SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Carolina Elite Soccer Academy 2012-2013 ECNL Overview

Would love to hear a response to hh's recent posts (and related comments from others) from harry/jak.
(I imagine it's coming eventually ... I guess i'm just a little impatient this morning)

They can't risk fallout. They don't want to go into regionals shorthanded and shortchanged.

On the CESA site there is a article i guess you call it on all the CESA teams that won R3PLE spots. Makes it sound like CESA will still have R3PLE teams but they are saying they will not do both ECNL and r3ple. That is what one of the coaches told me anyways.
Kind of misleading to those in the player pool. Sounds like it will be You make the ECNL team or play in the SC state league. No in between.

well.....if u look at the u15g roster, they now have ecnl, premier and select...they also changed the wording to "Players listed in this pool can be placed at the ECNL or Premier level." so challenge is gone.

so it looks like they are gearing up to do both, which could be a good thing. can the former challenge teams play in the premier league so long as the "old" premier teams qualified?

You guys really need Harry to come on here and clear this all up.

It makes sense if you take into consideration the logic behind the original naming conventions for the teams before CESA joined ECNL.

From the CESA site...

"There is a correlation between the type of team and the league in which that team plays. Premier teams are those in which the goal of the team is to at least compete in the USYS Region III Premier League. Challenge teams are those in which the goal of the team is to at least compete in the SCYSA Challenge League. Classic teams are those in which the goal of the team is to at least compete in the SCYSA Classic League.

The privilege of competing in the USYS Region III Premier League must be earned; thus, there are times in which a CESA premier team at a specified age and gender may not earn the right to play in the USYS Region III Premier League and will play in the USYS Challenge League."

So, now you would have an ECNL roster (max pool size 26, max event size 18 that would include the core ECNL selections), a separate top non-ECNL roster named "Premier" (max roster 18, goal of playing in R3PLE), a 2nd non-ECNL roster named "Challenge" (max roster 18, goal of playing State Challenge League), etc.

The max "pool" size of the ECNL roster is significant. Using the current CESA U15's as an example, start with those current players becoming the ECNL-only roster and only plays ECNL league and national events (saves members money, embraces "fewer games but higher quality" and "better training to game ratio"). The non-ECNL team formerly called "Challenge" is now playing with a goal of qualifying for R3PLE and is renamed "Premier", etc. So, you start with those rosters. Then, because of the max ECNL "pool" size of 26 (more than enough required to accommodate the current u15 ECNL/Premier roster), the club can utilize those extra spots to allow offering some members of the new "Premier" team (formerly known as "Challenge") to participate (if desired) in select ECNL events. Maybe the club would like to see a promising non-ECNL player in higher level competition for evaluation, or maybe give several players on the top non-ECNL team called "Premier" opportunities to get higher level game experience to prepare those players to help get the "Premier" team (formerly known as "Challenge") out of State League and into R3PLE.

Works, if that is what the club is doing. Appears to be.