Much like the layers of play have multiplied over the past 5-10 years, or muddied may be a better description, so have the sources of information. txsoccer.net used to be the Texags of North Texas Soccer, but it has largely been abandoned and now most people follow some facebook groups, most prominent being North Texas Soccer v. The World, but in my opinion it has become flooded with ads and other nonsense.

I've been coaching in NTX for 19 years, having coached both boys and girls. I also have four kids of my own who have all gone through competitive soccer in NTX.

I wish I could give a brief overview, but honestly it would take pages to break it all down. Here's what I would say for boys. Prior to U11 (2014s and younger) competitive soccer is known as 'academy'. There is no long-term commitment and you can generally pay month-to-month for training. Beginning at U11 (which will be 2014s next Summer), 'select' or 'club' soccer begins, and you sign a contract with a club to play for a year (July to the following June).

With academy, you should be looking for a good coach that will develop the players touch and skill. I would strongly encourage you not to worry about being on the best team or winning. Vedral is great, but at the academy level you should be getting a lot of the same stuff in training. There's no need to wait until he catches up. Find a good coach that has a spot for him on any team and start training.

At U11, the priority should change. Training should be much more team-focused. I like to say academy is for training the player, select is for training the team. This is when I start telling parents that we can't focus on individual skills and touch in practice, so they need to continue that training but they need to get it outside of our team practice. I strongly encourage all of my players to do separate individual skill training (it can be at home on their own, with a private skills coach, or a place like Vedral, Salient, etc.).

At U11/12, where the team plays really doesn't matter. It can be Plano or Arlington, Classic League, NPL, RPL, Pre-ECNL, etc. Parents will get caught up with wanting their kid to be on a Classic D1 or Pre-ECNL team, but again good coaching is the most important thing.

At U13/14, you want to start thinking about being on a more competitive team if they are serious about the sport and are starting to think about wanting to play in high school or even college. It can be Classic League, NPL, MLS Next, or any level of ECNL (ECNL, ECRL, or ECNL-RL-NTX). This is just because you want your son playing at a more competitive level than RPL, Plano, etc.

At U15/16, if they are still loving the game and want to play at the next level (thinking more college here), I would strongly recommend MLS Next or any level of ECNL.

Of course, this could all change by the time your son reaches this level. Nobody ever thought all the different leagues that have tried to come in and chip away at Classic would ever be successful. So many tried and failed. ECNL is really the first to do it successfully and they have surpassed Classic now. Here's how I would break down the leagues on the boys side currently.

1. ECNL
2. ECNL-RL-Texas (known as ECRL) /ECNL-RL-NTX (on the girls side, ECRL is definitely a step up from ECNL-RL-NTX; on the boys side, ECNL-RL-NTX is more competitive week to week)
3. MLS-Next (the FC Dallas MLS Next teams are good and can certainly play with 1 and 2 above; the other MLS-Next team is maybe Classic D2).
4. Classic D1
5. Classic D2
6. NPL-NTX
7. NPL-Red River
8. Classic D3, Plano D1, Arlington D1, RPL, TCSL, etc.

NPL-NTX is run by the same guys that run ECNL NTX, and their aim is to get to #4 on the list. Basically, they intend to be a step down from ECNL and possibly even a feeder to ECNL some day.

My focus as a coach has always been to get my players to college if that's what they want to do. To do that, by U15/16 they need to be playing in a competitive league so that they are accepted to and show well during Showcase tournaments, which is where most of college recruiting happens. For boys, this really begins to happen during the U16/17 years.

For others reading this, a lot of this is the same for girls, but there are some slight differences and other leagues for girls not mentioned above. Also, for girls, colleges also start to look a little earlier as recruiting is more competitive. That's because there are something like 1500 colleges that have women's soccer, and about 800 that have men's soccer.