Surf Cup Girls Olders

I think somebody noted earlier in this thread that ECNL just seems to have a foothold in SoCal. I think it will be hard for GA to make an impact (at least in that region)… as pointed out, players will gravitate toward more established clubs in order to play against the best competition. No doubt that GA is having success in other parts of the country
 
In the New England conference most of the top players leave for ECNL by U14. Comparing the GA & ECNL clubs in our area, only one or two of the GA clubs are competitive with the ECNL counterparts. There are some strong ECNL clubs here (PDA, FC Stars, World Class, Scorpions, SUSA & CFC) and only a couple of weaker clubs (East Meadow & FSA) so week to week there is just a huge difference in the level of competition.
 
Exactly how many teams need to win their group in the highest bracket, and in how many age groups, before you would consider ECNL to be far and away the stronger league? How many ECNL teams actually did win their group in the highest bracket at each age group btw?

Being in Vegas I look at it this way and maybe I'm over simplifying it. If my kids 06 GA team plays their best game against Blues, Legends, Slammers or Surf, which are arguably the best teams in the ECNL SW conference, and they play their best games, my kids team will lose. Those teams rosters are just better top to bottom. Against the other SW teams the games would be competitive and they would beat the bottom teams. This is the same result the Vegas ECNL 06 team currently has. So it benefits my kid to have the best coach and coaching staff working with her then worrying about the league competition.
 
I spoke with a women's college assistant coach I have known for 15 years this weekend at Surf Cup (D1 west coast school and not Power 5). She basically said GA still has some great teams/players, but there is much more talent in ECNL overall and it shows when they go to events. They still go to GA events, but typically end up watching just a few top teams as the quality tends to drop off quicker than at ECNL events. She said ECNL games are also played at a faster speed, which allows them to evaluate talent better as it equates better to the college game. They aren't typically watching ECRL games at all.
 
Being in Vegas I look at it this way and maybe I'm over simplifying it. If my kids 06 GA team plays their best game against Blues, Legends, Slammers or Surf, which are arguably the best teams in the ECNL SW conference, and they play their best games, my kids team will lose. Those teams rosters are just better top to bottom. Against the other SW teams the games would be competitive and they would beat the bottom teams. This is the same result the Vegas ECNL 06 team currently has. So it benefits my kid to have the best coach and coaching staff working with her then worrying about the league competition.

Good assessment......it does seem the 06 Mojave and Sonoran are split into a top 4 and then the rest......Heat finished 5th but were 26 goals and 14 points behind the 4th placed team LA Breakers....... same story in the Sonoran where Strikers finished 5th but were 40 goals and 16 points behind the 4th placed team SoCal Blues........Koge, Surf and Legends seem to be the definite top dogs among these top 8 teams........Heat one of the best of the next 9 teams and the GA teams would be able to give these bottom 9 a regular close game.......
 
They aren't typically watching ECRL games at all.
I think that is an interesting comment from your friend. I have always thought that was the case because of what I read on this board, but was surprised to see that 16 coaches 9 of which were D1 college coaches and 5 D2 college coaches at our games this weekend and we have a couple of years until graduation. I know that doesn't compare to ECNL, but it certainly isn't the doomsday that is presented on this board. I started looking at some Instagram pages of certain clubs and noted several ECRL player commitments to D1 colleges recently. There definitely seems to be an increase in recruits from ECRL from last year.
 
Good assessment......it does seem the 06 Mojave and Sonoran are split into a top 4 and then the rest......Heat finished 5th but were 26 goals and 14 points behind the 4th placed team LA Breakers....... same story in the Sonoran where Strikers finished 5th but were 40 goals and 16 points behind the 4th placed team SoCal Blues........Koge, Surf and Legends seem to be the definite top dogs among these top 8 teams........Heat one of the best of the next 9 teams and the GA teams would be able to give these bottom 9 a regular close game.......
What age group are you referring to?
 
I think somebody noted earlier in this thread that ECNL just seems to have a foothold in SoCal. I think it will be hard for GA to make an impact (at least in that region)… as pointed out, players will gravitate toward more established clubs in order to play against the best competition. No doubt that GA is having success in other parts of the country
I agree that this is the way things are now but if only 2-3 clubs always win every year eventually the rest of the clubs will get fed up with being shut out of the finals and move on. Add in MLS Next on the boys side and GA doesn't seems that bad. On the Boys side ECNL is a distant 2nd to MLS Next.

Also something to consider is for girls if a player is shutout of ECNL options they're going to go to GA over ECRL.

I'm no GA apologist + I do think that the DA was a bunch of garbage. I'd prefer if all clubs played in the same league + had the same opportunities to be the best of the best.
 
I agree that this is the way things are now but if only 2-3 clubs always win every year eventually the rest of the clubs will get fed up with being shut out of the finals and move on. Add in MLS Next on the boys side and GA doesn't seems that bad. On the Boys side ECNL is a distant 2nd to MLS Next.

Also something to consider is for girls if a player is shutout of ECNL options they're going to go to GA over ECRL.

I'm no GA apologist + I do think that the DA was a bunch of garbage. I'd prefer if all clubs played in the same league + had the same opportunities to be the best of the best.
1658935433405.png
 
I think that is an interesting comment from your friend. I have always thought that was the case because of what I read on this board, but was surprised to see that 16 coaches 9 of which were D1 college coaches and 5 D2 college coaches at our games this weekend and we have a couple of years until graduation. I know that doesn't compare to ECNL, but it certainly isn't the doomsday that is presented on this board. I started looking at some Instagram pages of certain clubs and noted several ECRL player commitments to D1 colleges recently. There definitely seems to be an increase in recruits from ECRL from last year.
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there aren't any D1 colleges watching ECRL games. The college I was referring to just doesn't spend their time there. There are a lot of D1 womens programs out there all over the country, and I am sure you are right that some recruit ECRL.
 
Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that there aren't any D1 colleges watching ECRL games. The college I was referring to just doesn't spend their time there. There are a lot of D1 womens programs out there all over the country, and I am sure you are right that some recruit ECRL.
I didn't take it that you were implying that at all. I am sure it depends on the number of recruits they can get with the low hanging fruit of ECNL games. Shoot...UCLA or Stanford doesn't even need to attend games (funny their name is always included on ID camps). They can just look at the list of YNTs and reach out to players via email. :p

Before this last weekend, I pretty much concluded most college coaches didn't attend ECRL games. Having said that, I think the ECRL league is new and what I have seen recently seems to have changed my initial conclusions. It will be interesting to see what happens over the coming couple of years.
 
There is quite a bit of overlap between MLS Next and Boys ECNL. In the U17 top group at Surf Cup, neither of the two MLS Next teams made it to Monday.
Were those the MLS Club associated MLS Next teams or Youth Club associated MLS Next teams? From what I understand the MLS Club associated Next teams are higher level than the other teams.

It doesnt really matter though. My point is that if 2-3 ECNL clubs always win the league eventually other clubs will get tired of being beat on + leave. This is pay to play + parents want wins. If clubs want $$$ they'll make things happen to provide wins.
 
Not to rain on anyone's parade but how long do you think it will take before a midrange ECNL club chooses GA so they can run the league + rack up wins + have access to MLS Next.

It might not happen today or tomorrow but eventually someone will make the move.
Quickly looking at the Surf results, I'm not so sure a midrange ECNL club would automatically run the league in GA.

Albion 06GA tied MVLA, Slammers, and LAFC.

ISC 07GA beat Mustang and Surf, but lost to Beach.

Those don't look like teams that would crumple when facing Santa Rosa or Marin.
 
Were those the MLS Club associated MLS Next teams or Youth Club associated MLS Next teams? From what I understand the MLS Club associated Next teams are higher level than the other teams.

It doesnt really matter though. My point is that if 2-3 ECNL clubs always win the league eventually other clubs will get tired of being beat on + leave. This is pay to play + parents want wins. If clubs want $$$ they'll make things happen to provide wins.
[/QUOTE]

Your theory is very flawed, shown just recently by what happened to Strikers. They had MLS Next, the path was to go to GA on the girls side. What did all the top players do? They went to Pateadores to play ECNL. The best players don't care about beating inferior opponents, they care about competing against the best competition. The only way an ECNL club moves to GA is if they are kicked out of ECNL. Now we will see if Strikers even want to join GA with the bottom half of their former ECNL rosters
 
Quickly looking at the Surf results, I'm not so sure a midrange ECNL club would automatically run the league in GA.

Albion 06GA tied MVLA, Slammers, and LAFC.

ISC 07GA beat Mustang and Surf, but lost to Beach.

Those don't look like teams that would crumple when facing Santa Rosa or Marin.
Albion 06 was best 06 GA team in the country and they managed ties. Not sure that's the best example. That being said, that 06 team is still a legacy DA team, which still makes GA a decent league in the 05-07 age groups. Looking after DA, 08-10, GA is a significantly inferior league. That will most likely be borne out this weekend.
 
Albion 06 was best 06 GA team in the country and they managed ties. Not sure that's the best example. That being said, that 06 team is still a legacy DA team, which still makes GA a decent league in the 05-07 age groups. Looking after DA, 08-10, GA is a significantly inferior league. That will most likely be borne out this weekend.
His point was about the mid-tier ECNL teams. I don't hear anyone arguing GA is on par with ECNL.
To your last point, I guess someone should start a thread titled, "Surf Cup Girls Youngers" as we launch into another big weekend. Certainly there will be plenty of evidence this weekend that ECNL is the superior league. For the sake of the teams that haven't been invited to the ECNL party, though, I hope there are also some examples of parity as well. But I've always been a fan of the underdogs!!
 
His point was about the mid-tier ECNL teams. I don't hear anyone arguing GA is on par with ECNL.
To your last point, I guess someone should start a thread titled, "Surf Cup Girls Youngers" as we launch into another big weekend. Certainly there will be plenty of evidence this weekend that ECNL is the superior league. For the sake of the teams that haven't been invited to the ECNL party, though, I hope there are also some examples of parity as well. But I've always been a fan of the underdogs!!
For the “pre” ECNL/GA ages, you will still see the non ECNL clubs do very well. However once you hit that ECNL age range there tends to be a lot of player migration to the ECNL clubs. The real barometer is do players choose to move to ECNL clubs or GA clubs within similar geographic regions.
 
  • Like
Reactions: KJR
His point was about the mid-tier ECNL teams. I don't hear anyone arguing GA is on par with ECNL.
To your last point, I guess someone should start a thread titled, "Surf Cup Girls Youngers" as we launch into another big weekend. Certainly there will be plenty of evidence this weekend that ECNL is the superior league. For the sake of the teams that haven't been invited to the ECNL party, though, I hope there are also some examples of parity as well. But I've always been a fan of the underdogs!!
Dont worry, I understand his point, which was in response to another poster saying an ECNL team will leave and run GA. He made a counter argument and I answered saying you need to look at the younger ages to see the trend, not focus on established teams that originated in DA.
I'm glad you're a fan of the underdogs, sounds like you'll be cheering a lot on your sidelines.
 
Back
Top