Reply to CCL and Virginia NPL: Make the case

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=RantingSoccerDad]

So tell me this -- if you could toss aside all the egos in an ideal world, would we NOT be better off integrating a lot of this? EDP is doing club-v-club but *only* for clubs that have all their teams at an elite level -- is that not better than CCL or VaNPL? [/quote]

Of course it would be better. But this is not an ideal world. In an ideal world we would not have cancer either.

NCSL (WAGS on the girls side) predated many of these leagues, but we know what has happened there. To remedy this and not repeat history, we need to understand why NCSL/WAGS continues to crumble. [/quote]

NP here. RSD, I agree with your vision for an ideal structure 100%. It would be so much better for kids and development.

To PP, having been around when WAGS and NCSL started their slide, I think there were two primary issues. First, the leadership of the 2 leagues had been there forever. They had a lot of power since they were basically it at the time, and they grew rigid and a bit arrogant. NCSL was still a great league for kids at the time,  because it had a clear and fair system in place where the top 2 (or 3, depending on the division) moved up and down each season. You got to play with all the teams in the DMV at a level that was always appropriate. Contrary to what many claims, we never saw that this structure encouraged bad, win at all cost soccer. Good coaches had their teams playing great soccer, and bad coaches didn't, same as is currently the case in the club centric leagues like Da, ECNL, and CCL. But the leadership was not willing to be flexible on scheduling of games, club passes, etc., and there were a loot of club heads (like Ken Krueger at PWSI) who had a nasty relationship with the league leadership and vice versa. These unhappy club heads were thrilled to stick it to NCSL and WAGS (which had additional problems in that their pro rel was not pure, and they seemed to put teams into the top division bases on favoritism).

Meanwhile, DA started in 2007, and all the clubs who didn't get it freaked out. As discussed on DCUM in other contexts,  they needed to claim that they too had an elite product,  Voila, CCL north. Some of the member clubs probably believed the claims that CCL would be better for development and more convenient for families, but I think the power trip and marketing ploy were more significant drivers.

Now, as then, you'd have to weed out the big egos and find leaders who cared about the downsides of pay to play for families to bring sanity to have a better system for our kids. [/quote]

That's a great post and I agree with pretty much all of it.  The arrogance and lack of flexibility of those running NCSL/WAGS had a lot to do with driving people away.  As you say, the leadership had been there forever, and many of them had long since lost touch with what was happening "on the ground" so to speak.  Their kids were older.

There were a lot of changes going on at the time:  the number of professionally coached and trained teams increased drastically, the introduction of the "technical director" position at many clubs, "academy style" travel programs, .... These changes were met with a lot of mistrust and resistance from the "old guard," and NCSL and WAGS were still insisting on  an "our way or the highway" approach to scheduling, resolving coaching conflicts, play-ups, player movement between rosters, etc....

So the market was ripe for more accommodating leagues to step in and start to draw teams and/or clubs in by offering to fulfill their needs.  Want flexible scheduling and "like v like" competition every week, even for good teams in small clubs?  Go EDP.  Want a "club v club" format with maximum flexibility of player movement and accommodating an active TD role?   Go CCL.  But CCL was exclusive so if you couldn't get into that but still wanted club v club format and were maybe worried about the travel of EDP - then go NPL.

From one perspective, there's nothing wrong with any of this.  It shows the value of market competition (which has also spurred changes in NCSL/WAGS).    I guess the problem I have with the CCL/NPL comes down to marketing.  If they were selling themselves as better for development because of some things they pitched as inherently better about the club v club model, I'd be fine with that.  But the sales pitch really does seem to still be about who's more "elite", when in reality the answer is neither.    The boys DA and girls DA/ECNL have cornered the market on that.   For all of the other leagues, to the extent that level of competition is what's important, the only one that can really claim to provide the highest level - across the board - is EDP.  CCL/NPL teams who are very good will play some other good teams, but they will also play some teams which are far below their level, season after season.

So, RSD, here is the case for CCL and NPL:

League soccer shouldn't be primarily focused on results.  It should be about development.  The club v club model allows clubs to focus on that - under the careful and watchful eye of their very involved and highly expert technical directors, by moving players between teams and age groups, playing them out of position at times to work on certain weaknesses in their games, and generally creating a developmental / teaching-focused environment which is simply impossible to do when results have priority.  This is the same developmental model followed by the US Soccer Federation in it's Development Academy -- which is not a promotion/relegation league, for good reason.

That's the case I think they should be making, even though they're not.  Instead, they continue to "compete" with each other, and with EDP, for some illusory perception of "most eliteness" status.

I also think if they took my advice they'd both probably fold within a year or two.

Market forces can do great things with an educated consumer base, but I think we are a generation or two away from attaining that in this country.

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