Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll missing the forest. The purpose of ECNL is for college recruiting. It helps colleges find players and players find colleges. That’s why there are 44 teams in a “playoff”. Think of it like a job fair. If a player comes back from Seattle with several coach emails and invites (job leads and interviews), it’s a success. If the team wins but no coach interest it’s a failure. To the extent that winning is a goal it is only because it might enhance the true goal and give more chances for college interest. Those of you arguing over playing styles and tactics and national championships are so naive.

And what have you won?

College soccer is terrible. Seriously, next time you see it on TV watch for a while. Especially women's college soccer. Wait until the end of the game and the coaches will start subbing like crazy completely slowing down the game. This will kill any kind of pressure that normally happens coaches have to sit back and watch the players they've picked work like crazy until the game is over. This is when goals generally happen because everyone is tired and likely to make mistakes.

I’m not trying to win anything. My kid enjoys playing college soccer. I enjoy supporting her. If she enjoyed acting in plays or singing or debating I would support her there too. To us soccer is just an activity like any of these others. The entire ECNL ecosystem exists for people like me. It does what it’s supposed to. You want it to be something else. Fine, but maybe you’d be better off starting a whole new ecosystem that was catered for what you want

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll missing the forest. The purpose of ECNL is for college recruiting. It helps colleges find players and players find colleges. That’s why there are 44 teams in a “playoff”. Think of it like a job fair. If a player comes back from Seattle with several coach emails and invites (job leads and interviews), it’s a success. If the team wins but no coach interest it’s a failure. To the extent that winning is a goal it is only because it might enhance the true goal and give more chances for college interest. Those of you arguing over playing styles and tactics and national championships are so naive.

Some of us care about quality futbol. The pencil-neck poindexters view soccer as nothing more than a vehicle for their upper class white girl DD to get even more privilege (ie better college admission), which is the actual reason the quality around here sucks.

YES!!!!!!!!! You now understand. Why do you care about quality soccer? Very odd. The sport is not the be all and end all. Sports are here to serve people not people serving the sport.

Go team mediocre!

How about next year we just hand you your participation trophy. Then we don't have to waste time actually playing games. We'll just take the 3-5k you'd spend on playoffs and hand it to some expensive D3 school recruiter and they'll give you a 5k scholarship to a 60k per year school. This way you can brag to your friends at the country club that your kid got a scholarship to play soccer in college.

See how it works when you're not actually trying to be the best and win national championships?

There is no such thing as a D3 recruiter. There are D3 coaches that are looking for players. There is no D3 money at all. You have a lot to learn.

In this area but not exclusively this area there are lots of girls that are great at soccer but school comes first. D3 is not a bad word. Absent the Ivys and a few others the best schools are D3. It is not all about the soccer. DD had an offer from a high academic D3. She had D1 offers but the schools were not an academic match. Every other girl in that class for that team had D1 offers.

Anonymous wrote:Maryland United claimed on instagram that they are the "only club in Maryland to send two teams to the ECNL playoffs"?

Is that true?

I thought Bethesda's 11s and 10s are there (at minimum.) Is there a difference between playoffs and something else in Seattle that I'm missing?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll missing the forest. The purpose of ECNL is for college recruiting. It helps colleges find players and players find colleges. That’s why there are 44 teams in a “playoff”. Think of it like a job fair. If a player comes back from Seattle with several coach emails and invites (job leads and interviews), it’s a success. If the team wins but no coach interest it’s a failure. To the extent that winning is a goal it is only because it might enhance the true goal and give more chances for college interest. Those of you arguing over playing styles and tactics and national championships are so naive.

Some of us care about quality futbol. The pencil-neck poindexters view soccer as nothing more than a vehicle for their upper class white girl DD to get even more privilege (ie better college admission), which is the actual reason the quality around here sucks.

YES!!!!!!!!! You now understand. Why do you care about quality soccer? Very odd. The sport is not the be all and end all. Sports are here to serve people not people serving the sport.

Go team mediocre!

How about next year we just hand you your participation trophy. Then we don't have to waste time actually playing games. We'll just take the 3-5k you'd spend on playoffs and hand it to some expensive D3 school recruiter and they'll give you a 5k scholarship to a 60k per year school. This way you can brag to your friends at the country club that your kid got a scholarship to play soccer in college.

See how it works when you're not actually trying to be the best and win national championships?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll missing the forest. The purpose of ECNL is for college recruiting. It helps colleges find players and players find colleges. That’s why there are 44 teams in a “playoff”. Think of it like a job fair. If a player comes back from Seattle with several coach emails and invites (job leads and interviews), it’s a success. If the team wins but no coach interest it’s a failure. To the extent that winning is a goal it is only because it might enhance the true goal and give more chances for college interest. Those of you arguing over playing styles and tactics and national championships are so naive.

Ding, ding, ding…we’ve got a winner!

I agree but it is more complicated than that. There are not just 44 teams in a playoff in Seattle. There are another 16 in North American Cup, another 16 in Showcase A and another 16 in Showcase B. 92 teams -- all with lots and lots of coaches watching players not teams. Why are they watching -- because highlights have been sent to coaches. Club coaches have called them and they have already seen the people they are interested in at ECNL NC or PHX, or FLA or Dallas. For uncommitted 07s this is a final look for D3s. For 08s this is a hard look but D1s have already seen the 08s they are interested in multiple times already. For 09s -- this could be a first look.

It is all part of an ECNL ecosystem that works really well for what it is intended to do.

Winning in unrealted to the recruiting for the most part. If you don't get to Playoffs no one can watch you there so you do need to win a bit.

This is the game. Some below say oh this is not soccer and college soccer is awful. Maybe. Who cares. The goal of most of the girls in ECNL is to play college soccer. Same as the goal of almost all men with college football. Only very few think they will play pro. They love the game and want to play before they go do other stuff. No guy thinks -- if I do this I will make the NFL better -- who cares. Same with Women's soccer. It could be lax or field hockey. They love the game and play as best they can as they go to college to get ready for the rest of their lives -- very little of which will have anything to do soccer.

An uncommitted 07 who is now scrambling for D3 offers? Those parents have already lost their long-term travel soccer bet. They'll now get to pay out of their anuses for their son or daughter to go to - best case - a high academic school they won't even like. People who have put themselves in that position are just trying to salvage an offer and save some face at the cocktail parties.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I've noticed in other areas versus this area is a more clearly defined hierarchy of clubs. There are many ECNL cubs in Dallas, for example, but everyone there knows Solar is the "best" and the top talent consolidates there year after year. In NY/NJ, there are many ECNL clubs but everyone knows PDA is the "best" and the top talent consolidates there. In this area, you have 5+ ECNL teams all claiming to be the best but our talent is more spread out. When there were only two ECNL teams in the area, the top talent did consolidate and those teams had more success at that national level than we typically see today....

Exactly, we have too many ECNL teams. Brave/Union merger was great imo but we need at least one more merger/consolidation of ECNL teams in the area. We need 1 team for Prince William, 1 team for Loudoun and western Fairfax and 1 team for Fairfax/Alexandria and Arlington. Then teams will be competitive.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll missing the forest. The purpose of ECNL is for college recruiting. It helps colleges find players and players find colleges. That’s why there are 44 teams in a “playoff”. Think of it like a job fair. If a player comes back from Seattle with several coach emails and invites (job leads and interviews), it’s a success. If the team wins but no coach interest it’s a failure. To the extent that winning is a goal it is only because it might enhance the true goal and give more chances for college interest. Those of you arguing over playing styles and tactics and national championships are so naive.

Some of us care about quality futbol. The pencil-neck poindexters view soccer as nothing more than a vehicle for their upper class white girl DD to get even more privilege (ie better college admission), which is the actual reason the quality around here sucks.

YES!!!!!!!!! You now understand. Why do you care about quality soccer? Very odd. The sport is not the be all and end all. Sports are here to serve people not people serving the sport.

Go team mediocre!

How about next year we just hand you your participation trophy. Then we don't have to waste time actually playing games. We'll just take the 3-5k you'd spend on playoffs and hand it to some expensive D3 school recruiter and they'll give you a 5k scholarship to a 60k per year school. This way you can brag to your friends at the country club that your kid got a scholarship to play soccer in college.

See how it works when you're not actually trying to be the best and win national championships?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll missing the forest. The purpose of ECNL is for college recruiting. It helps colleges find players and players find colleges. That’s why there are 44 teams in a “playoff”. Think of it like a job fair. If a player comes back from Seattle with several coach emails and invites (job leads and interviews), it’s a success. If the team wins but no coach interest it’s a failure. To the extent that winning is a goal it is only because it might enhance the true goal and give more chances for college interest. Those of you arguing over playing styles and tactics and national championships are so naive.

And what have you won?

College soccer is terrible. Seriously, next time you see it on TV watch for a while. Especially women's college soccer. Wait until the end of the game and the coaches will start subbing like crazy completely slowing down the game. This will kill any kind of pressure that normally happens coaches have to sit back and watch the players they've picked work like crazy until the game is over. This is when goals generally happen because everyone is tired and likely to make mistakes.

Anonymous wrote:What I've noticed in other areas versus this area is a more clearly defined hierarchy of clubs. There are many ECNL cubs in Dallas, for example, but everyone there knows Solar is the "best" and the top talent consolidates there year after year. In NY/NJ, there are many ECNL clubs but everyone knows PDA is the "best" and the top talent consolidates there. In this area, you have 5+ ECNL teams all claiming to be the best but our talent is more spread out. When there were only two ECNL teams in the area, the top talent did consolidate and those teams had more success at that national level than we typically see today....

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There are 44 teams at 'Nationals' and many are getting blown out and not winning a single game

This means the overall quality is low.

Why are there 44 teams?

There are 44 teams at champions league.

I'll assume you're not dumb enough to be drawing comparison between watered down pay-to-play ecnl with parents spending thousands to attend pseudo 'nationals' with the UEFA Champions League

Please tell us about a league that isn’t pay to play with the same level of competition in the US. Otherwise, STFU.

10 of 44 teams couldn't win a single game?
"Elite" my arse. Cartoon overpriced competition

Should only be maybe 20 strong teams for national finals

You do realize in that case you're probably going to have 5 teams (out of the 20) that "couldn't win a single game". For every game that has a winner, there's also a loser.

They are playing 3 games at least. Not just one.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll missing the forest. The purpose of ECNL is for college recruiting. It helps colleges find players and players find colleges. That’s why there are 44 teams in a “playoff”. Think of it like a job fair. If a player comes back from Seattle with several coach emails and invites (job leads and interviews), it’s a success. If the team wins but no coach interest it’s a failure. To the extent that winning is a goal it is only because it might enhance the true goal and give more chances for college interest. Those of you arguing over playing styles and tactics and national championships are so naive.

Some of us care about quality futbol. The pencil-neck poindexters view soccer as nothing more than a vehicle for their upper class white girl DD to get even more privilege (ie better college admission), which is the actual reason the quality around here sucks.

YES!!!!!!!!! You now understand. Why do you care about quality soccer? Very odd. The sport is not the be all and end all. Sports are here to serve people not people serving the sport.

Go team mediocre!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ya’ll missing the forest. The purpose of ECNL is for college recruiting. It helps colleges find players and players find colleges. That’s why there are 44 teams in a “playoff”. Think of it like a job fair. If a player comes back from Seattle with several coach emails and invites (job leads and interviews), it’s a success. If the team wins but no coach interest it’s a failure. To the extent that winning is a goal it is only because it might enhance the true goal and give more chances for college interest. Those of you arguing over playing styles and tactics and national championships are so naive.

Some of us care about quality futbol. The pencil-neck poindexters view soccer as nothing more than a vehicle for their upper class white girl DD to get even more privilege (ie better college admission), which is the actual reason the quality around here sucks.

YES!!!!!!!!! You now understand. Why do you care about quality soccer? Very odd. The sport is not the be all and end all. Sports are here to serve people not people serving the sport.