Any new ECNL teams?

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02/09/2026 13:26

Subject: Any new ECNL teams?

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Anonymous

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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.

Are you talking boys or girls here because it makes a big difference. I assume boys, because for girls, RU is the only real game in town unless you go north. I don't see Velocity (No Girls Teams), Grove (Small Girls program) or FC Richmond (GA Aspire) competing for players on the girls side. On the boys side, yeah, there is competition there from those clubs. I'm not sure how much yet for Velocity and Grove as they are newer, but it's there for sure.

Also, on the boys NL side, they also lose players to MLS Academies. There were about 6, IIRC, that left to go to various academies from Charlotte, to Philly, to Columbus and even the much maligned DCU. The Boys Blue RL teams are doing quite well and the Red/Orange are behind in standings which I think is expected.

I still believe, and this is from direct experience with the club, the long term goal with the having 3 RL teams - Blue, Orange and Red - is to get the Blue teams moved into NL. It makes little sense otherwise to have 3 RL clubs and 2 competing in VA South and 1 in VA North.

Anyway, back to the question, are there any new ECNL teams in the MA and the answer seems to be NO.

I don't know why they would want a 2nd NL team. On the boys side the other clubs where they have a 2nd team, the 2nd team is usually bad and Richmond is a smaller market. They need a MLSN club down there to provide a 2nd high level option and let them become rivals.

Who is that going to be is the question? It's not happening next year or maybe even in the next 5. While Grove and Velocity are pulling some players, they both don't have enough, I think, to move into MLSN right away. Maybe down the line. FC Richmond is MLSN2 or whatever it's called and I don't think it will be them either.

While Richmond is a smaller metro market, they are kind of uniquely placed in that they can pulled down into Williamsburg, out into Charlottesville and up to Fredericksburg for talent. There are already kids coming from those areas to play. Fredericksburg could go north, but the ride south is better. Williamsburg could go to the beach, but it's easier to get to Richmond. Oh well. Maybe no movement in or out of the MA this year.

It will most likely be Velocity. They are building their own fields and some age groups, especially the younger ones, are already competitive with ECNL. Their sister org, Carolina Velocity, is already in MLSN.

I knew about the fields that Virginia Velocity planned to build but didn't realize that they had a sister org. When I took a quick look, it appears that Carolina Velocity, at least for 2025-2026, is competing in MLS Next Academy Division, which is MLSN2, same as FC Richmond. So, while I can see Virginia Velocity moving to the MLS platform, don't know if it will be a straight move to MLS Homegrown. Competition is good though. I agree on that.