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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Boy D1 soccer. Was clear that was his likely path by age 12, 7th grade. [/quote]

The problem is 99% of parents with 12-year old boy travel players on top teams at that she think they same.  It rarely pans out.[/quote]
We did not find this to be the case, but we were on a high-level team where virtually every kid had one or more very knowledgeable soccer parents (DH in my case), and the families who didn’t sought out advice from those who did. If you polled all the knowledgeable parents on the team about which kids at 12 had college potential if they kept their grades up, the results would have been at least 75% accurate. I agree that a parent who does not know the game is not going to be able to make that prediction, and kids can go in a variety of directions depending on personalities and circumstances.[/quote]

NP. FWIW as a parent of a college soccer athlete, this wasn’t my experience at all. If you’d lined up the 12-year-olds on my DS’s team back then (playing at the highest possible level of play), you would not have been likely to correctly identify the kids who eventually played in college. We are in California where there is a very deep pool of soccer players, so maybe that’s the difference. [/quote]

Agree. Previous person talking out their ass[/quote]

So wrong.  The other two posters are spot on.[/quote]

I’m the PP from California who said that if had you lined up the 12-year-olds on my son’s top-level team (and the teams beneath his), you could not have correctly identified the college players. I think that is the truth for soccer, at least for California where there is a very deep pool of players. BUT I also agree with the person who started her post talking about Hampstead. That person is exactly correct about just how few men’s college players come out of MLSNext and ECNL. There are almost none at the D1 level. A few more do go to very good D3 schools, but they get in on academics first and then soccer.

And the numbers will decline further because of the transfer portal change. Kids who made it onto D1 teams as HS seniors prior to 2021 probably wouldn’t make it on now, and they might never even see the field in all their years because the spot they thought they had back in 2020 is now going to a junior transfer. Meanwhile, the top D1 soccer teams spend the majority of their time recruiting internationally. They get the kids who didn’t quite make it at, say, Ajax and at 22 want to come to the US to get an education and extend their soccer career.

I think anyone who says they can identify the college player at 12 is pretty delusional, with the exception of spotting the kids who are good enough at 12 that they won’t even go to college but will go straight to Europe or the MLS. Those kids are few and far between. Anyone in soccer who talks about how their 12-year-old will play D1 is almost certainly fooling themselves.

Just to put some color on this: this year for men’s U19, both NorCal and SoCal ECNL leagues are generally recognized as having, on average, the better teams in California. They regularly beat MLSNext teams both in and out of California, though not the best MLSNext teams. And yet, out of ALL teams in ECNL in California (which has some of the highest quality soccer in the US), there will probably be about 20-30 kids total who commit to a D1 program as freshmen. [/quote]

I think there are so few D1 players coming out of MLSNext and ECNL because a lot of kids don't play in these leagues to position themselves to play in college.  They want to go pro.  When they realize they won't be able too, probably because they don't believe they will be able to overcome or compete with the natural athleticism and talent that some kids are born with or just can't imagine putting in more work then they already do or realize that playing pro would even be harder, they quit.  Those who continue to play are gunning for a scholarship or trying to get into a better school than their grades would otherwise allow.  [/quote]

I disagree completely. There are very few D1 players coming out of MLSNext and ECNL simply because there are very few D1 roster spots for men who are freshmen.  Most current D1 roster spots are taken by international players or junior transfers, all of whom are aged 20 and above, and many of whom have quasi-professional experience.

Kids playing ECNL and MLSNext are not playing because they want to go pro and then just quitting in a huff because they can’t go pro. I’ve worked with a lot of those kids, and they generally have a very levelheaded view of their future opportunities (maybe not so much their parents). Kids playing in those levels mostly play because they are driven, competitive athletes, not because they’ve got delusions of being pro players. [/quote]

I said they either quit or for those who stay, they are trying to get a scholarship or leverage it into getting into a bigger college.  You basically confirmed this.  They are driven, competitive athletes with very levelheaded view of their future opportunities --- in other words, once they realize they're not good enough to go pro, if they stay in MLSNext or ECNL, they continue to play with the hope of leveraging that in getting a college scholarship or getting into a better college.  [B]I'm sorry, no kid is playing MLSNext and ECNL and putting themselves through that grind in high school just because they are "driven" and "competitive" without thinking they're going to get something out of it.  [/B]And to your point, few D1 players are coming out of MLSNext and ECNL because those that are left were never the most talented.  Those with actual pro potential leave to chase that dream.[/quote]

You obviously don’t know any of these kids. I’m sorry, but the bolded is next-level clueless. [/quote]

In my world, no kid would allow their parents to pay for MLSNext or ECNL and drive them around to those games just because they are "driven, competitive athletes." But if that's the environment where they can learn about what they can accomplish based on their drive and competitiveness, more power to those kids and their supportive parents.  [/quote]

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