Anonymous wrote:Soccer is more diluted in NOVA and we have more people. Both are true. From the many ECNL games I have seen North Carolina coaching is also superior. Why? I have no idea but it is.

Can you be specific?

Soccer is more diluted in NOVA and we have more people. Both are true. From the many ECNL games I have seen North Carolina coaching is also superior. Why? I have no idea but it is.

Anonymous wrote:Charlotte metro area: 2.4M people
Raleigh metro area: 1.3M people

DC metro area: 6.3M people

That is why there are as many clubs in our area as there are in ALL of North Carolina. These metro areas are far and wide, for all three areas, but the point is we have "so many" clubs because we have the population to sustain it. Dallas has 5 ECNL clubs (2x from one umbrella club). So, two clubs in our area is dumb af.

Also you have to have the wealthy customer base to pay and play. DMV has a lot of that! No worries about going to two teams for this area…that would leave too much money laying around.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Charlotte metro area: 2.4M people
Raleigh metro area: 1.3M people

DC metro area: 6.3M people

That is why there are as many clubs in our area as there are in ALL of North Carolina. These metro areas are far and wide, for all three areas, but the point is we have "so many" clubs because we have the population to sustain it. Dallas has 5 ECNL clubs (2x from one umbrella club). So, two clubs in our area is dumb af.

DC metro area also includes Maryland!

Yes, it does. I'm saying in our area, we have a lot of clubs because of the population. Maryland being included emphasizes my point... we have a LOT of kids so we need a LOT of clubs.

Anonymous wrote:Charlotte metro area: 2.4M people
Raleigh metro area: 1.3M people

DC metro area: 6.3M people

That is why there are as many clubs in our area as there are in ALL of North Carolina. These metro areas are far and wide, for all three areas, but the point is we have "so many" clubs because we have the population to sustain it. Dallas has 5 ECNL clubs (2x from one umbrella club). So, two clubs in our area is dumb af.

DC metro area also includes Maryland!

Charlotte metro area: 2.4M people
Raleigh metro area: 1.3M people

DC metro area: 6.3M people

That is why there are as many clubs in our area as there are in ALL of North Carolina. These metro areas are far and wide, for all three areas, but the point is we have "so many" clubs because we have the population to sustain it. Dallas has 5 ECNL clubs (2x from one umbrella club). So, two clubs in our area is dumb af.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure why it would be better to have fewer local ECNL teams that were national contenders. It wouldn't be better for the players who could no longer make a ECNL team. It wouldn't be better for the players who would need to travel further to practice fields. It wouldn't be better for clubs who rely on having ECNL to recruit young players to their teams.

Other than having bragging rights to say DC area has a top national team, where is the benefit?

Those are odd points. The idea is that the strongest players practice together and get better. Right now, if you are one of the strongest on the team you are likely not maximizing you’re training time. Lots a kids on ECNL teams probably shouldn’t be there if we were true to the elite moniker. Travel to practice fields may be an issue, but with some smart consolidation, that can be mitigated. Who cares about the club.

The strongest players at high school ages don’t practice and play with each other in other sports like basketball and football, and it doesn’t seem to stop them from developing. These kids play with whoever else goes to their high school. Why does soccer require specialized elite leagues in order for players to develop?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure why it would be better to have fewer local ECNL teams that were national contenders. It wouldn't be better for the players who could no longer make a ECNL team. It wouldn't be better for the players who would need to travel further to practice fields. It wouldn't be better for clubs who rely on having ECNL to recruit young players to their teams.

Other than having bragging rights to say DC area has a top national team, where is the benefit?

Those are odd points. The idea is that the strongest players practice together and get better. Right now, if you are one of the strongest on the team you are likely not maximizing you’re training time. Lots a kids on ECNL teams probably shouldn’t be there if we were true to the elite moniker. Travel to practice fields may be an issue, but with some smart consolidation, that can be mitigated. Who cares about the club.

Look there is no problem with stronger players not getting enough practice time against other strong players. Travel at its highest level is high school age kids. It’s not that high of a level. In every sport kids at this age play and practice with/against other kids not at their level. It does not hurt their “development”. EPL does not sign players for their YTS till 16 or u17 in our system(most will never sniff the first team). Why because what passes as a strong u12-u16 player is a small part of what makes a strong player at 21.

The truly gifted kids are few and far between. These kids have the athleticism but also the skills, great touch, drive and high soccer iq. Many of the “strong” kids in travel are just good athletes and do not have the technical skill, speed of play and soccer iQ(specially on the girl’s side). A kid with technical skill, high speed of play and high soccer IQ will adjust at the next level or in a game against like players.

The problem with consolidating to one or two teams is you will lose the kids who will be the best players at 17 plus. Travel clubs are not paid to develop players. They are paid to win at each age group. You can do that by just selecting fast big players from u9-u15.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure why it would be better to have fewer local ECNL teams that were national contenders. It wouldn't be better for the players who could no longer make a ECNL team. It wouldn't be better for the players who would need to travel further to practice fields. It wouldn't be better for clubs who rely on having ECNL to recruit young players to their teams.

Other than having bragging rights to say DC area has a top national team, where is the benefit?

Those are odd points. The idea is that the strongest players practice together and get better. Right now, if you are one of the strongest on the team you are likely not maximizing you’re training time. Lots a kids on ECNL teams probably shouldn’t be there if we were true to the elite moniker. Travel to practice fields may be an issue, but with some smart consolidation, that can be mitigated. Who cares about the club.

What you're talking about is more tiers so that the truly elite are collected together. The GDA was supposed to be that, but they blew it by attempting to compete with ECNL. IMO, this is where US Soccer (cringe) needs to come in to establish regional feeder teams/training centers to the YNT's. These would need to be funded of course, and therein lies the rub. I don't see a model where this can be done pay to play, there are tons of logistical problems.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure why it would be better to have fewer local ECNL teams that were national contenders. It wouldn't be better for the players who could no longer make a ECNL team. It wouldn't be better for the players who would need to travel further to practice fields. It wouldn't be better for clubs who rely on having ECNL to recruit young players to their teams.

Other than having bragging rights to say DC area has a top national team, where is the benefit?

Those are odd points. The idea is that the strongest players practice together and get better. Right now, if you are one of the strongest on the team you are likely not maximizing you’re training time. Lots a kids on ECNL teams probably shouldn’t be there if we were true to the elite moniker. Travel to practice fields may be an issue, but with some smart consolidation, that can be mitigated. Who cares about the club.

Maybe a better illusration of dilution in the Northern Virginia area to compare against NC would be number of total clubs (regardless of whether or not they are ECNL or not) plus how many teams those clubs create at each age level compared to population. Many clubs in the area go 3-5 teams deep at younger age levels and 2-3 deep at the older age levels. And we know many families opt out of ECNL for various reasons (e.g. expense, time commitment, happy where they are currently, not interested etc.). The 6-7 ECNL clubs in the area do not have all of the best talent in the area playing for them.

Using Ranting Soccer Dad's club directory and VYSA info there are at least 42 clubs in all of Virginia, and at least 28 clubs in northern virginia alone. Compare that to the 21 in all of NC according to the same directory. That suggests there is not only more dilution in VA compared to NC but more dilution in northern Virginia compared to all of NC.

I think it's less about coaching and more about dilution. Coaching issues might be a byproduct of player and club dilution because you need more coaches to server so many more clubs than NC has.

I'm not sure why it would be better to have fewer local ECNL teams that were national contenders. It wouldn't be better for the players who could no longer make a ECNL team. It wouldn't be better for the players who would need to travel further to practice fields. It wouldn't be better for clubs who rely on having ECNL to recruit young players to their teams.

Other than having bragging rights to say DC area has a top national team, where is the benefit?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of talk around here about what if the DMV had just 2 mega ECNL clubs like NC has.

My guess is that many girls would no longer be playing soccer because if they didn't make one of those top 2 teams, parents here would have packed it in. As it stands now, talent is more diluted among many teams in the area, but at least more kids get to experience it.

To me, the area is better for it- improves overall play, allows more players to learn to love the game, and in turn- hopefully give back to future generations.

This is all horseshit. The problem here is not talent. It's coaching. There are more than enough kids in this area to support several teams who could be competitive with the top teams in the country if they were sufficiently well coached.

This is all horseshit. Not even Ansom Dorrance could coach a local ECNL team to win a National Championship below the U18/U19 age. PDA, Solar, and LAFC will always rule the roost.

Nonsense. The post is about dilution, not coaching. Do you think that NC magically has better coaching on average? No, they are just as good/bad as they are here.

So that one extra club in Virginia explains the entire difference?

I didn't say that. I was just avoiding the trope of bad coaching to explain this.
It's not easy to compare populations to numbers of clubs. There are many more factors involved.
But fwiw, google says the DC metro area has 6.3M. NC has 10.5M. If we're comparing ECNL clubs, DC has 7 (VDA, BRYC, McLean, Loudoun, Arlington, Bethesda, Maryland). NC has 6. YMMV.

To be honest, as the customer, competition and options are good. Yes, dilution is the by product. But given some of the threads on here and if there were only two options, I fear that those two options could very well be terrible in terms of culture, coaching, player experience.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of talk around here about what if the DMV had just 2 mega ECNL clubs like NC has.

My guess is that many girls would no longer be playing soccer because if they didn't make one of those top 2 teams, parents here would have packed it in. As it stands now, talent is more diluted among many teams in the area, but at least more kids get to experience it.

To me, the area is better for it- improves overall play, allows more players to learn to love the game, and in turn- hopefully give back to future generations.

This is all horseshit. The problem here is not talent. It's coaching. There are more than enough kids in this area to support several teams who could be competitive with the top teams in the country if they were sufficiently well coached.

This is all horseshit. Not even Ansom Dorrance could coach a local ECNL team to win a National Championship below the U18/U19 age. PDA, Solar, and LAFC will always rule the roost.

Nonsense. The post is about dilution, not coaching. Do you think that NC magically has better coaching on average? No, they are just as good/bad as they are here.

So that one extra club in Virginia explains the entire difference?