SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP CESA in Seattle

Here is another link for schedules/results.

http://www.eliteclubsnationalleague.com/schedule/index_E.html

Thanks for the info. I was looking on the ECNL site and wondered how the regular season plays into the championship?
How successful were these teams?

2009-2010, 40 clubs, each age group divided into "A" and "B" groups of 20 teams each. Each team played 9 games during the year (3 games per event). Top 4 teams on points in the "A" group went to Seattle to play 3 game round robin to determine national champion. Bottom 2 teams in "A" and top 2 teams in "B" went to Seattle to play 3 game round robin to determine promotion/relegation for next season. Remaining 32 teams in each age group went to Seattle to play 3 games.

Sounds like alot of $$$$$, (travel costs alone). Is ECNL an overkill league? What's wrong with premier league, ODP and just travel regionally in the Southeast. How many SC Premier players are being recruited outside the southeast. Seattle, Las Vegas. C'mon. These soccer directors are doing a great sales job on some parents. I would love to see the percentages of how many girls were recruited from the Seattle, Las Vegas trips.

gbd,

Part of the ECNL deal is that you also get into high level tournaments in places like Raleigh and Orlando, which are attended by hundreds of east coast and southeast college coaches. There's value there if the player is looking to play in college.

Granted, you do have a good shot at getting into these same tournaments by just playing R3PL......but it is what it is.

Last year's CASL tournament had 4 U-18 teams from SC and 2 teams each in the U-15/16/17 age groups.

I know it's a fact that you do not have to be in ECNL to go to Orlando or Raleigh or WAGS or PDA and any other big tournament. Bottom line there are club benefits and player benefits. ECNL is a club benefit with no player benefits. You can attend any tournament you want if your an R3 premier team and the travel is regionally (much less cost) than traveling west of the mississipi. Soccer is missing out on so many great youth athletes because of the clubs out of control travel expenses to families.

ECNL teams play in their own division in the tournaments you mention. It seems the college coaches know this and watch more of these matches than the rest of the general tournament. I was at all three season tournaments CESA attended and I can tell you in Texas and Vegas every university in SC,NC,GA,FL,AL,TN were in attendance. If you think the distance of these tournaments limits coaches in the southeast from attending, you would be mistaken.

As a player, I would have loved to go to Vegas, San Diego, or Seattle to play. Heck, I went to Oslo, Norway to play soccer in the Norway Youth Cup with my team. Traveling to interesting places to play competitive, good teams from all over was a HUGE benefit of playing at the highest level.

There's definitely player benefit in it as well.