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Not sure how any of this helps kids, parents, development, US soccer. But we all just keep helping these people make money. EDP will take the hit with this one which is too bad, it provides a good balance between travel and quality currently. I’d be annoyed if I had to go multiple times to New Jersey to play second teams. The one certainty is that the soccer landscape always looks slightly different every Spring.
Blutarski wrote:awesomepossum wrote:ECNL told McLean and BRYC to merge to become Union and Brave and if you look at the branding for Alliance I assume they told Loudoun to do this merger. They’ve voiced they don’t want to add new teams in Northern Virginia and the Mid Atlantic conference is huge. It does allow them to get more Clubs involved in ECNL in some form. It might help Loudoun a little but mostly it makes Great Falls and Valor part of the ECNL umbrella in some form. That’s my take…
Nonsense.
1. ECNL has no interest in directing club mergers. Alliance or no alliance, the best female players gravitate to ECNL anyway. It's been that way as long as ECNL has been around.
2. Neither Valor nor GFR were even close to qualifying for ECNL membership. For them, this is a weak attempt to claim they are keeping their best girls in the system, however based on the way that similar alliances work, they will not have much of a part in running the ECNL teams.
3. VA Union is an alliance between McLean and SYC. BRYC is not involved. There are/were different/additional motivations for this alliance than the Loudoun alliance.
4. For all 3 clubs, this may allows control of more field space and leverage with county resources.
But this isn't a Club merger, it's forming a new ECNL only organization of 12 teams. On the girls side ECNL is the top, but not on the boys. With the alphabet soup of Leagues this allows ECNL to keep 2 other clubs top talent in the ECNL pipeline. Of course everyone can develop somewhere else and try out for any ECNL team, but this gives the illusion of an easier path and certainly the Alliance coaches will know the top younger players at all three clubs to try to funnel them in.
I agree each alliance is different but I believe it's an ECNL model to keep the talent in the League without adding new slots in Northern Virginia.
ECNL told McLean and BRYC to merge to become Union and Brave and if you look at the branding for Alliance I assume they told Loudoun to do this merger. They’ve voiced they don’t want to add new teams in Northern Virginia and the Mid Atlantic conference is huge. It does allow them to get more Clubs involved in ECNL in some form. It might help Loudoun a little but mostly it makes Great Falls and Valor part of the ECNL umbrella in some form. That’s my take…
SoccerCzar wrote:I was talking with one of the players of one of the older ECNL boys teams and he said that "all the boys" are leaving for NVU. Apparently (right or wrong I have no idea, but the thought is that), Vienna coaches are going to get the top teams and select the Vienna players over the BRYC players. He said...BRYC isn't perfect but the idea of playing for Vienna coaches biased to their own players is something he's not willing to do...and, according to him, many of the BRYC players feel exactly the same as he does. I have zero idea if Vienna coaches are actually getting these HC spots. This is just what he told me and I guess these are the feelings across the boys teams.
I'm on the boys side. If you were talking to a rising U18 that's probably true. They were probably the group that feared the merger the most and probably had the most to lose if new coaches came in. They also hadn't won a game all season and probably feared keeping their team intact. I'd say the rest of the ECNL ages are probably about 40% NVU 40% BRAVE 20% Going elsewhere. It was all a front row seat to adults behaving badly on both sides. Only losers were the boys and both clubs will probably field weaker teams in the process. I hope all boys land well and it works out on both sides, but honestly I'm not sure most kids either way won't be looking elsewhere next year.