ECNL #YOUTHSOCCER #SOCCERPODCAST Over the weekend I watched ECNL girls soccer and witnessed more of the same …
source
27 thoughts on “ECNL girls soccer is not soccer it’s a train wreck 609”
Comments are closed.
ECNL #YOUTHSOCCER #SOCCERPODCAST Over the weekend I watched ECNL girls soccer and witnessed more of the same …
source
Comments are closed.
I completely agree with you. It is not soccer anymore. They playing rugby or football. But it does start with the coaches and ref; they need to control, regulated, and let these girls be comfortable playing how they play
The rules don't need to change, but the coaches (who have all the power) must insist they get officials who aren't afraid to card girls. I gave up refereeing after 13 years because I got tired of listening to coach abuse. Fix coaching and coaches–they are the ones who insist on playing crappy kickball and turning every player into a destroyer/#6.
Time spent in a minivan isn't a replacement for actually playing the game. These clubs are all responsible for the problems with American youth soccer. Keep games local. Drop the whole stupid ridiculous fees for "elite" soccer which isn't actually elite. It only encourages this mess.
So what is your answer? you clearly havent been around long enough to know the overall system of elite soccer as it exists today. You probably havent seen the best clubs and elite players that have consistently been high level and fill division one NCAA with high quality players. your 9 minutes here is erratic and poorly thought out. all that said, ALL clubs in ecnl or otherwise, still are not aware of NCAA schools and coaches programs and what they actually need to compete in US soccer and the top tier PAC 12 schools. where do you watch games mostly and what are you coaching? whats your answer. never get these 9 mintues back…..
$12,000 cost for last season and that’s not traveling to the playoffs in Seattle. Add on another 6k just for airfare and room. Just not sure how parents can keep paying this. We had to leave and now will be playing state league at a fraction of the cost.
It would be cool to see an alternative game with a new scoring system that calculated time with possession per team, touches by player, traditional goal scoring and then an overall score for the parameters that are being monitored……………all of it to promote better soccer. Every kid would have to wear a GPS and they would get end of game feedback on work rate. Have an entirely different league . Sort of like when teams play indoor in the off season to develop quicker play, decision making. I like your vision on refereeing and getting rid of the thuggery that can ruin an athletes career. In high school I saw really good sophomores on varsity get flat out mugged and pushed to the ground with no fouls called. HS in So. Cal is wild wild west.
I would love to see this score system implemented! I just took over a top level U9 team, UYSA decided that starting this year score does not count tell U12. The refs report the score to UYSA but it is never publicly announced. This is stupid as everyone keeps track of the goals, the players know if they won or lost, the parents know, the coaches know. If we moved to something like what you are proposing it would be a game changer, all of a sudden we would be excited when we play a game and hold possession, string together 8-9 passes. We might have been out scored but everyone (players/parents/coaches) would all know we won as where the better team. Mastering basics will beat tactics any day! The teams that truly impress me don't have tactics, all of their players know how to adjust their game to beat their opponent instead of being robots who do the same thing over and over again.
We pulled our son out of ECNL for exactly these reasons. It's the "Early Puberty National League": developing track stars and not much else.
Guys there are different styles of play in ever sport. Just because you don’t like the style of play doesn’t mean it’s not futball. Let’s try embracing the different styles of play.
SO many girls quit playing because the refs will not show red cards in girls games. Whether out from injury or just not interested in taking the field with players that are actively trying to hurt you. Players shouldn't have to endure this crap to play the game.
I wish to discuss three issues. There are clearly more.
1. There is an parent education issue. We have an uneducated (in soccer) parent population who hold the purse strings, and their metric for success is winning because they have no other way to measure it, so they chase winning programs. Therefore programs look to wins vs development. Every parent wants that scholarship and now professional pathway.
2. There is a coaching issue. I pulled my daughter from a premier team because the coach became such a joystick coach (European coach BTW), the girls were afraid to play. He let HIS desire to win, HIS ego and how it made his club look (he owned the club as well, so it is his paycheck), drive the style of play which turned into lump the ball forward the the athletic forwards who he coached them to go 1v1 against the backs and go to goal or a hopeful cross. Better teams figure it out and isolate the forwards because the opponents knew they didn't need to fear passes. She moved to a lower tier team and no longer plays afraid. She does what she thinks she needs to do on the field. After a couple months, she confided in me that playing was "fun" again, and she has improved tremendously simply by having the confidence that she won't be berated or punished (benched) for mistakes or asking questions. I have seen this behavior beyond this team.
3. The traditional pathways articulated for exposure is completely based on winning. In order for top teams to play in the top divisions in the top tournaments, they must score points in GotSoccer rankings. This is all predicated on results. Play in more tournaments, EDP, ENCL, etc… Earn more points (spend more money). Aggregate more players to win rather than develop the players you have.
Bonus: All tied to money. I'm not saying that it needs to be done for free, but money pollutes the environment and requires people with integrity to even things out and improve the environment.
I like your out of the box thinking to force development. I wish it didn't need to be like that because I want their to be a variety of play and, as you said, an opportunity for the players to figure things out in the game after receiving good guidance in training. I know US Soccer is teaching development over winning in their coach education. The problem is too many people don't complete any training, or take it to heart if they do participate in the training.
My daughter is at FC Barca. You can’t change the rules ,but change the reward of money=wins. Agree with everything about the brutality they reward. Skill and love and fun gets sucked out of the game.
I agree 100% but it's been this way too long and not sure if there's anything that will stop it.. We are not playing soccer in US we are playing a dangerous stupid game of rugby with little or no technical skills. The bigger and heavier the girl player is the better and if she can mow down the lawn that's even better. Unfortunately US has no soccer culture so most players in mid field are undeveloped and have bad touch and the game becomes long ball to forwards that mow down the lawn not soccer but some other sport and not sure what to call it.
Why are you saying ECNL as if ECNL doesn't contain hundreds of different clubs across the US. Maybe you should pin point the exact clubs that play like this. Clubs like Solar, PDA, Michigan Hawks, FC Dallas, St. Louis, MVLA, etc. Do not play kick ball. You can generalize all of ECNL as kick ball because it makes 0 sense. Your point idea is actually dumb also…..like are you being serious?
Coach, you are 100% correct. I would love to talk to you about my daughters situation because it is exactly what you speak. We were with a club for 8 years who taught the right kind of soccer possesion/passes break down the opponent because the athletes were not elite except for a few. This made the team competitive and able to play against the bigger faster stronger non thought process teams. The issue became the dam colleges for the most part only recruit out of ECNL and when we played these "better" teams they would win even though there possesion and pass strings were 10% of what our club teams were. We need to teach the athletic fast strong kids how to play soccer instead of using those traits to win games. Also my player/child was not getting much if any attention because her team that played soccer was not in the ECNL/GA. We made the hard decision to Join an ECNL Team (the best that I could see that plays mostly the right way and has some big strong fast combination of players so we could get her some exposure and low and behold the D1 team whom has ignored my player has now jumped on the band wagon trying to recruit her. Were they heck have they been? We were just in Florida/ECNL this past weekend and my player had a very significant immediate impact (first time playing with her new team) able to help her team play by IQ and athleticism breaking the other teams down with touches/passes/moving without the ball and quality finishes. I am very glad that we stuck with our original Club who teaches the correct way to play soccer and waited to u17 to move to ECNL (and a quality team) to further her skills at speed. I wrote this directly after watching this video and will now look at the rest of your videos. Keep pushing for real soccer player development, IQ and patience with the ball at their feet is needed tremendously!!!!
Truth. Our team doesn’t win all our games but I could not be happier with the commitment our coach has to team playing good, pass oriented soccer.
Sad part of this is that some college programs do the same thing. We hear about development but kickball is alive and well. The reason why the rest of the world is catching up to the US for women's soccer. Thank you for your $ and don't care if they learned or not, but hey we got a medal!
He’s right on some of this because my daughter has been beat up and carted off with several injuries. Girls don’t even attempt to make a play on the ball. Coaches are teaching girls to hit first and slide and then as a parent I have to advise my daughter to protect herself and give it back. Referees have verbally told my daughter she’s too good and they will not call fouls for her but they rather put my daughter at risk and that’s not right. I have complained all the way to the top but no success. Sliding at this age and blatant fouls should cause more ejections for the player’s coaches and the club should be fined heavily.
My daughter plays forward and her team plays all styles and makes adjustments. Sometimes they use skill and sometimes speed and athleticism kicks in. It depends on who they are playing and how they are being defended.They don’t kick the ball over the top much. Solar SC ECNL U14. Many coaches across the country have stated they have never seen a team like this one. 32-0-1. My daughter lacked a lot of skill a year ago but she has progressed tremendously but still has work to do.
For 3 years my daughter played for Washington Premier in Puyallup Washington. And for 3 years she never developed under these inept coaches. They have absolutely no integrity. Their job is to win and build their resume off those wins. That in turn justifies their existence. Development is the furthest thing from their minds. My daughter was pigeonholed into one position since she was 9 years old! Never allowed to learn the game and develop by playing other positions. I'm disgusted that I was the only parent that could see it. Shame on everyone involved!!!
Love this piece! Thank you.
Just think of the parents' excitement when their team scores an ACCIDENTAL goal. The priority needs to be development.
And think of the huge push for "official" games. Let's worry about that when the kids play scrimmages perfectly, where a coach/parent can say, these kids clearly have nothing new to learn here.
Thank you…keep on this topic, its spot on
I've noticed USYS teams are developed to play the game. ECNL teams are developed to win
my coach is making me watch this heheheh
I swear that I've been saying these same things my daughters entire soccer career. I've really noticed it this season especially. This is her 1st season in ECNL and fortunately for her she has a great coach that plays out of the back and has a tiki taka style of play. Our girls are undersized but are extremely quick and fast and technical. However, they are always the smallest team on the field. Once, the bigger teams realize that they don't have a technical or quickness advantage the resolve to always playing "physical". In reality it's just dirty and turns into American Football on a soccer field. It's dangerous and ridiculous. The refs almost never call the fouls either. I never see this kind of play allowed on the boys side of the game. I summed it up to covid and alot of the more mature an seasoned refs quiting for various reasons. I hope us soccer or whomever selects the refs have a retrain during the off-season and convince more seasoned refs to come back. Because this is a travesty!!! They also, tend to play "Boom" ball. You know, not playing out the back and just kicking it up the field and by passing the midfield. This works if your only tactic is to win and not take a chance of making a mistake out of the back. But how we'll does this develop the youth to be the future of American soccer? Also, it gives a false sense of development to parents of these kids because they're winning. Do college coaches really want to recruit kids that are developed in this style of play? Im just glad that my daughter isn't on a team that plays this way. Shes 12 and I can't wait to see what she and her team looks like at 17. Sorry for the long rant. I'm just glad that I'm not alone with this observations.
I better be on that cool list hahaahah great to see your Podcasts Dave!!! I love watching, listening to these. I think you should have guests!!! I love the data driven decisions you use for player development…NUMBERS MATTER!!
I like the player in the background of the photo wearing the knee brace…
Thats a great idea on the point system. I'm going to steal that and use it on my son for now, until you make it official