be such a huge step back it’s not even on the table.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What elite league doesn't play 10 months? Dec and July are off basically. Many ECNL teams practice 4 days a week, and both leagues play 1 to 2 games a weekend. Only difference at HS ages is that ECNL crams all their games into a long fall season so kids can play HS. Don't really care which league is better, but there really is not much difference. The difference is with each team, their coach(es), and their players. That's it. Arguing over these two leagues is silly. Competition is stiff in both. Too bad they won't play each other more often. Its a shame really that adults want to prevent this.

Taking three months away from club practices and games to play HS is significant.

“Craming” more games in the fall does not make up for a loss of three months of quality club practices. The quality of any particular HS program is far to variable to be considered good for development.

Craming nearly a spring and fall season worth of games into 4-5 months before a kid plays an intense HS season of 2-3 games a week is also not healthy.

Worked out ok for my kid and she payed b-ball in the winter too. Her choice. No injuries. Loved high school until Covid killed it. Wouldn’t have changed a thing. HS sports are great fun. That is the point by the way ... fun. Competitive, but still fun. Anyhow guess you’re one of the adults that wants to control other kid’s lives and have an elite princess club for your little precious. Hope she knows how to take care of herself when she’s older.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is probably the 10th time that list has been posted and it still doesn't show that LOCAL ECNL is better than GA! Trolling without substance doesn't mean much and coaches/teams didn't evaporate with the one letter change in the abbreviation. In fact, I'm hearing that acceptance rates for returning players on high performing GA teams is very high, and that worse teams have gotten influxes of better players.

Maybe in Virginia, but not elsewhere in the Atlantic Division. The people in NJ are calling it the "Virginia league" and have no desire to travel down here when ECNL rules in the NE.

Pretty simple for those at FCV or Arlington making the choice.

Stay with your better team or downgrade to a lesser team in ECNL. Development happens in training. So training with stronger players makes you stronger. Not the only factor in development but probably the biggest.

Hmmm. Seems like an obvious choice. At least for 20-21 season. Beyond that you have to reassess every year.

After seeing this post, I went to check out this NJ Soccer Forum. Peeking my interest was a poster who claimed that their brother has a daughter on a FCV team and seemed to be a strong pro-ECNL troll based on the statements that FCV was about ready to switch to ECNL. The NJ crowd can get a little rowdy with all their conspiracy theories and the poster was right in the mix stoking the flames against the GA. I have seen several mentions of soccer forums over the past month on DCUM, from CA, AZ, GA, and NJ. Every post referenced on these other boards was pro-ECNL and anti-GDA or anti-GA. I wonder if the same person(s) is going to all of these forums doing the same thing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What elite league doesn't play 10 months? Dec and July are off basically. Many ECNL teams practice 4 days a week, and both leagues play 1 to 2 games a weekend. Only difference at HS ages is that ECNL crams all their games into a long fall season so kids can play HS. Don't really care which league is better, but there really is not much difference. The difference is with each team, their coach(es), and their players. That's it. Arguing over these two leagues is silly. Competition is stiff in both. Too bad they won't play each other more often. Its a shame really that adults want to prevent this.

Taking three months away from club practices and games to play HS is significant.

“Craming” more games in the fall does not make up for a loss of three months of quality club practices. The quality of any particular HS program is far to variable to be considered good for development.

Craming nearly a spring and fall season worth of games into 4-5 months before a kid plays an intense HS season of 2-3 games a week is also not healthy.

Worked out ok for my kid and she payed b-ball in the winter too. Her choice. No injuries. Loved high school until Covid killed it. Wouldn’t have changed a thing. HS sports are great fun. That is the point by the way ... fun. Competitive, but still fun. Anyhow guess you’re one of the adults that wants to control other kid’s lives and have an elite princess club for your little precious. Hope she knows how to take care of herself when she’s older.

7k for a six month season. We’ll see post Covid how many kids can afford part-time soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here. Those are fair reasons. The get it now. In terms of quality of play, I still believe that ECNL is the stronger league and I am happy to see that everyone will get to play each other in non-league showcases.

The benefit of ECNL is maximized if your team is good. In our area there are just not enough top level teams across all age groups to warrant worrying about league patch locally.

I don’t agree. In MD, teams play in ECNL NE where you have six or more clubs which produced competitive teams at every age group. PDA, World Class, FC Stars, SUSA, Pipeline, Penn Fusion, Pipeline, Bethesda and MUFC. Even the ECNL MA has McLean and several other clubs that are strong. Again, the GA is not as consistent. It is a competitive league but the fact just don’t support the GA being at the same level as the ECNL.

You lost me when you said McLean was strong. At our age group, McLean is a joke. If we lived in MD, I can see your point. The ECNL NE division would make sense. In VA, no. GA is better. The MA ECNL teams are B league. I don’t care if PDA or LA Surf is in my league when we will never play them whether we are GA or ECNL MA. Moving to McLean would be such a huge step back it’s not even on the table.

I don't know the landscape well in VA other than to say I know a few girls on the u18/19 team, which has been a top team since u15. That team is one of the best in the country. I assume that the u18/19 team is not the only competitive team at McLean. And I don't care how you slice it, FCV is the only strong GA team in the region.