Cherry-picking the remaining top 6 clubs in GA doesn't make the league as strong as ECNL. Sure, the top handful could succeed in ECNL, but it's a fast drop-off after that, and the last 2/3 of GA is just not good. Like the last 1/3 of ECNL. |
What you're missing is the top GA clubs exist on their own. They'd be good in any league the play in. MLSN is now partnered with GA. How many clubs do you think ECNL has strong armed into participating in boys ECNL if they want girls ECNL? If there's more than one someone is going to jump at the chance to play MLSN. If ECNL drops their girls in retaliation they'll go to GA. ECNL can't retaliate on everyone that switches to MLSN or they'll send even more to GA. |
That would cause some infighting “Why does club x get to have ecnl/MLSN but your forcing us to have both in ECNL” |
There are only few decent ECNL clubs as well. There are plenty of teams in ECNL in DMV that are struggling |
And over 50% are in California alone…. |
I'm agreeing with you on the top set of teams in the GA can compete in either league. But the drop-off in quality from there is steep in the GA. If you took the top 40 teams in any age group, I'd venture a guess that ~30 of them would be ECNL. The depth of quality just isn't there in the GA. |
ECNL is known for forcing clubs to play in Boys ECNL if they want to play in girls ECNL. Up until MLSN and GA announced a partnership. They existed completely independent of each other. MLSN never force clubs into GA or vice versa. If MLSN and GA take a page out of ECNLs playback and start forcing clubs to go all in on MLSN/GA if the want MLSN ECNL won't last very long on the boys or girls sides. |
The bolded is wrong on a lot of levels. The (large) majority of the good (Top 30?) girls teams at any age are ECNL teams. GA is a distant second in terms of the number of teams in the top 30. Does that mean there aren't good GA teams and there aren't bad ECNL one? Of course not. |
In Michigan, back with MLSN formed, Michigan Wolves/Hawks (a longtime successful nonprofit club) likely separated over this (it was spun as creating a stout standalone girls club). |
There's already multiple clubs with that setup.... Bethesda, Delco, PDA, Phoenix Rising, St Louis Scott Gallagher, FC Dallas, Colorado Rapids, and maybe a couple others also |
I wouldn’t put too much trust into that app. If the rankings restarted every season that would be much better. But having data from when your team was blowing teams out 19-1 playing in a 2nd/3rd flight in the next age group doesn’t really count :/ |
Comfirmed |
Yes, the ECNL has more top ranked teams. But it’s not due to some magic ECNL fairy dust that makes players better. It’s just the conditions of the last few years allowed them to consolidate players. There is nothing ECNL provides for a top player that the player also wouldn’t be able to achieve if they were playing at a GA club. YNT scouts are at both. P4 coaches go to events at both. It’s strange that people feel so much loyalty to a league. |
Those are the founding members of both MLS Next and ECNL girls. If ECNL lets in one more club have MLSN and ECNL Girls that's not a founding member in both, they'll have over 100 others asking for the same deal. |
Strikers in Irvive, CA had girls ECNL taken away when the put their boys ECNL teams in MLS Next. |