Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Make the best decisions today given the information you know today based on what's best for your family. And then re-evaluate every year. All the rest is noise.

Excellent advice.

Totally agree!

Anonymous wrote:

Make the best decisions today given the information you know today based on what's best for your family. And then re-evaluate every year. All the rest is noise.

Excellent advice.

I don't know if this is how things will pan out. It could. But here is what I do know. The girls soccer landscape has changed a lot in the DMV over the last 5-10 years. I also know virtually every prediction on this board about leagues and clubs has been wrong. No one foresaw the rapid fall of DA, rise and fall of various alliances, GA's growth while ECNL shrinks in NoVA.

Given that the pace of change is likely to continue, even though it sounds perfectly logical, I see no reason to think ECNL will have the top teams, then a big gap and then some bad teams will pan out. It's far more likely something different will emerge that we are not imagining.

Make the best decisions today given the information you know today based on what's best for your family. And then re-evaluate every year. All the rest is noise.

Here's something else to understand.

San Diego Surf is tied to ECNL not specifically because they like ECNL. It's primarily because Surf Cup Sports, their division that runs tournaments 20x a year (think Jeff Cup but West Coast). These tournaments are highly attended by ECNL clubs. Because of this SD Surf can't really get away from ECNL.

BTW SD Wave the NWSL team practices at the Polo Fields (SD Surfs practice location). What this means at least using the Surf example is that there's going to be pressure on Surf to switch to GA + MLSN because the new San Diego MLS pro team is looking for a youth boys club to align with.

This is just one example but the same type of this is happening across the US with big clubs right now.

GA and MLSN haven't even started squeezing the MLSN + ECNL clubs to do GA yet. But this will happen. Also boys ECNL has a stink on it and it's getting worse. This will accelerate pushing even more clubs into MLSN (and GA).

The finishing blow will be when NWSL chooses a league to work with to create youth acadamies. When this happens they're going to choose GA because it's associated with MLSN.

Writing is on the wall parents can chose to ignore but trajectories are already set.

Interesting question for ECNL bottom line is if these ECNL clubs can't fill second teams for RL becasue customers prefer to play GA or stay in rec. Does this become a financial decision for some clubs to have a league for the 2nd teams to play in?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To me, it looks like ECNL will have a situation where it will get something like the top 5 team in a region, then GA will have the next 10 and then ecnl will get the next 5 (the exact numbers do not matter)

So what will the #5 and #6 teams do? Would you want to be #5 in ECNL, lose to the top 4 team, and crush teams #16-#20 or be #1 in GA (#6 overall) and beat #7-#15 (overall)

I get it, this is an over simplification, but it seems to be the direction we are going

The GA influx will also significantly impact ECNL RL. No reason to wait in a second team anymore.

Sure if you want to travel across the country as opposed to getting equal level of competition locally.

Anonymous wrote:To me, it looks like ECNL will have a situation where it will get something like the top 5 team in a region, then GA will have the next 10 and then ecnl will get the next 5 (the exact numbers do not matter)

So what will the #5 and #6 teams do? Would you want to be #5 in ECNL, lose to the top 4 team, and crush teams #16-#20 or be #1 in GA (#6 overall) and beat #7-#15 (overall)

I get it, this is an over simplification, but it seems to be the direction we are going

The GA influx will also significantly impact ECNL RL. No reason to wait in a second team anymore.

The pipeline might redistribute more scholarships towards GA. I don't imagine anything drastic happening to either league beyond that. More girls will choose to train in youth academies and not prioritize college first but secondary to a chance to play pro. NO matter what the salary is there is a group of girls and growing interest in the game for this. 2026-27 is going to remembered like 94-95. We are enering phase 3 of US soccer here folks hold on and remember its a game, have fun and smile. Two top tier leagues supports the reality that there is money to be made in the ponzi scheme that is youth club soccer.

I don’t understand all this GA fangirling going on. Will GA becoming a stronger league automatically make your daughter better? It’s the same thing you make fun of ECNL hats for.

Girl dads heads will explode but reality is
Moving the girls program of a mid-tier clubs to GA for MLSNext seems like a win win.

GA is still getting kids in college, not at the rate of ECNL, but it’s there. And MLSNext is a big cash cow…

To me, it looks like ECNL will have a situation where it will get something like the top 5 team in a region, then GA will have the next 10 and then ecnl will get the next 5 (the exact numbers do not matter)

So what will the #5 and #6 teams do? Would you want to be #5 in ECNL, lose to the top 4 team, and crush teams #16-#20 or be #1 in GA (#6 overall) and beat #7-#15 (overall)

I get it, this is an over simplification, but it seems to be the direction we are going