New Additions to Leagues Check Up (ECNL & GA)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually kind of crazy when you think about how much weight people put into the Rankings App. It’s not sanctioned by any governing body, there’s no real oversight, and no official authority behind it in any capacity. At the end of the day, it was created by a soccer dad who figured out how to turn rankings into a business.

Yet clubs, parents, and even some coaches treat it like it’s the official measure of team quality. The youth soccer ecosystem has gotten to a point where an unofficial algorithm can shape perception more than actual development, coaching, or long-term player growth.

You have no idea how bad it was before the ranking app. It was all perception and everything was for sale. Even worse than it is now.

The ranking app is consistent and you cant pay for placement.

[Anonymous]

That’s kind of the point though. People have gotten so conditioned to accept the rankings as objective truth that questioning them sounds crazy. It’s very 1984, the system becomes the authority simply because everyone repeats it enough times.

No one’s saying 20 can’t be better than 30 on a given day. The issue is how quickly people stop using their own eyes, judgment, and context once an algorithm assigns a number next to a team’s name. A privately owned ranking system with no oversight somehow became accepted as gospel in youth soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why are ECNL clubs usually better on the girls side because those clubs have decided to invest more for the girls programs. Your local GA club can make it appear they are trying their best but ultimately girls are number 2 in their eyes.

It depends on where you are. But usually girls ECNL clubs have been around longer. But GA is becoming a huge issue for them because they're being forced to develop talent instead of just recruit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s kind of the point though. People have gotten so conditioned to accept the rankings as objective truth that questioning them sounds crazy. It’s very 1984, the system becomes the authority simply because everyone repeats it enough times.

No one’s saying 20 can’t be better than 30 on a given day. The issue is how quickly people stop using their own eyes, judgment, and context once an algorithm assigns a number next to a team’s name. A privately owned ranking system with no oversight somehow became accepted as gospel in youth soccer.

Fair, but I just use it to see all the other common games. I'm probably in the minority on that one, but it's worth $10 (of google play credits I already had ) just for that. It's extremely useful and I'm glad it exists.

[Anonymous]

Some ECNL parents are obsessed with GA. Nobody cares about GA or ECNL. Just help your DD get recruited and focus more instead of wasting time here debating GA vs ECNL. FYI, College coaches don’t care either. There are recruitable and non recruitable players in both leagues. So why bother comparing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually kind of crazy when you think about how much weight people put into the Rankings App. It’s not sanctioned by any governing body, there’s no real oversight, and no official authority behind it in any capacity. At the end of the day, it was created by a soccer dad who figured out how to turn rankings into a business.

Yet clubs, parents, and even some coaches treat it like it’s the official measure of team quality. The youth soccer ecosystem has gotten to a point where an unofficial algorithm can shape perception more than actual development, coaching, or long-term player growth.

You have no idea how bad it was before the ranking app. It was all perception and everything was for sale. Even worse than it is now.

The ranking app is consistent and you cant pay for placement.

This is true, but the app definitely favors ECNL teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some ECNL parents are obsessed with GA. Nobody cares about GA or ECNL. Just help your DD get recruited and focus more instead of wasting time here debating GA vs ECNL. FYI, College coaches don’t care either. There are recruitable and non recruitable players in both leagues. So why bother comparing.

I agree with this, sometimes I just like to come here to debate the ECNL hats for sport.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually kind of crazy when you think about how much weight people put into the Rankings App. It’s not sanctioned by any governing body, there’s no real oversight, and no official authority behind it in any capacity. At the end of the day, it was created by a soccer dad who figured out how to turn rankings into a business.

Yet clubs, parents, and even some coaches treat it like it’s the official measure of team quality. The youth soccer ecosystem has gotten to a point where an unofficial algorithm can shape perception more than actual development, coaching, or long-term player growth.

You have no idea how bad it was before the ranking app. It was all perception and everything was for sale. Even worse than it is now.

The ranking app is consistent and you cant pay for placement.

This is true, but the app definitely favors ECNL teams.

The app doesn't favor anyone. However if you're in a league with all highly ranked teams, they're all you play, and scores are never blowouts teams will get a boost.

You can see this when these type of teams play against teams from other leagues or geographies in finals. Usually their ranking drops 5-10 fairly quickly. The opposite is true if your team plays a wide variety of teams.

But again, once you play top clubs things even out quickly. This is why closed leagues stop playing outside their league when they get older

[Anonymous]

The app is good, the rankings are one piece of info, but I do agree don't represent the whole picture. My favorite feature is just parsing through the opponents records.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There is a huge delta between the top 3-5 GA clubs in the mid Atlantic and the bottom 7-9. Like two different leagues. So while ECNL > GA generally, the top of GA is equally if not more competitive than ECNL.

That’s fair. I think my main concern, pre ECNL parent, is that there is a lot less parity in GA so the lower half of games are much less competitive. That said, a lot of your season becomes playing non-competitive games. That feels like that would hold back growth and development. While yes, ECNL has bottom half teams, there is a lot more parity and thus, each game is still more competitive and thus, you are developing more.

Yes. PP here and I agree with you. But that could be only 1-2 years away from changing if/as MLS pulls clubs away from ECNL and thus GA gets a windfall. Not saying it will happen, but just that it could because there is nothing inherently superior about ECNL over GA. There are a TON of terrible ECNL clubs out there. Only the top 100 or so are competitive. That number for GA is presently about 60.

just taking a look at the top 25 on the soccer app rankings of how many GA teams were ranked in the top 25? I listed the number of ga teams in each age group for the top 25 below. the remainder are ECNL. facts matter

U19 - 6
U17 - 4
U16 - 3
U15 - 6
U14 - 0
U13 - 3

The issue with using the Soccer Rankings app as some definitive way to determine the ECNL vs GA league strength argument is that the methodology isn’t league-neutral. The rankings are heavily driven by strength of schedule algorithms and opponent weighting. 

When ECNL teams play other highly ranked ECNL teams, those wins and losses recycle value back into the ECNL ecosystem. Meanwhile, GA teams often don’t get the same weighting because the algorithm already assumes ECNL competition is stronger based on historical interconnected results. That creates a feedback loop.

So when someone says “only X GA teams are in the Top 25,” they’re ignoring how the rankings are built in the first place. It’s not an equal playing field mathematically.

The app itself even emphasizes opponent quality, strength of schedule, and predictive algorithms as core components of rankings. 

That means:
- An ECNL win over another ECNL team is inherently valued higher.
- GA teams have fewer opportunities to gain algorithmic momentum.

So yes, facts matter. But methodology matters too. If the weighting system favors ECNL match networks, then using those rankings alone as proof of league superiority is incomplete analysis.

Need more chances for leagues to compete against each other. ECNL shelters rankings by having a few extra showcases to make extra money vs giving ECNL teams opportunity to play other leagues...WAGs...Jeff Cup..etc...

not really. ecnl doesn't need to play ga teams, too many easy wins. better to just scrimmage their RL teams

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some ECNL parents are obsessed with GA. Nobody cares about GA or ECNL. Just help your DD get recruited and focus more instead of wasting time here debating GA vs ECNL. FYI, College coaches don’t care either. There are recruitable and non recruitable players in both leagues. So why bother comparing.

lions aren't concerned with sheep. but if it makes you feel better

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually kind of crazy when you think about how much weight people put into the Rankings App. It’s not sanctioned by any governing body, there’s no real oversight, and no official authority behind it in any capacity. At the end of the day, it was created by a soccer dad who figured out how to turn rankings into a business.

Yet clubs, parents, and even some coaches treat it like it’s the official measure of team quality. The youth soccer ecosystem has gotten to a point where an unofficial algorithm can shape perception more than actual development, coaching, or long-term player growth.

You have no idea how bad it was before the ranking app. It was all perception and everything was for sale. Even worse than it is now.

The ranking app is consistent and you cant pay for placement.

This is true, but the app definitely favors ECNL teams.

of course. better teams are ranked higher. doesn't take a rocket scientist to understand that

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s actually kind of crazy when you think about how much weight people put into the Rankings App. It’s not sanctioned by any governing body, there’s no real oversight, and no official authority behind it in any capacity. At the end of the day, it was created by a soccer dad who figured out how to turn rankings into a business.

Yet clubs, parents, and even some coaches treat it like it’s the official measure of team quality. The youth soccer ecosystem has gotten to a point where an unofficial algorithm can shape perception more than actual development, coaching, or long-term player growth.

You have no idea how bad it was before the ranking app. It was all perception and everything was for sale. Even worse than it is now.

The ranking app is consistent and you cant pay for placement.

This is true, but the app definitely favors ECNL teams.

That’s because ECNL is better for girls. Just like it “favors” MLSN on the boys side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some ECNL parents are obsessed with GA. Nobody cares about GA or ECNL. Just help your DD get recruited and focus more instead of wasting time here debating GA vs ECNL. FYI, College coaches don’t care either. There are recruitable and non recruitable players in both leagues. So why bother comparing.

lions aren't concerned with sheep. but if it makes you feel better

Most parents don’t even know about the GA. We don’t try and put down GA it’s just is what it is….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some ECNL parents are obsessed with GA. Nobody cares about GA or ECNL. Just help your DD get recruited and focus more instead of wasting time here debating GA vs ECNL. FYI, College coaches don’t care either. There are recruitable and non recruitable players in both leagues. So why bother comparing.

lions aren't concerned with sheep. but if it makes you feel better

Most parents don’t even know about the GA. We don’t try and put down GA it’s just is what it is….

correct. I only found out about ga a few years ago when our local rec team went to ga. after research I realized it was a good fit for them