equalizersoccer.com Several top coaches sound the alarm: The U.S. youth system is broken

[Anonymous]

Anyone has access to have entire article?

Several top coaches sound the alarm: The U.S. youth system is broken

https://equalizersoccer.com/2019/12/04/coaches-united-states-girls-youth-system-broken-ecnl-development-academy/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Anyone has access to have entire article?

Several top coaches sound the alarm: The U.S. youth system is broken

https://equalizersoccer.com/2019/12/04/coaches-united-states-girls-youth-system-broken-ecnl-development-academy/

League proliferation means dilution with more travel for equal or inferior competition. About right?

[Anonymous]

At the top of their list of complaints is U.S. Soccer and, in their eyes, the federation’s attempt to take over the youth game in America.

Back in 2009, 40 of the top girls’ clubs in the U.S. formed the ECNL, which stands for Elite Clubs National League. Their purpose was simple, to bring together the country’s most elite clubs and pit them against each other in one combined competition.

Then, in 2017, U.S. Soccer launched the Girls’ Development Academy, which was modeled on the federation’s boys’ academy first started in 2007.

The move by U.S. Soccer split the youth landscape in two, with some top teams moving to the DA and others staying in the ECNL. The end result, according to these coaches, has been a lower level of competition in both leagues and a weakening of the youth game across the United States

“It’s in complete shambles,” said Paul Riley, head coach of the National Women’s Soccer League’s North Carolina Courage and the director of coaching for Long Island-based youth outfit Albertson Soccer Club — which has teams in both the ECNL and the DA.

“I don’t understand the whole DA thing,” he told The Equalizer. “I was excited when [U.S. Soccer] said they were going to do the DA. I thought at the time the ECNL had lost their elite status and they started bringing in [too many] clubs and once you dilute it, you dilute the player pool. And when you dilute the player pool, you dilute the quality of the practices. When you take away that, then the quality of the games is not as high.”

But Riley explained that despite his initial hopefulness, the DA actually ended up making the problem worse.

I'M NOT PAYING FOR THE REST of the article EITHER...if somebody does please post I want to hear why he thinks DA makes the problem worse..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At the top of their list of complaints is U.S. Soccer and, in their eyes, the federation’s attempt to take over the youth game in America.

Back in 2009, 40 of the top girls’ clubs in the U.S. formed the ECNL, which stands for Elite Clubs National League. Their purpose was simple, to bring together the country’s most elite clubs and pit them against each other in one combined competition.

Then, in 2017, U.S. Soccer launched the Girls’ Development Academy, which was modeled on the federation’s boys’ academy first started in 2007.

The move by U.S. Soccer split the youth landscape in two, with some top teams moving to the DA and others staying in the ECNL. The end result, according to these coaches, has been a lower level of competition in both leagues and a weakening of the youth game across the United States

“It’s in complete shambles,” said Paul Riley, head coach of the National Women’s Soccer League’s North Carolina Courage and the director of coaching for Long Island-based youth outfit Albertson Soccer Club — which has teams in both the ECNL and the DA.

“I don’t understand the whole DA thing,” he told The Equalizer. “I was excited when [U.S. Soccer] said they were going to do the DA. I thought at the time the ECNL had lost their elite status and they started bringing in [too many] clubs and once you dilute it, you dilute the player pool. And when you dilute the player pool, you dilute the quality of the practices. When you take away that, then the quality of the games is not as high.”

But Riley explained that despite his initial hopefulness, the DA actually ended up making the problem worse.

I'M NOT PAYING FOR THE REST of the article EITHER...if somebody does please post I want to hear why he thinks DA makes the problem worse..

I am a little tired of the dilution argument. Look at this area, you really want one DA clubs here? Let’s say they make it Arlington and everyone from Maryland and Nova have to go there to play DA. You would lose a boatload of players. It’s not about teams winning at a certain age, it’s about developing player(really for college) and casting a wide net. You can make training more challenging within the current system- play up, play with boys, implement more challenging training programs/techniques, etc.

If you really wanted to change the system have a full time regional academy at u16 or u17. Eliminate driving 4 hrs one way for a league game at u12/u13. The time wasted in traveling to practices and games and the cost are the biggest problems with soccer. That coach lives in the travel soccer bubble world.

[Anonymous]

I read it, wanting to hear real ideas. All I heard was it's US soccer's fault because we had ECNL and didn't need GDA. That's a waste of a read. If they truly care about dilution and it is youth and not power or money they seek, then either merge with the GDA or agree to be its feeder.

All these dilution problems, beyond ECNL and DA: who will make it stop? Who is willing to work for league mergers? Let's stop having 10 elite leagues. But to do that, why do we have 3 national organizations all wanting to control youth soccer? All advancing leagues to attract the top players?

And possibly it's worth discussing paying feeder clubs and/or some sort of promotion/relegation.

Do things that change the environment. Sh** or get off the pot. All this whining is nauseating.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read it, wanting to hear real ideas. All I heard was it's US soccer's fault because we had ECNL and didn't need GDA. That's a waste of a read. If they truly care about dilution and it is youth and not power or money they seek, then either merge with the GDA or agree to be its feeder.

All these dilution problems, beyond ECNL and DA: who will make it stop? Who is willing to work for league mergers? Let's stop having 10 elite leagues. But to do that, why do we have 3 national organizations all wanting to control youth soccer? All advancing leagues to attract the top players?

And possibly it's worth discussing paying feeder clubs and/or some sort of promotion/relegation.

Do things that change the environment. Sh** or get off the pot. All this whining is nauseating.

The market wants youth soccer to look like this. This set up maximizes the amount of dollars that can be extracted from parents wallets and that is what drives the bus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read it, wanting to hear real ideas. All I heard was it's US soccer's fault because we had ECNL and didn't need GDA. That's a waste of a read. If they truly care about dilution and it is youth and not power or money they seek, then either merge with the GDA or agree to be its feeder.

All these dilution problems, beyond ECNL and DA: who will make it stop? Who is willing to work for league mergers? Let's stop having 10 elite leagues. But to do that, why do we have 3 national organizations all wanting to control youth soccer? All advancing leagues to attract the top players?

And possibly it's worth discussing paying feeder clubs and/or some sort of promotion/relegation.

Do things that change the environment. Sh** or get off the pot. All this whining is nauseating.

The market wants youth soccer to look like this. This set up maximizes the amount of dollars that can be extracted from parents wallets and that is what drives the bus.

I am not paying to read that drivel but the article is speaking to ecnl club directors who are complaining about the gda? Please. The ecnl are the Masters of the game and showed gda how much money could in fact, be extracted. They are just victims of their own success so cry me a river. They are the ogs of this youth soccer mess and the gda just piled on the crap fest

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read it, wanting to hear real ideas. All I heard was it's US soccer's fault because we had ECNL and didn't need GDA. That's a waste of a read. If they truly care about dilution and it is youth and not power or money they seek, then either merge with the GDA or agree to be its feeder.

All these dilution problems, beyond ECNL and DA: who will make it stop? Who is willing to work for league mergers? Let's stop having 10 elite leagues. But to do that, why do we have 3 national organizations all wanting to control youth soccer? All advancing leagues to attract the top players?

And possibly it's worth discussing paying feeder clubs and/or some sort of promotion/relegation.

Do things that change the environment. Sh** or get off the pot. All this whining is nauseating.

The market wants youth soccer to look like this. This set up maximizes the amount of dollars that can be extracted from parents wallets and that is what drives the bus.

I am not paying to read that drivel but the article is speaking to ecnl club directors who are complaining about the gda? Please. The ecnl are the Masters of the game and showed gda how much money could in fact, be extracted. They are just victims of their own success so cry me a river. They are the ogs of this youth soccer mess and the gda just piled on the crap fest

How long before the ECNL coaches who are crying up a storm and complaining about DA move to DA...lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read it, wanting to hear real ideas. All I heard was it's US soccer's fault because we had ECNL and didn't need GDA. That's a waste of a read. If they truly care about dilution and it is youth and not power or money they seek, then either merge with the GDA or agree to be its feeder.

All these dilution problems, beyond ECNL and DA: who will make it stop? Who is willing to work for league mergers? Let's stop having 10 elite leagues. But to do that, why do we have 3 national organizations all wanting to control youth soccer? All advancing leagues to attract the top players?

And possibly it's worth discussing paying feeder clubs and/or some sort of promotion/relegation.

Do things that change the environment. Sh** or get off the pot. All this whining is nauseating.

The market wants youth soccer to look like this. This set up maximizes the amount of dollars that can be extracted from parents wallets and that is what drives the bus.

I am not paying to read that drivel but the article is speaking to ecnl club directors who are complaining about the gda? Please. The ecnl are the Masters of the game and showed gda how much money could in fact, be extracted. They are just victims of their own success so cry me a river. They are the ogs of this youth soccer mess and the gda just piled on the crap fest

How long before the ECNL coaches who are crying up a storm and complaining about DA move to DA...lol.

Who cares? Same difference either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read it, wanting to hear real ideas. All I heard was it's US soccer's fault because we had ECNL and didn't need GDA. That's a waste of a read. If they truly care about dilution and it is youth and not power or money they seek, then either merge with the GDA or agree to be its feeder.

All these dilution problems, beyond ECNL and DA: who will make it stop? Who is willing to work for league mergers? Let's stop having 10 elite leagues. But to do that, why do we have 3 national organizations all wanting to control youth soccer? All advancing leagues to attract the top players?

And possibly it's worth discussing paying feeder clubs and/or some sort of promotion/relegation.

Do things that change the environment. Sh** or get off the pot. All this whining is nauseating.

The market wants youth soccer to look like this. This set up maximizes the amount of dollars that can be extracted from parents wallets and that is what drives the bus.

I am not paying to read that drivel but the article is speaking to ecnl club directors who are complaining about the gda? Please. The ecnl are the Masters of the game and showed gda how much money could in fact, be extracted. They are just victims of their own success so cry me a river. They are the ogs of this youth soccer mess and the gda just piled on the crap fest

How long before the ECNL coaches who are crying up a storm and complaining about DA move to DA...lol.

One of the coaches in the article did go to gda from ecnl and is crying about it. Lost a ton of business. Which is why he is crying.

[Anonymous]

ECNL coaches complain about the state of US Soccer in an article behind a paywall. The irony.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read it, wanting to hear real ideas. All I heard was it's US soccer's fault because we had ECNL and didn't need GDA. That's a waste of a read. If they truly care about dilution and it is youth and not power or money they seek, then either merge with the GDA or agree to be its feeder.

All these dilution problems, beyond ECNL and DA: who will make it stop? Who is willing to work for league mergers? Let's stop having 10 elite leagues. But to do that, why do we have 3 national organizations all wanting to control youth soccer? All advancing leagues to attract the top players?

And possibly it's worth discussing paying feeder clubs and/or some sort of promotion/relegation.

Do things that change the environment. Sh** or get off the pot. All this whining is nauseating.

The market wants youth soccer to look like this. This set up maximizes the amount of dollars that can be extracted from parents wallets and that is what drives the bus.

Yes indeed. If you want to change the structure of youth soccer, you will have to take it out of the hands of the free market. It's just not going to happen. The last ten years has been a constant cycle of leagues rising and falling. I give ECNL credit for sustaining. They know how their market well.

The article is correct in that having all these choices is good for growing the size of the market, but it will eventually hurt the quality at the top because of the dilution that is occurring. GDA shows no signs of fixing this, they seem to prefer to compete with ECNL at their own game. If I were looking to make GDA into an NT feeder, I would collapse it down to fewer teams centered around NTC locations and focus my resources on those elite players. This would let the truly elite play together. They just haven't shown the aptitude to run a truly national program that does anything significantly different than ECNL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read it, wanting to hear real ideas. All I heard was it's US soccer's fault because we had ECNL and didn't need GDA. That's a waste of a read. If they truly care about dilution and it is youth and not power or money they seek, then either merge with the GDA or agree to be its feeder.

All these dilution problems, beyond ECNL and DA: who will make it stop? Who is willing to work for league mergers? Let's stop having 10 elite leagues. But to do that, why do we have 3 national organizations all wanting to control youth soccer? All advancing leagues to attract the top players?

And possibly it's worth discussing paying feeder clubs and/or some sort of promotion/relegation.

Do things that change the environment. Sh** or get off the pot. All this whining is nauseating.

The market wants youth soccer to look like this. This set up maximizes the amount of dollars that can be extracted from parents wallets and that is what drives the bus.

Yes indeed. If you want to change the structure of youth soccer, you will have to take it out of the hands of the free market. It's just not going to happen. The last ten years has been a constant cycle of leagues rising and falling. I give ECNL credit for sustaining. They know how their market well.

The article is correct in that having all these choices is good for growing the size of the market, but it will eventually hurt the quality at the top because of the dilution that is occurring. GDA shows no signs of fixing this, they seem to prefer to compete with ECNL at their own game. If I were looking to make GDA into an NT feeder, I would collapse it down to fewer teams centered around NTC locations and focus my resources on those elite players. This would let the truly elite play together. They just haven't shown the aptitude to run a truly national program that does anything significantly different than ECNL.

Doing so still puts ECNL as the feeder league. ECNL will not accept that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ECNL coaches complain about the state of US Soccer in an article behind a paywall. The irony.

The one featured in the free part of the article runs a gda club.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL coaches complain about the state of US Soccer in an article behind a paywall. The irony.

The one featured in the free part of the article runs a gda club.

Maybe they will kick him out for complaining but he coaches the top pro womens soccer team so maybe he doesn't care.