Not knowing anything about the club and their "academy" program makes it difficult to give cut and dried advice as well.

jeffk said:

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Not knowing anything about the club and their "academy" program makes it difficult to give cut and dried advice as well.

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This. Up here in MN the difference between each level from community ran rec, to club ran rec, to "competitive" club soccer is huge. Here select is the bottom rung of competitive club ball with academy being the higher end. Through U12 both levels play in the local TCSL (Twin Cities Soccer League) which is a collection of 30+ metro area clubs. At U13 the highest teams play in TCSL NPL and then there are a handful of GA/EA clubs and one ECNL (who through some backend crap got it where they will forever be the only Minnesota team in ECNL).

With all that said, even if your kid isn't good enough for the highest levels, if she loves the game and wants a more structured experience sign her up, and forget about if your team is the money maker for the highest teams. My daughter is wrapping up her U13 year right now and this was her first year on our Academy 2 team. She is likely heading back to select next year (hope not for her sake because that means I have to coach her again) but she doesn't really care and just loves playing competitive soccer and being on a team that stays together for a year.

I appreciate the great feedback!

King Koda said:

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The landscape of professional women's soccer is definitely changing at a dramatic pace. She has already spent anywhere from one week to two weeks training with the Sprit, Current, and Wave. She also went to Lyon and trained with the OL reserve team. She's still firmly committed to UNC and is just focused on getting better and testing herself against the best. Who knows where her future will take her so we want her to be ready for any possibilities which may arise in the future and make sure she has the confidence to know she belongs.

It's been a pretty cool three year run. My younger's team lost in pks or they both would have made it to Richmond three years in a row.

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Yep, it's amazing how quickly they adopted the men's model after Moultrie.

Agreed about not knowing anything.

I think the biggest difference is the year round training versus the 3 months with a break then 3 months with a break between seasons.

My 15 year old has been playing year round since she was 7, so more than half her life.

She played all the sports in middle school on the A teams and went to district in track in the 400 and 800.

She's probably not going to play in college as the colleges that want her, she doesn't want.

This seems like the right place to post this link. Interesting read.
https://sports.yahoo.com/us-soccer-girls-youth-development-ecnl-000044659.html

I don't understand the GA. I'm Houston, it appears to be a step down from ECNL.

It's all blaming the youth leagues for the Euros surpassing us.

The issue is that until last year or the year before, what made us better than the Euros was our college system and title 9. Once the Euros started signing teenagers, their players started catching up and surpassing us.

Unless the men's game supports the women's, it's going to be very hard for most to skip college to go pros as teens.

I think you are right. That's just my opinion based on my daughters RLNTX team having played them. I think ECNL is top and everybody else is playing in the same pool. RL, RLNTX, GA etc. Slight nod to RL in that group.

380Ag said:

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I think you are right. That's just my opinion based on my daughters RLNTX team having played them. I think ECNL is top and everybody else is playing in the same pool. RL, RLNTX, GA etc. Slight nod to RL in that group.

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ECNL is the top league, no question

GA is going to be next, it has certain programs that would be able to compete in ECNL but because of politics in the ECNL, many GA teams will never be voted/allowed in to protect certain programs already in the system.

ENRL has some good teams but in my opinion is basically feeder programs for the ECNL clubs. ENRL was created and pushed to try and prevent some teams for joining GA.

And regarding waiting until middle school to make the jump. Too late if you really want her to be a top level player. But that does not have to be the dream for everyone. This is a personal decision based on the commitment level of the player and the family.

Just depends on the club and the year. In Houston it's divided down the middle with four major clubs. Albion and Challenge are ECNL, Rise and HTX (formerly Dash) are GA.

I think overall HTX is more highly regarded than Rise for example. We had a girl leave the 08 Rise GA to join the HTX GA2 because it was better. HTX 09 GA was ranked as high as #2 in the country last year.

The division is indeed insane. My daughter is HTX and the league we play in includes Lonestar, Solar, FC Dallas, DKSC and just added BVB and Renegades (both Dallas). So we don't play any of the other three major Houston clubs outside of an odd tournament here and there. I mean that's just stupid right there. There is plenty of talent in Houston but because of the division and junk we aren't in the same league.

Politics is right...in Minnesota, there is only one ECNL club. That's because when Minnesota Thunder Academy (started I believe by Jackson Yuiell's dad) joined they struck a deal where they would forever be the only MN ECNL club. They take out full page ads in local soccer publications about all the scholarships they get kids. It's such a racket. They don't dominate everything they play in. In some age groups you even get some clubs from US Club Soccer orgs that beat them.

Jim01 said:

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Just depends on the club and the year. In Houston it's divided down the middle with four major clubs. Albion and Challenge are ECNL, Rise and HTX (formerly Dash) are GA.

I think overall HTX is more highly regarded than Rise for example. We had a girl leave the 08 Rise GA to join the HTX GA2 because it was better. HTX 09 GA was ranked as high as #2 in the country last year.

The division is indeed insane. My daughter is HTX and the league we play in includes Lonestar, Solar, FC Dallas, DKSC and just added BVB and Renegades (both Dallas). So we don't play any of the other three major Houston clubs outside of an odd tournament here and there. I mean that's just stupid right there. There is plenty of talent in Houston but because of the division and junk we aren't in the same league.

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I'm interested to see if HTX is eventually given another shot at USC. They shat the bed and got caught doing some underhanded stuff and we're forced down the GA path.

What happened to Rise? They came on the scene as a huge club and then poof, they're nearly gone all together.

Yeah it would be nice. I had heard about the shady stuff but never details. What did they do exactly?

As far as Rise, we played in their tournament last year. First off they had all their teams play down. So their GA was in the bracket with everyone else's GA2. My daughter is GA2 and we lost to them 1-0 is group play and then we made it to the championship and lost 1-0 again. Both close games considering we were playing their top team.

The main thing that struck me was their fields were kind of crappy. Especially one location was 30% dirt it seemed like. When the one Rise GA player that moved to our team first joined us her parents both made comments about how "your fields are so nice!!!" This past month we had a couple more of their players come try out for our team.

Her dad said one of the main reasons they left was because it was a waste of time and money. He said they got KILLED by everyone they played and the only team they ever beat in their league was the San Antonio club which never won. He said it wasn't worth the travel and cost of being at that level just to be constantly destroyed.

Another issue is definitely the time and cost of the top level.

As I said, my daughter is GA2. This will be her third year at that level. Last year she started every game and 80-90% of the time she played every single minute. On top of that she loves her coaches and has shown constant improvement. Her coach is Randy Evans, who was the head women's soccer coach at OU for 10 years and even won Big 12 Coach of The Year one year. He knows his stuff. In addition to that we have been VERY lucky in that our main practice facility is 20 minutes from our house.

So, even given the opportunity, I don't think we would ever necessarily want to go to the GA. My daughter wants to play in college but there are so few D1 spots she's more likely looking at D2. I believe she can achieve that on the GA2. The GA practices are 40 min away one day and more like 1-1.5 hours away another day, so the driving would be a kick in the groin. Lastly, the price of multiple out of state tournaments a year is a lot. She's going to be a freshman next year, so financially it makes more sense to just save that money for college over the next four years.

Then again if they came knocking I might change my tune

Jim01 said:

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Just depends on the club and the year. In Houston it's divided down the middle with four major clubs. Albion and Challenge are ECNL, Rise and HTX (formerly Dash) are GA.

I think overall HTX is more highly regarded than Rise for example. We had a girl leave the 08 Rise GA to join the HTX GA2 because it was better. HTX 09 GA was ranked as high as #2 in the country last year.

The division is indeed insane. My daughter is HTX and the league we play in includes Lonestar, Solar, FC Dallas, DKSC and just added BVB and Renegades (both Dallas). So we don't play any of the other three major Houston clubs outside of an odd tournament here and there. I mean that's just stupid right there. There is plenty of talent in Houston but because of the division and junk we aren't in the same league.

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huh i didnt know that. My daughter is starting the academy at HTX this year, and we plan to look at both Legacy and HTX next year. Not much interest in Challenge after watching my brothers kids go through there a few years ago. This is good to know though.

The story was that they had a few players with multiple player cards for different teams. Could just be a rumor.

Salvo SC got caught doing that up here this year, brought down GA girls to play in NPL games with their NPL team.

I'll never understand adults that cheat in youth sports. I get that there is a business aspect but what the hell.

Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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I'll never understand adults that cheat in youth sports. I get that there is a business aspect but what the hell.

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There are a lot of coaches in the big clubs that are incentivized by cups and wins.

Yeah, and often the repercussions for this sort of cheating are laughable.

Rudyjax said:

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Ghost of Andrew Eaton said:

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I'll never understand adults that cheat in youth sports. I get that there is a business aspect but what the hell.

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There are a lot of coaches in the big clubs that are incentivized by cups and wins.

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This so much this. I've seen it all levels from ECNL down to Prime. My daughter (09) played with an 08 team this past Spring and ran into a team that had 3 girls that were sophomores in HS.

My younger daughter ran into GA girls in a couple of league games this year.


Cups/Trophies begat enrollment and enrollment=cash. Let's be honest, youth sports in general but Soccer in particular is a money grab.

Happened to us in the State Cup. In the last 10 matches we had played against Lonestar teams we had tied every single one. Which is to say we are very even. Then in the State Cup we lost to both Lonestar teams, one of them the score was 0-3, and both had GA girls on their teams. We were told that it's legal for State Cup just frowned upon.

We didn't do any of that and frankly I was proud to go out like that. We finished 3rd in our league and when it came to State Cup we danced with the team that brought us there. Plus I always put myself in the shoes of the rostered girls, I would be pissed to play all year only for some GA girl to step in and steal my minutes.

Jim01 said:

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Happened to us in the State Cup. In the last 10 matches we had played against Lonestar teams we had tied every single one. Which is to say we are very even. Then in the State Cup we lost to both Lonestar teams, one of them the score was 0-3, and both had GA girls on their teams. We were told that it's legal for State Cup just frowned upon.

We didn't do any of that and frankly I was proud to go out like that. We finished 3rd in our league and when it came to State Cup we danced with the team that brought us there. Plus I always put myself in the shoes of the rostered girls, I would be pissed to play all year only for some GA girl to step in and steal my minutes.

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In ECNL RL we'll see teams with 30-40 girls on the roster. Hard to compete in a small club with 19 on the roster.

Where is your daughter playing? In DFW area ECNL and ECRL attract the top talent. The two teams with GA (renegades and bvbia) are rolling out their former classic league teams.

NM read further back. Houston area. Maybe it's different down there...

Jim01 said:

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Happened to us in the State Cup. In the last 10 matches we had played against Lonestar teams we had tied every single one. Which is to say we are very even. Then in the State Cup we lost to both Lonestar teams, one of them the score was 0-3, and both had GA girls on their teams. We were told that it's legal for State Cup just frowned upon.

We didn't do any of that and frankly I was proud to go out like that. We finished 3rd in our league and when it came to State Cup we danced with the team that brought us there. Plus I always put myself in the shoes of the rostered girls, I would be pissed to play all year only for some GA girl to step in and steal my minutes.

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Ran into the same thing with Lonestar. Sucks for those girls rostered on that team all year to have to sit or not play because trophy.

I definitely think ECNL is the more premier overall.

In Houston it's very regional.

Challenge is all in the north/northeast
Albion is all west/northwest
Rise is southwest/central

Then HTX is everywhere. It's by far the largest top to bottom. They have clubs from The Woodlands down to League City and from Katy all the way to Beaumont.

For us, in Friendswood, HTX is the only game in town unless you want to drive 45+ minutes for even the most basic practice.

Here's the deal.
Most kids need to be involved in something and follow it throughout high school. This is good socially and for the College application.

If you think your kid is athletic enough to play varsity high school sports by then time he or she is a Junior then encourage your kid to play club sports because 99% of their competition for playing time on their teams are doing that.

Pick one sport and stick with it, a jack of all trades is a master of none and will get cut unless you're living in a small town.

Club sports is a money grab, accept it and enjoy the time you get to spend with your kid(s). Unless you have an absolute stud playing D1 at a school you want your kid to get a degree from is a pipe dream.

My son played club soccer from age 10-14, got tired of traveling on almost every weekend. He quit, played football for Jr High and Freshman year and got hurt.
Walked on Varsity soccer team as a sophomore at a 5a school. Still plays pick up games at A&M and City of CS.

When he was your kids age he had practice 2X week and I think 2 games on the weekends, did some private training with a coach who is now on staff with Inter Miami

We never did the A&M camps

Oh and kiss Aggie football goodbye for a while