Why would certain clubs put top teams in ECRL instead of GA? It seems like a disservice to the kids on those top teams to play a bunch of second teams from top clubs. Am I missing something or are the second teams playing GA making out like bandits in terms of level of play?
Somebody take away this guy's Kool-Aid please. Brother you're missing everything. What makes you think GAL is even better than Discovery? Simi where are you, this is the whole DPL discussion all over again. Hate to break it to you, but GAL may be the 4th best league after 1) ECNL, 2) ECRL, a very close second, 3) Discovery/GAL, 4) GAL/Discovery.
ECRL will annihilate GAL and in my opinion can give ECNL a run for its money. You have Beach, Legends, Pats, and West Coast FC's top teams and then you have Surf & Blues' 2nd teams which are very, very good teams.
GAL has Beach, Legends, Pats, & WCFC's 2nd teams. Beach and Legends 2nd teams are also very good, but they are in a mix with many other "very good" teams. Pats & WCFC's 2nd teams are not as good as Beach and Legends 2nd teams and then you have 5 bottom tier former DA teams. These teams are probably in the "very good" tier of teams IF they stick together and don't lose player to ECNL. The kicker is City SC. If they stay intact then that's an excellent team.
Discovery has 6-8 "very good" teams. Look, my dd's are 04's and so we are almost out of this, but I can't sit by and let people just assume GAL is the second best league, just because the say they are and have a nice website. This exact same thing happened with DPL and I was proven right. So this is really for the younger parents out there. Don't panic!
So here's the deal. For any given age group in SoCal, you will have anywhere from 1-4 Elite/Great teams; 8-11 excellent teams; then 20-30 "very good" teams. That's our strength in SoCal, we have incredible depth. These 20-30 very good teams would be top 5 teams in about 35-40 States.
So ECNL and ECRL have all the Elite & excellent teams with the exception of City SC. But that's only 10-15 teams total. The rest are in the very good tier. Some of those "very good" teams are in ECNL & ECRL (the lower halves) and some are in Discovery, GAL, CSL, & SDDA.
You do not have to be in GAL to get college exposure. You can be in Discovery, CSL, SDDA, etc. and still attend the college showcases in Vegas, Silverlakes, and Surf. Look brother, I get that we all have egos, but we don't have to put another league down to prop ourselves up.