I am sure there are many reasons why having different leagues may help some aspects for clubs - or that one can "create" to "sell" the advantages of having different leagues - BUT having watched this system for over 10 years, I believe it is simply wrong. At the same time - maybe I am missing something. Simply saying " I like my league" doesn't work .... using a fancy name in the "league" like Academy or MLS also not exactly a good way to explain the real quality of a league - but good PR. Having to apply for a league to get in ? I tried to explain that concept to my friend who coached a top real league in youth football in Europe - I guess it did not translate. Having to explain to my child that we have 5 good local teams - but we NEVER EVER play them because they all play totally different leagues - so we all get drive further - not easy. Thinking SoCal needs to travel and play teams all over the country - makes no sense ... we have a higher population and probably more youth soccer players in SoCal than the Netherlands - so we can't create a highly competitive league in Socal ? ONE LEAGUE is the only answer I can come up with ...but maybe I am missing something ...
5 different type of leagues in Socal - WHY ?
- Thread starter OneLeague
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I do not agree with you. You can't have 1 league and have everyone that plays rec compete in the same league. You make no sense. There has to be a way to separate the serious players from the rec players. why do you think Europe has an academy system?
You can have 1 league. The rec teams play at rec level of the league.
TeamDadJokes
SILVER ELITE
Maybe he’s referring to the old days of Coast with different tiers in the same league but different division. Before the pandemic, I was pretty impressed with how CSL did Coast Cup and made a tournament for every bracket and geographic location to claim a single champion. That’s something no other tournament has accomplished from SoCal league or state cup.
I understand why clubs didn’t want to be in coast with promotion. Why start in bronze or silver elite if you have a team of ECNL caliber players.
But I agree that it’s silly to have as many letter leagues as we do here in California from SD to the Bay.
In Socal that means we'd have 4 academy teams tops for the boys, 1 for the girls. Everyone else plays rec. The only issue with this is the US is very big, which is why MLS created MLS Next--- the academy teams unless they are going to be flying every weekend (expensive and tiring on the players) need someplace for their players to practice (particularly the second stringers).
The other issue with Coast was it's a pyramid using pro/rel. If distribution was by distribution in skill, the heaviest levels should have been Silver and Silver elite, not bronze. So you had teams like my kids first team who were forced to start in bronze (and whipped the competition by scores in the double digits) but then ran into trouble once they moved on in state or league cup because they didn't have sufficient competition to train. Or like my kids second team that always finished 1 off from promotion, would lose the best kids, and then kept missing out on promotion because they had to start over. Pro/rel in that system also distorted learning because coaches were afraid of having the kid's make mistakes and the easiest way to win was to poach players (hence tryouts got pushed into thanksgiving) who were tall, fast and close to the age line.
The main issue here is that we don't have one over arching organization to administer the leagues and the letter leagues are administered by what essentially amounts to cartels (and with UPSL, MLS2, NDL, ENCL RL2 there are going to be way more than 5 at least on the boys side). The cartels don't necessarily admit the clubs based on performance (or neither the Red Bulls nor LASC would have made MLS Next last year) or geographical need (ECNL doesn't have any teams in the Downtown Los Angeles triangle and LASC is currently supposed to be the valley team for MLS Next but it's area overlaps directly with Laufa/LA Surf/TFA). That's not good either but short of the government taking action, a lawsuit by a major club locked out (looking at you AYSO United), or action by Fifa, I don't really see a fix to it.
The other thing which distorts the entire thing on the boys high end is the existence of MLS Next. The non-academy teams are there for the sole purpose of serving the MLA Academies by providing them cannon fodder for training and a runway for recruitment. Given the size of the US, unlike Europe, otherwise the academy teams would be having to fly constantly to play. The girls eventually will have an academy system too which will replicate the problem on the girls end.
Agreed. The irony is that 90% of club soccer is rec soccer. Look at State Cup (at least for U12 and above) its 3rd tier and lower teams on the boy's side.
I assume field availability is a major factor. You essentially have to have access to a quality 11v11 field for 25-30 weekends a year. That may trump overall performance of a club in some areas of the country
Is that an issue that some areas of LA that are under represented in these leagues have ?
Noticer
BRONZE
I do not agree with you. There is one league in England called "The English Football League." This league is not football like we typically think of football here in the USA. In England they actually call soccer "football." Anyway, the EFL has a relegation and promotion system in this one league (see attached image.) This isn't some fly-by-night operation, by the way. The EFL has been around for over 100 years, and boasts some of the best players in the world (Brian McBride even played there!)
Also, this pyramid doesn't even include the more rec-ish teams in the lower tiers of the greater Football Association. I know you didn't think the op made any sense, but consider what could be if there was actually a singular governing body with some balls in US soccer.
Attachments
Yes and no. For example it’s been a huge issue in the decline of teams from the valley. My sons last year in coast I remember 1 field he played on was partially flooded, dirt and potholes in the middle of a homeless camp with 1 goal askew due to a pipes issue and a large hazard in midfield marked off with cones. It’s why SoCal insisted on the npl teams making the trek to silverlake. The higher letter league teams standards are even more rigorous so even at great park only a handful of the fields qualify as to 11v11 size.
It’s also why a lot of 11v11 games are played on high school fields.
And there are a lot of high school fields around town. My kids school goes unused most weekends. The issue is they are expensive and the insurance and bonding requirements are rigorous (and that’s all on the club not the league). From what I hear it was a factor in what happened to laufa last year and a factor in Red Bulls getting mls next. But then there are teams like downtown la that do have access to a high school field but are nevertheless locked out. It boils down to a cost issue (which is why I was surprised to find 1 mls next team practicing in a dumpy park the way my kid would in coast bronze). You can have your soccer accessible, competitive or developmental. Pick 2.
p.s. I know of two Latino leagues in the val. One plays on the dumpy fields in Balboa park...not the worst conditions...not the best. Better than most of what Coast had when he played there. The other one plays at John Ferraro and the San Fernando turf fields off of Victory. Those fields are nice, affordable, are booked by a well run league despite being high demand, but they are too small to qualify for higher letter league 11 v 11. My kids had more than 1 assist off of those fields, and even scored from goal 1 time. The adult Latino league in the area plays at Gols in San Fernando. Gols is going so well they are opening new fields shortly almost doubling the size. But it's the same issue: the field size is not large enough to support letter league 11 v 11.
Ok, I’ve always wondered why we have all these public high schools with nice turf fields go unused pretty much on weekends
I wonder what the cost is to play Pop Warner (I assumed that it was cheaper than club soccer)? Pop Warner teams use our high school's field all the time, granted they play fewer games than most soccer leagues. Maybe they have insurance that is backstopped by the national organization which makes it cheaper?
asianautica
BRONZE
I totally agree with the original post. Example would be, if you're in San Diego, it makes absolutely no sense to have to travel over 100 miles to play against a team in Santa Barbara, Las Vegas, and Phoenix, when within San Diego, you have 4 MLS Next teams, 4 EA teams, 4 ECNL teams, 4 ERCL teams. Some of the ECRL teams can beat MLS Next team and some EA teams can beat ECNL teams. This is not even considering NPL team. Some NPL teams can beat MLS Next and ECNL teams as well. So, within San Diego County alone (30 miles radius), you can build an extremely competitive league with 16-20 teams. You can split this in 1/2 and have each club have 1st and 2nd team and have 8-10 teams per league.
Can’t speak for Pop Warner , but rec basketball , baseball , and flag football are way cheaper than club soccer , most of the registration fess are less than $200 which includes a uniform
Pop Warner is probably similar , but the equipment is expensive
In SoCal the main issue is the water. Even the grass fields at great park are awful and Temecula is so overused by the start of winter some of them are all dirt. Baseball fields are mostly dirt so dif issue.
Real salt lake built a bunch of immaculate fields. Beautiful but salt lake still isn’t producing world class players by the lot. With the lake drying up that might not last much longer however. When we were out there during Covid the facilities were impressive even at the rec level.
In Spain they solve the issue by locking up their turf and grass fields for academy only, most schools play futsal on concrete and rec gets some awful leftovers.
asianautica
BRONZE
Grass doesn't need fresh drinking water. We do have recycled water for non-drinking, so we can totally use that. The bigger problem is, where would you put these fields? Land is a much bigger problem IMHO.
That is not true - they have pro academies - that are actual sleep over academies - but all play in one DFB system in Germany - which has the strongest Football system in the world over the last 70 years ...
Also "rec league" - what does that mean - how many hours a week
I would bet that we may have only 6-8 teams per age group that actually train at max level - all this nonsense wording fools all of us !!! Tell me how many hours per week they practice and I tell you if its a "real" highest level team - because I did this in another sport at the max - and if you ain't doing practice before school in some form you ain't at the highest level.......