Reply to Boys DA, ECNL, ODP, CCL, EDP, NCSL, ODP

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=RantingSoccerDad][quote=Anonymous]Further evidence Boys ECNL is dying.  Baltimore Celtic has pulled its top boys team (U14) from ECNL.   They'll be playing EDP instead.  The club will enter its B team in ECNL.  Clubs with both DA and ECNL already do this.  If non-DA clubs start doing it as well, the end is near.

Reason given was lack of competition.  Last fall they beat the NE teams by over 10 goals (1 game was 17-1).  In the spring the parents and coach refused to travel all the way to CT & MA for non-competitive games.  The NE teams actually agreed to forfeit the games themselves, rather than insist the Baltimore teams make the trip to blow them out.

It's time for all involved to admit the Boys ECNL was just a really bad idea.

[/quote]

Typical Baltimore.

Steve Nichols was on stage at NSCAA a few years ago explaining that he left the Baltimore Bays' DA operation because the games weren't competitive. Guess who's back in the DA?

I'm hardly a defender of having multiple "national" leagues. Maybe boys' ECNL is a really bad idea. The travel last year was ridiculous, and it's only slightly better this year now that the VA teams are going south rather than north.

But it's just a little funny to see people in Year 1 give up and say it's not competitive enough.

And if a game is 17-1, you're probably doing something wrong. Have your goalkeeper play forward -- it'll help develop foot skills he'll need at a higher level. Move everyone to a different position -- also helpful for development. You don't have to do the rec-league "only score with your weak foot" or "pass the ball 20 times before you shoot" rules, but if you're THAT much better than the opposition, you're going to have to get creative to get any developmental lesson from the game.[/quote]

From multiple parents on that team - the coach was trying to get creative to keep the score down, and eventually gave up and just told them they couldn't shoot at all.

BTW their GK already has great footskills.  Every player on the team has great footskills, and they already play at a high level.  This is a very good team:  https://home.gotsoccer.com/rankings/team.aspx?TeamID=754504&Page=1&History=yes&compact=.   Their average GD in the ECNL was +7.   That's not just one blowout.  That's a whole year of blowouts.

The parents were in open revolt.  They didn't ask to be put in ENCL in the first place.  Their club signed them up for it with promises of a high level of competition.  They are at the southern edge of the Northeast conference.  7 of the other teams (half the conf) are in NY, CT, and MA.  Next thing the parents know, they're driving 20 hours round trip in a weekend, paying close to $100 in tolls, in addition to hotel & food, all to stand on the sideline for 70 minutes watching their kid's coach try to be "creative" to hold down the score.

The kids were just as unhappy as the parents.  These are very dedicated players.  They work hard, sacrifice a lot, and as long as it is both fun and productive for them, they absolutely love it.  There was nothing fun or productive about the ECNL for them.

I guess my initial post was a little misleading, by saying "the club" pulled this team from ECNL.  It would be more accurate to say that the club gave in to the parents' demands to pull them from the league.

But I don't think opting out of another year of that was "funny" for them.   Doing anything else would have been insanity.

[/quote]

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