Author: Beau Dure

The guy who wrote a bunch of soccer books and now runs a Gen X-themed podcast while substitute teaching and continuing to write freelance stuff.
guide updates

Update: Georgia’s new league

Posted on by Beau Dure

The Georgia area guide has been updated with the official confirmation — long rumored at GASoccerForum.com — that five big Atlanta clubs have joined with two Alabama clubs and one South Carolina club to form the Southeastern Clubs Champions League.

Like a lot of other “Champions” Leagues, it’s hard to figure out what they’re doing. Most of these clubs have DA and ECNL teams, so we’re talking about B teams here. A couple are also in South Atlantic Premier League, so that league will have … C teams? Why is this essential?

Or … will SCCL have the C teams? Check out SSA’s take:

ssa

And we don’t yet know the ramifications of what the Cherokee Impact posted a few weeks ago, which was that the rest of the clubs in Georgia were banding together and saying, “Fine — you can’t play in U.S. Youth Soccer’s regional and national league any more.”

1
pro soccer, us soccer

A really radical North American pro soccer idea …

Posted on by Beau Dure

I get it.

Everyone loves to talk about promotion/relegation.

No one likes to talk about actual ideas (like this one) that would make it palatable to all parties in this country, including the people who’ve been building stadiums and youth academies, among other long-term investments.

Fine. Let’s go really radical …

Presenting the Total Madness Cup, which will determine the professional champion of the United States and Canada. 

Basically, it’s an NCAA tournament (think basketball if you like, but you could also think soccer or most other team sports) involving all the Division I* leagues in the USA and Canada.

* Yes, we’re going to redefine “Division I” here. Think of it as the college basketball Division I, which has more than 350 teams. We won’t go that crazy, and we will have some standards, but they won’t be nearly as onerous as the current Division I criteria in the Pro League Standards. Within 10 years, maybe we could have 100 clubs?

If you don’t like borrowing ideas from U.S. college sports, fine. Consider it a Champions League of sorts.

Here’s how it works:

  1. MLS divides into three regional conferences of 10 clubs each. They can keep all their marketing deals (though selling Soccer United Marketing to a third party might be a good idea at this point — go ahead and cash in on the investment, but then cut the intertwined links with the federation). They’ll be the equivalent of the “Power Five” conferences in football — the SEC, the ACC, the numerically incorrect “Big” conferences and the geographically incorrect Pac-12.
  2. The NPSL absorbs the remnants of the NASL and forms a couple of regional fully professional conferences of its own. If they want to have pro/rel to determine their top teams, go for it.
  3. The USL forms a couple of regional conferences as well. They can also have pro/rel — in fact, they need to have multiple tiers so the MLS reserve teams are not D1.
  4. Canadian Premier League? Yep, you’re in the mix, too.
  5. Maybe we’ll even have 1-2 more. NISA, if it gets enough teams? Sure, why not?

The requirements for these conferences (revised Pro League Standards):

  1. Performance bond.
  2. Ownership group wealth. Not one primary decamillionaire. Rational decamillionaires are in short supply.
  3. Stadium requirements of some sort. Not going to get into details here because if I do, that’s all you’ll talk about.
  4. A youth academy. Because isn’t one of the major points of all this to make sure we have opportunities for youth?
  5. A women’s team. Yeah, we’re going to end up with a pretty substantial women’s league system out of this, too.
  6. Single-table, double round-robin to determine the champion.
  7. No more than 12 teams (22 games).
  8. At least 10 inter-conference games, with at least five of those outside your league. In other words, an MLS East team can play a few games against MLS West and MLS Central teams, but it also must play at least five games against teams from the NPSL, USL, CPL and any other league that pops up. These aren’t really “friendlies” — they’re the equivalent of nonconference games in football and basketball, like Notre Dame playing Southern Cal. Lose too many of them, and you’re not making the tournament.

Here’s how it could look:

And then … the tournament.

All conference champions are automatically in. Fill the rest of the bracket (yes, bracket) with at-large teams, just like an NCAA tournament. If you like, you can have some mathematical coefficient like they use to determine how many teams from each country reach the Champions League.

I’m not going to specify whether this tournament is 16 teams or 24 or 32, or whether it should be two-leg aggregate or single-elimination or whatever.

Nor am I going to specify whether this tournament takes place in December (would have unique place in calendar and could be a neutral warm or domed sites, but we’d still have our transfer window issue until the Gulf Stream forces England to go March-November) or May-June (good weather and transfer window, but there’s just a bit of competition in the sports landsCAPe).

I’m simply going to toss out this idea and let people have at it.

Initially, I was thinking this would be kind of a joke. But the more I think about it, the more I like it. It provides the following advantages that people are seeking from pro/rel:

  1. Opportunity for clubs and investors. Want to buy your local club, invest in it and chase national glory? Fine. Nothing’s stopping you from being the Gonzaga or Butler of this system. Over time, just as some college conferences have risen and fallen, some pro conferences might get stronger. Maybe in 10-15 years, the NPSL is stronger than MLS. Again, nothing’s stopping you. (And, again, that’s another reason why we’d have to break up the SUM/MLS/USSF relationship in some fashion to make this fair. MLS owners’ divesting/cashing in seems like the simplest solution to me.)
  2. Jump-starting investment in academies. We want to develop domestic players, right? Something about not missing the World Cup again?
  3. You want “sporting merit” to meet a muddled FIFA statute? This is sporting merit.

Now if you have a better idea, fine. I’ll tell you up front that having four full national divisions in an English-style ladder is not a better idea. No one wants to see the Wilmington Hammerheads fly to face the Spokane Shadow for a fourth-division league game. Your idea needs to have two things:

  1. A pyramid rather than a ladder.
  2. Some way of mitigating all the things the Deloitte report told us we need to mitigate. (Yeah, sorry, pro/rel zealots — some of us read past the “I Can Haz Pro/Rel?” headline.)

But I honestly think if we start talking about ideas rather than suing and slandering each other, we might make progress.

Or not. As Ron Swanson said, “Add ketchup if you want. I couldn’t care less.”

If you want a revolution, fine. We’d all love to see the plan.

Until then, I’ll cringe over Liverpool’s collapse, watch a few MLS games, watch a few NWSL games and slowly die on youth soccer fields.

4
podcast

RSD33: Soccer played in Germany, with Ian Plenderleith

Posted on by Beau Dure

Today’s guest is an English/American/German soccer writer/referee/parent/coach/player. He’s Ian Plenderleith, and we had a good conversation about the differences in the USA and Germany — at least, as many of them as we could fit in a one-hour chat.

Read more of Ian’s work at …

– The Quiet Fan, a blog related to his upcoming book

– Referee Tales, dispatches from the fields in Germany

– Rock n Roll Soccer, his book on the NASL (the old one)

– Twitter

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pro soccer, us soccer

Dispatches from the NASL offensive …

Posted on by Beau Dure

On the heels of Monday’s Commisso-palooza, NASL interim commissioner for life Rishi Sehgal presented a more palatable take on the issues, speaking with Nipun Chopra at SocTakes

Sehgal is not Commisso. He doesn’t have the Trump-style tendency to laud himself in easily refuted terms (e.g., “I’m the only investor in this country who played soccer”). He actually listens when people point out evidence that contradicts his claims. Where Commisso apparently buys whole-hog into the Twitter-troll conspiracy theories that MLS is conspiring with the NFL to limit soccer’s growth in this country, Sehgal gives credit where credit is due. (He says, “Nobody is trying to take away the great things MLS has done,” which isn’t literally true but shows some willingness to work with existing parties.) In short: You can have a reasonable conversation with Sehgal.

And his interview doesn’t have anything I’ve flagged as outright wrong. That’s good. I hate to think that’s the bar we’ve set in sports and sociopolitical discourse in general these days, but that’s a start.

But for the benefit of soccer newbies, including those who are looking to invest (attention, Chattanooga summit participants), let’s put a few things in proper context. Just as Ranting Soccer Dad intends to give soccer parents the information they need to make good decisions about their kids, this space can be used to give soccer investors the information they need to make good decisions with their money — especially when all soccer fans have a stake in seeing things done wisely.

Going through the Sehgal interview …

(T)he end game is to help the NASL and to bring the NASL back to the pitch in 2019. So the investment of $250 million of his own money, and then lead a fundraising effort to raise another $250 million which will be used to support the NASL.

You can make a compelling argument that we as the U.S. soccer community need to preserve and enhance multiple divisions in U.S. pro soccer. (Or we could have 300 pro clubs, all in one division, and decide the champion with an NCAA-style tournament, but that’s another rant.) It’s much more difficult to make a compelling argument that we need to preserve the NASL, a brand name that has never made sense for what 21st century NASL owners have tried to accomplish — even as that group of owners cycled in and out rather quickly.

First, go back and re-read the timeline of the neo-NASL. You can also get another take from former NASL employee Kartik Krishnaiyer. It’ll take time, but I promise it’s worth it. And it’s necessary, if you really want to understand the issues here.

Then ask yourself — why preserve this brand? Why not merge with the NPSL to form a new league structure within which it’ll be easy to do promotion/relegation? Why not work with Peter Wilt’s NISA?

Honestly, the NASL’s intention of building a pro/rel pyramid has often come across as an insincere play to the Twitterati. Just see the hostility that broke out when the NPSL suggested joining forces with the NASL in 2015. And today’s NASL apologists are telling me Commisso’s literally unbelievable suggestion to have pro/rel “no later than the 2020 season” was just a suggestion.

Indeed, that suggestion comes after a list of five bullet points in the letter that sound pretty much like the reform ideas of 6-7 presidential candidates in this year’s USSF election. Aside from an anti-poaching clause that surely wouldn’t survive the slightest legal challenge, they’re somewhat reasonable. It’s just that (A) other people have made the same points and (B) they’re not at all relevant to what Commisso is seeking (10 years to build the NASL without pesky standards in the way).

(Actually, hold up a second. He’s not seeking 10 years to build the NASL. He’s seeking 10 more years on top of the work that’s been done since the Big Split in 2009. Commisso’s account of the USSF-NASL dispute tends to start when Commisso bought the Cosmos less than 16 months ago, but the league has been striving for stability for a long time.)

So on that note, let’s look at another of Sehgal’s statements …

I understand that sometimes people have problems with the way certain people speak. I get that. But pay attention to the message.

Part of the message, again, is general “change” ideology that isn’t unique. Other parts of the message are NFL conspiracy talk, which also isn’t unique (or worth hearing). Or pro/rel, a banner that others (say, Wilt) have made a better case for carrying.

That really leaves the message that the NASL — the brand name — is worth saving. See above.

Sehgal himself actually has more of a message. I’m curious to hear more about modular stadiums. I’m skeptical — if cheap stadiums were such a great thing, the Crew wouldn’t be in danger of moving, and you still have to find suitable land to hold a full-sized field and 20,000 seats (or more, given the conspiracy talk I recently saw suggesting MLS was limiting soccer in this country by building small stadiums). I suppose the cost of converting the Maryland SoccerPlex’s main field to a 20,000-seater would be in the low eight figures at worst, but the neighborhood folks would never let you do it, and you’d be stuck in traffic for eons. All that said, I’d like to hear the advantages of this.

Back to Sehgal …

I read the Twitter (laughs), and I see the nonsense out there and much of it is a waste. A lot of people calling this or MP Silva’s previous offer a publicity stunt — that’s nonsense.

Hi, Rishi, thanks for reading. Good to see you in Orlando. Please hit me up to give me more detail on modular stadiums.

But the definitive word on the Silva offer was written not by me or anyone else on Twitter but by Graham Parker, who also wrote about the Commisso offer Monday. (Coincidentally, Parker was writing for the same two publications that are my current freelance clients these days.)

Here’s Parker on the Silva offer:

That assumes this is a good-faith offer in the first place. The timing, outlandish scale and key contingencies of the offer seem more a shot across the bow than genuine desire to work together. …

The dissonance between the proposed scale and the current reality is key here. Glancing from the number $4 billion to the current realities of the NASL puts me in mind of looking at the Photoshop renderings of the New York Cosmos proposed stadium at Belmont while sitting in the cramped press box at Hofstra Stadium. It’s neither an insult to the Cosmos nor a failure of imagination to find it impossible to visualize a path between the suburban, college-astroturfed reality and the gleaming pixelated spaceship being proposed.

(Also noteworthy on the Silva offer — it’s funny that so many people who have a problem with Soccer United Marketing would see nothing wrong with the marketing rights to Major League Soccer being in the hands of one club owner who would want his club to be in the mix. That’s not a conflict of interest? Also — note that Silva’s company handles NFL rights in Europe, which will make the conspiracy theorists’ heads spin. And in that same paragraph, the second-to-last of Parker’s piece, you’ll notice MLS made some international breakthroughs after Silva’s tenure as its international-rights broker ended, something you can also read in Sports Business Daily.)

Here’s Parker on Commisso’s offer:

Like fellow NASL owner Riccardo Silva’s offer of $4bn to MLS provided they adopt a model of promotion and relegation, this tactic could feel like an offer made to be refused. This latest sum targeting NASL is more modest, but just as pointed a symbolic challenge to the existing ecology of soccer in the US. In his latest letter, Commisso cites Anschutz, Hunt and Kraft and claims that “All I am asking is that USSF afford me the same opportunity to help my league grow.”

But his price for investing would come at the cost of Cordeiro acknowledging and addressing what Commisso sees as the wrongful nature of the current structural and financial relationship between US Soccer and MLS – something Commisso must know there is little political will to do from the current regime. So he’s left with his law suits and to paint a public picture of what he thinks could be, in the hope that one or both forces a concession.

So I think the notion that these offers are more about PR than practicality is more than the mere ranting of people on Twitter who haven’t done the heavy lifting on the reporting end.

In this case, I haven’t done the heavy lifting of Parker or Brian Straus, the hardest-working man in soccer media. But this reminds me of a story in which I did the heavy lifting for months. It was another story of a man with a big ego, passion and a lot of money.

Dan Borislow.

Borislow didn’t kill Women’s Professional Soccer, which was teetering on the brink before he got involved. But it’s difficult to imagine, even with benefit of hindsight, how it could’ve survived with him. As with Commisso, it wasn’t just the tone of what he said. It was what he said itself. It was a refusal to work with those in authority, much less abide by their decision.

I’d like to think Commisso is as complex a man as Borislow was. As you can tell from my remembrance, I was ultimately glad that I got to know Borislow, even though part of my job (and I was actually getting paid for this — thanks, ESPN) was to fact-check his accusations. I’ve gotten to know his brother over the years as well, and I always appreciate his take from the grassroots of youth soccer.

Let’s give Commisso the benefit of the doubt here. Let’s say, with the help of Sehgal and some of the others who are keeping the NASL and the Cosmos afloat, we can find a role for him and his money.

Here’s an idea …

Put it in the NPSL. (He can’t buy the NPSL because team owners have equal shares, but perhaps he could put it into seed money for a fully professional top division.)

Again, an NASL-NPSL merger might not be as simple as it sounds, even though Cosmos VP Joe Barone is also the chairman of the NPSL board and VP of the NPSL’s Brooklyn Italians. (And even though all MLS franchise-owned USL teams are ineligible for the Open Cup, no one complains when Cosmos B faces Brooklyn. Go figure.)

But imagine what could be gained here. The NPSL, which already has dozens of teams, could build up into the pro ranks. We could get a clear sign that something new is being built rather than propping up the remains of the twice-failed NASL.

My sense so far, unfortunately, is that Commisso may be quite interested in talking but not so interested in listening. And those conversations never amount to much.

1
pro soccer, us soccer

Will Commisso’s money and bluster lure the grownups to the table?

Posted on by Beau Dure

I’m not going to devote a lot of my own time to reporting on and analyzing today’s revelation that New York Cosmos owner Rocco Commisso is pledging $250 million to, in essence, prop up the NASL as Phil Anschutz, Lamar Hunt and Robert Kraft propped up MLS in the early oughts. The ratio of “important stuff going on” to “number of people reporting on it” is higher in youth soccer than it is in pro soccer, so I’m sticking with youth stuff in the near future.

But you should check out the two big pieces on this today …

  1. In The Guardian, Graham Parker spoke with Commisso to follow up.
  2. At SI, Brian Straus has some additional reporting as well.

And Jason Davis will be chatting with Commisso at 1 p.m. ET on SiriusXM FC.

I received the letters at the heart of the matter this morning, just as they were tweeted out.

https://twitter.com/nathenmcvittie/status/990938195289366529

So you can read all that and get up to speed yourself. And you can draw your own conclusions.

And your conclusion will probably veer toward one or the other extreme, because I can’t help thinking this is political grandstanding that assumes the two calcified opposing stances on the NASL will remain intact. Most reactions will either be “See, there’s money to be made if USSF will just do what the NASL and pro/rel people want!” or “Great, yet another vaporware offer by a bunch of people who don’t even really want change but just want to inflate their own egos.”

One reason for that — as I peek through my email and sort through these attachments, I see Commisso included the danged “Fricker Plan,” which Steve Holroyd put in proper context nearly three years ago but is still trotted out every few months like some long-lost piece of Scripture uncovered in the dust of Bethlehem. (“And verily did Bethlehem Steel trot forth upon the pitch …”) Commisso is either unaware that we’ve all already discussed all this or just doesn’t care.

But while a certain amount of jaded pessimism is justified here, we shouldn’t be completely cynical and dismissive. Can anything good come of this communication?

Maybe.

Several managements ago, the NASL’s goal was to forge its own path. Former commissioner Bill Peterson often used a golf analogy, saying the NASL was focusing not on enmity with MLS but was intent on “playing its own ball.” And that path was to build a new way forward, eventually creeping toward a pro/rel pyramid, attracting investment regardless of divisional sanctioning.

Commisso is more or less offering to restart that process here. He says he’ll invest $250 million of his own money and is confident he’ll have a group putting forth $500 million. Forbes pegs Commisso’s “real-time net worth” at just shy of $4 billion, and other estimates have it higher than that, so he can indeed deliver on that.

Forming a pyramid in the “lower” divisions and seeing if that catches fire isn’t the worst idea in the world. It could eventually make MLS take notice and make a deal to join forces.

Now, in addition, Commisso pledges to buy USSF media rights for a higher sum than Soccer United Marketing is paying. I’m a bit more skeptical of that.

As The Guardian notes, this might be a PR stunt. “Like fellow NASL owner Riccardo Silva’s offer of $4bn to MLS provided they adopt a model of promotion and relegation, this tactic could feel like an offer made to be refused. This latest sum targeting NASL is more modest, but just as pointed a symbolic challenge to the existing ecology of soccer in the US.” (My original headline here, before I went in a more productive direction — “Rocco Commisso offers to give the NASL the most expensive Viking funeral in history.”)

And Commisso insists upon promotion/relegation “no later than the 2020 season.” Even a lot of the more obstinate, factually impaired Twitterati call for a 10-year plan. Silva commissioned a much-ballyhooed report from Deloitte that pro/rel zealots have held up as the definitive study despite a couple of flaws, and even that report says the following:

The opening of the US club soccer pyramid could present a number of significant risks. However, through careful consideration these could be effectively mitigated. …

(S)occer is now full of examples of effective regulation controlling costs (as is
common in US sports), such as UEFA’s Financial Fair Play regulations. The
implementation of cost control measures would be critical considerations for any
league. …

Clearly those who have invested in a league over time and/or through the payment of a franchise fee may feel that relegation represents a major new risk which would
undermine and unnecessarily jeopardise this investment. A managed transition with properly structured promotion and relegation could have upsides that could offset this loss and more importantly be of benefit to all stakeholders in the longer term. Equally the implementation of new equity structures and revenue distribution models for leagues may further offset and protect against any perceived or real losses.

Does Commisso’s plan address such concerns? (Jason, could you ask him?)

Carlos Cordeiro’s response is, as you’d expect, quite formal but also accommodating. Cordeiro himself is tied up with a World Cup bid that is anything but a slam dunk at this point, but he does want to open discussion. He’d like to know more about Commisso’s consortium, of course.

Commisso responds that he’s disappointed that Cordeiro can’t find time to meet, suggesting this proposal is really important and all that World Cup stuff can wait. (Is that too harsh a summary? It’s all linked above — read as you like and make up your own mind.)

So let’s consider a few things:

1. Commisso basically wants the same opportunity as MLS had to build itself up. One problem with that: Any soccer federation has a compelling interest in making sure its country has one substantive men’s professional league. What soccer federation has a compelling interest in bringing about two substantive men’s professional leagues?

2. Commisso, like many a politician, continues to make pronouncements that simply are not based in reality. One such comment to The Guardian: “I think of the rich investors in this country, I’m pretty unique in the sense that, besides the mind that I have, I’m the only one that played soccer.” Wrong. Meet Clark Hunt. The LAFC ownership group includes one of the best players of all time. (She surely doesn’t have as much money as Commisso, but wouldn’t it be nice if accomplished soccer players made as much as media moguls?) The Vancouver Whitecaps group includes Steve Nash, who’s better known for basketball but I’d bet was a better player than Commisso in his day. I haven’t done the research to know whether the owners in KC, Houston or New York ever played, but do you think Commisso has done it?

3. Would Jacksonville’s Robert Palmer be one of the investors in a Commisso consortium? I wonder how that would fit with Palmer’s current plans on the lower end of the pyramid.

4. We want to move forward, right? Why are we propping up the twice-tarnished NASL brand name?

So we have some interesting conversations. But I’m not sure Commisso, having shown a tendency to sue everyone short of MLS mascots when he doesn’t get his way, is someone USSF really wants to deal with at this point.

Here’s what I’m going to suggest. Start with this tweet:

So step forward, Mr. TV Exec. Maybe MLS would rather deal with you than Commisso. Maybe you can get MLS and Robert Palmer together to build a pyramid that’s based in reality, with a logical transition plan that addresses the concerns of the Deloitte report.

As cynical as this post may sound, I’m an optimist. I think we’re getting closer to having an open-ish system that would include all the benefits of a pro/rel pyramid — primarily opportunity for all. But you’re not going to get it by storming into Soccer House waving around your wallet and a half-baked plan while insisting upon firing everyone who ever worked with the NFL. You’re going to get it by getting everyone on the same page and talking.

And listening.

2
youth soccer

The devil went down to Georgia … and other youth soccer maneuvers

Posted on by Beau Dure

I guess you didn’t know it, but I’m a soccer admin too …
I’ll bet an Umbro of gold against your soul to think we’re better than you 

This is probably my fault. I did the Area Guide for Georgia a couple of weeks ago. Nice and simple. Big statewide traditional league. Big DA and ECNL clusters in and around Atlanta and a couple of scattered teams in U.S. Club Soccer NPLs, but generally easy to digest. Right?

Couple of quick things about the video for The Devil Went Down to Georgia: 

  1. Playing keyboards with one arm in a sling is impressive dedication. I once did a recital with a finger in a splint, but I’ve got nothing on that guy.
  2. The devil won, right? Does anyone really think Johnny’s tune was better?

I got an inkling a few things were in motion from the friendly and informative GaSoccerForum, as mentioned on the Georgia Area Guide:

“There is some rumbling on GaSoccerForum.com that several clubs are considering a “Champions League.” Those same clubs already have their A teams in the DA or the ECNL or the SAPL.”

So a handful of clubs were going to figure that if their A and B teams were already playing in other leagues, they might as well pull their C teams as well or something like that. (And yes, we need a moratorium on calling something a “Champions League” if it’s not full of actual champions. Europe’s Champions League is bad enough, with a bunch of third- and fourth-place teams contending for the title. It’s worse when it’s a bunch of youth soccer clubs, some of whom aren’t champions of anything and some of whom have the “Champions League” as their second or third priority behind the DA, ECNL or U.S. Youth Soccer National League. But that’s another rant.)

Little did I realize how intense this would get. Check out the Cherokee Impact Facebook page (HT to GaSoccerForum post) …

impact

To translate all this …

  1. Those six clubs are United Futbol Academy, Concorde Fire, NTH (the umbrella term for North Atlanta Soccer Association (NASA) and Tophat), Gwinnett Soccer Association, Atlanta Fire United and Southern Soccer Academy. They’re big Atlanta-area clubs, though UFA and SSA have operations elsewhere in the state as well.
  2. “SRPL/RPL” is the soon-to-be-defunct U.S. Youth Soccer regional league, which will be replaced by a new conference, as I’ve already mentioned in a post with an even funkier musical tie-in.

This may or may not be meaningful. If the Big 6 weren’t interested in playing SRPLNLIOU anyway, maybe it doesn’t. Perhaps it’s simply a symbolic gesture — “you can’t quit; you’re fired!”

Here’s the fun part for parents and players — imagine you’re trying out for one of these clubs or just about any club in Georgia with regional potential this spring. At this point, you really have no idea where you’re going to end up playing in the fall.

PARENT: So if my daughter makes this team, will we be playing mostly around Atlanta? Or Alabama, as rumored to flesh out the Champions League? Or Idaho?

COACH: We won’t know until the lawyers sort it out. That’ll be $3,000 and a commitment for the year, please. It’ll be another $2,000 if we make the Mega Premier Elite Champions League. 

Yes, I said “lawyers.” U.S. Soccer has a principle called “interplay,” and those who violate it often end up defending themselves against grievances.

(I did try to contact most of the Big 6 clubs a few weeks ago. You’re still welcome to respond.)

In other “giant game of Risk” news from recent days …

  • Also overlapping with Georgia but taking place in the years before the statewide Athena/Classic league, it’s the Carolinas Premier League! It’s for U9 through U12 only, so “Developmental” seems like a better term than “Premier.”
  • Seven Arkansas clubs are forming the U.S. Club Soccer (but not NPL?) Arkansas Premier Clubs.
  • The Virginia NPL is adding two clubs. (Disclaimer: The VPL or VNPL includes my hometown club, Vienna. At least, that’s the last I’ve heard.)

 

 

1
youth soccer

How hard is it to make your local high school team? Take the survey

Posted on by Beau Dure

Your soccer club’s site is so upbeat, talking up the programs it offers to help kids play in college. Maybe even beyond!

So you spend a couple thousand a year for your child to play travel soccer, starting in third grade. You congratulate and console your child through all the wins, losses and long trips as you watch him or her grow.

Before you know it, your child is in high school. And if you’re not in the Development Academy, your child tries out for the high school team.

And might not make it.

Not talking here about the Michael Jordan mythology in which he was “cut” from his high school basketball team his sophomore year. He was on the JV. (He also grew quite a bit after that.) We’re talking about not making any team — varsity, JV, anything.

In some cases, maybe parents already knew the deal. In others, maybe not.

The point of Ranting Soccer Dad is to help parents get information. Ideally, we won’t see any families paying thousands of dollars in the expectation of college soccer careers, only to see their kids not even play in high school.

That’s why I’m rolling out two surveys — one for parents, one for coaches. Share your experiences. Can every travel player make a team at your high school? Would a rec player stand a chance?

Parents survey …

Coaches survey …

0
podcast

RSD32: Christian Lavers on ECNL/DA, U.S. Club/U.S. Youth competition

Posted on by Beau Dure

Maybe they’re not turf wars. Maybe it’s just healthy competition.

Christian Lavers is fully immersed in the complicated landscape of U.S. youth soccer. He’s a technical director with FC Wisconsin and an executive with the ECNL and U.S. Club Soccer. And miraculously, he still sounds optimistic. Even “nice.” If you’re looking for mud-slinging, you’re not going to find it here. Instead, you’re going to hear a candid but polite take on why we have multiple national championships and other stuff that those of us who cover youth soccer complain about.

He’s aware of the travel requirements these days — “not every game should require a hotel stay or flight,” he says. But he sees different organizations filling different legitimate needs.

Leading into the interview, I have an announcement about the Ranting Soccer Dad Guide to Youth Soccer and the Patreon page.

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pro soccer, us soccer, youth soccer

Why are soccer clubs obsessed with going nationwide?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Well I was rolling down the road in a minivan
I had a keeper in the back and a guest player at the wheel
We going cross-country and we’re skipping school
We tired and I’m lost – I wonder why this is cool

Oh I’m bad … I’m nationwide

We know we’re not supposed to do this, right?

At the youth level, we have six national championship-ish events despite legitimate concerns that all we’re doing is rewarding families that can spend a lot of money on travel. And despite the legendary Horst Bertl (Dallas Comets, now FC Dallas) quote: “National youth championships in the USA are the most ludicrous thing I’ve ever heard in my life. Whoever thinks these up should be stoned.”

At the adult level, we fret over the costs a team like Christos FC incurs when it advances in the Open Cup. Then we see teams fall all over themselves to enter national leagues on top of national tournaments.

And the trend is only accelerating. Consider the news from the past week …

    1. U.S. Youth Soccer is revamping the regional pyramid that forms the base of its national league system, which is really a series of national showcases because no one really expects Tennessee Soccer Club to schedule a U15 league game against Greater Seattle Surf.
    2. The UPSL, the first league to institute promotion/relegation besides all the other adult (and youth) leagues that have had it for generations, is rapidly expanding — Columbia, S.C.; Silver Spring, Md.; Alton, N.H.; Hollywood, Fla.; Perris, Calif.; Aurora, Colo.; Dallas; Wake Forest, N.C.; etc. I count just north of 170 teams in the league now.

 

borgLike the Borg, the UPSL has grown in part through assimilation. The Premier League of America (which, despite the name, covers a relatively compact area around Lake Michigan) simply merged into the UPSL and became the Midwest Conference. A few other teams have moved over from existing amateur leagues such as the Colorado Premier League (a U.S. Specialty Sports Association affiliate), Texas Premier Soccer League (U.S. Club Soccer), the nominally professional American Soccer League, the apparently defunct American Champions League, the apparently defunct Champions Soccer League USA, the People’s Front of Judea (OK, that one’s fictional), and elsewhere. They also have a partnership with the traditionally strong Maryland Major Soccer League (home of the aforementioned Christos FC), one of the USASA’s Elite Amateur Leagues.

To some extent, the UPSL is a loose network of regional leagues. It’s much bigger in California than it is elsewhere. But it does have a national playoff and advertises a separate Cup competition called the Admiral Cup, though that doesn’t appear to have been contested recently.

A national playoff of this sort is a little curious. If you’re one of the many people annoyed with the USA for doing things that other countries don’t do, well, this is something other countries don’t do. I don’t see a national Regionalliga championship in Germany — just playoff games to determine the promoted sides, with no overall winner. Nor do I know of any English divisional championships after the fifth tier, which is the last nationwide league. (England does have the FA Trophy, a cup competition for those in tiers 5-8, and the FA Vase for anyone lower than that. But the U.S. counterpart to that would be the U.S. Amateur Cup, which many UPSL teams enter, and that winner can play in the supercup-ish Hank Steinbrecher Cup.) European clubs in regional leagues try to win that league and progress as far as they can in their cups.

But that playoff is, in the words of Douglas Adams, mostly harmless. It’s the summer leagues, PDL and NPSL, that have counterproductive national playoffs. These clubs serve a valuable purpose — giving college players a few more competitive games in the summers. Then they cut their regular seasons short to race through a set of playoffs that no one really cares about. (Seriously — lower-division fans can all remember U.S. Open Cup upsets such as Reading United over the New York Cosmos, Michigan Bucks over everyone, Des Moines Menace over a couple of pro teams, Chattanooga FC over Wilmington, etc. Name the last PDL champion. Or try to remember anything from the NPSL playoffs other than Midland-Odessa scraping together a team to play the final after the bulk of its roster went back to school for the fall.)

That’s the state of adult soccer. What about youth soccer?

Maybe the new U.S. Youth Soccer leagues will be an oasis of sanity. Unlike the Development Academy and the ECNL, they should have enough entries to split into sensible regional divisions. (The DA has a few good clusters at U12 but hits peak absurdity by U15, while ECNL travel budgets are rather excessive even in the long-established girls’ divisions.)

And somewhere in the ashes of the 2018 U.S. Soccer presidential race lies an interesting idea — a national Youth Cup. This exists in England, where the FA Youth Cup draws hundreds of U18 entries (and note that the age range is not by birth year) and Broxbourne Borough of the Spartan South Midlands League Division One (unfortunately, the senior team is facing relegation down to England’s 11th tier) was one game away from the quarterfinals last year.

One national championship. (OK, maybe two — England has a national U18 league with north and south divisions that face off in a national playoff, but that’s about it for national travel, even in a country that requires no airplanes for away fixtures.) That seems sensible. And the top academies might have to face off with a Broxbourne Borough in a meaningful game instead of sitting in a silo.

Basically, if you’re going to have a national championship, maybe it should include everyone in the nation — at least those meeting a certain criteria like “amateur” or “Division 3 or below” or “Division I college teams.” Otherwise, why spend time flying when you could be playing?

2
us soccer, youth soccer

Turf war! Huuuh! What is it good for?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Absolutely nothing … say it again!*

So I’m making a good bit of progress on the next Area Guide — Southern California this time. Should be ready in a day or two. Hey, what’s this in the inbox?

US YOUTH SOCCER ANNOUNCES NEW LEAGUES STRUCTURE – THE US YOUTH SOCCER NATIONAL LEAGUES

(Alternate take from SCTV.)

But that’s just the journalist’s take. It’s the equivalent of an 89th-minute goal that forces us to tear up the stories our editors are expecting in five minutes. How does everyone else feel about it?

https://twitter.com/Sweeney_Sean/status/986932995868282881

OK, that sounds good. Anyone else?

Oh dear. (Disclaimer: Ranting Soccer Dad is an NCSL parent.)

What does this mean?

1. Instead of four regional leagues, we’re about to have a lot of conferences. They’ve named eight so far, but that just covers the East Coast, the Southeast and Texas.

conf

Will this format include more teams? Seems that way, but we’ll wait for clarification. In the current format, the Eastern Regional League has 16 teams in the Elite Division. The lower Premier and Championship divisions can theoretically take more teams but do not. The Midwest Regional League looks a bit bigger, as do the Southern Regional Premier League and the three-pronged Far West Regional League.

Through the current regional leagues, teams can qualify for the National League, which uses the hashtag #EarnYourPlace to establish its intent and perhaps throw some shade on the invitation-only DA and ECNL. And through the National League, teams can earn a place in the regional championships (an alternate path: State Cup) and then the National Championships.

Those pathways will continue. But will they be more crowded?

2. EDP, which currently has its top levels (out of many levels) in U.S. Club Soccer’s National Premier League, has apparently switched over to U.S. Youth Soccer. (I’m asking to have that point clarified.)

3. The press release mentions “newly formed club vs. club brackets may be offered.” That raises two questions. How, given the team-by-team #EarnYourPlace qualification for these leagues? And why, given the objections raised by … OK, maybe just me? See “Club-centric scheduling” on my “About the Area Guides/National Info” page.

4. With these leagues being more localized than the current league system, is the expectation that each team will enter only these leagues? In the current system, some teams play in both the U.S. Youth Soccer regional league and their “home” leagues.

Perhaps it’s unfair to think of these changes mostly in terms of the Turf Wars — U.S. Club Soccer vs. U.S. Youth Soccer in general, then the proxy war of the Development Academy (U.S. Soccer) vs. ECNL (U.S. Club Soccer) vs. traditional league/tournament play (U.S. Youth Soccer) at the elite level. But it’s really impossible to think about it otherwise.

So you may be asking: How does this affect me, especially if I don’t have a kid in the top 1-5% of youth soccer players who might be involved with these programs? 

My tentative answer: We may be hitting a tipping point of trickle-down “elite” soccer.

Here’s how …

1. Clubs in your area scramble to get their top teams in the DA, ECNL or U.S. Youth Soccer conferences. (We’re already seeing this for the DA and ECNL; the current U.S. Youth setup is more complimentary.)

2. Clubs that don’t get into these programs (or want their B teams to be in something “elite”) scramble to form “elite” leagues, some of which are pretty good and some of which are demonstrably worse than the old traditional leagues’ top divisions. (Already seeing this, too, in some areas.)

3. Your traditional league needs to recruit more teams to fill the holes in their divisions. Suddenly your big local club has six travel teams in one age group. Suddenly your local “development” league consists of a couple of teams in one place and a couple more 100 miles away.

In short, we can sum it up with one word …

Chaos.

Whether your kids are in the top 5% or the middle 50%, you may find yourself in leagues that are unsettled, with clubs and teams coming and going. Maybe a new team comes in that blows out all its opponents 10-0 or loses all its games 10-0. Maybe a league that used to have all its games within a 45-minute drive now has its games scattered all over your state.

Or not. We just don’t know. So when you sign up your kid for a full year (because heaven forbid a club lets you sign up for one season at a time) of “travel” soccer, you have little idea what you’re getting into.

So it’d be nice if the powers that be would get together and explain to us why this is necessary.

* Don’t get the headline reference? Check out Edwin Starr, Bruce Springsteen and Seinfeld.

The Ranting Soccer Dad Guide to Youth Soccer is underway. It includes a guide to national programs and, in progress, an area-by-area guide across the USA. Check out the Patreon page for full access and updates.

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