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

Good luck to the CESA girls teams headed to Seattle this weekend.

Just out of curosity, do the parents absorb all the travel cost for these trips or does the club help out too?

For the most part the parents pay the cost either through purchasing flight tickets or through club and team fees. The club does offer options for players and parents to offset all cost.

The CESA club does? I would like to know what and how they do that. That is very interesting.... I was under the impression that the parents and families paid for all, flights, hotels, food,.... Maybe I heard wrong, but

CESA families can earn monies toward their fees by selling advertising in tournament programs and players can earn monies toward their travels by helping with tournaments, etc. So yes, you heard wrong.

Today:

U15 Girls
Connecticut FC 15 0-2 CESA Premier 15

Saw that the ECNL board has said that the member clubs can longer play State Cups starting next year-that's a big change about to take place in girl's soccer. Anyone heard CESA's position on the change?

Wow, where did you see that? That would would be great for the rest of the state, maybe someone else could win u 15 - 18 state cup. Haha

From Top drawer:

ECNL DROPS STATE CUP
As 52 member clubs in the Elite Clubs National League held their AGM Wednesday in the Seattle area, the group's increasingly ambitious agenda began to take shape.

The CESA club DOES NOT pay. It's all on the parents.

CESA will have to recruit even more players from around the state to fill and ECNL team and a competitive team to participate in State Cup as a CESA Challenge team.

Best of luck to the CESA teams in the Great Northwest.
Hope Coach Russell enjoys the sights.

Play for CESA or play rec. it's your choice. Everything but CESA is just second best and eveyone knows it.

Don't get offensive, we do play for CESA and not at the REC level.

ECNL is US Club, so you can roster what ever you want for that and still roster your best team for r3pl and state cup.
There are always ways to skin a cat.

While it is nice to have showcase exposure for as many players in your club as possible, I do not think it is conducive for the "premier" player to play in a big showcase event with a "challenge" player. A "challenge" player may not have the skill level or understanding of the game that a premier level player has. This, ultimately, hurts the entire team. For example, a defensive player who consistently kicks long balls with no true target versus a defensive player who connects a meaningful pass. Also, when attending these events, one is playing some of the best players in the country. Is it fair to the "elite player" to play in an event like this with players who are less skilled and do not understand the game? Paying for a plane flight, hotel, etc. would you not want the best team travelling? That is a lot of money to spend...It is important to have a good showing at events like this!

Which is my understanding as to why Disney will not be including the ECNL event as part of it's tournament this coming year.

I guess the real irony of the "no state cup" rule will be that the year it is implemented, 2011-2012, will be just in time to restrict the CESA teams from participating in the Southern Regionals held at CESA. Bummer.

Congrats to the u15 and u17 teams on wins today. Good luck to all tomorrow.

As well Dog- Congrats CESA Teams for wins in Seattle!!!

I would imagine that the club will now also push for their ECNL players not to play high school soccer. ECNL is a year round commitment. Did any ECNL players miss high school games last year because of ECNL?

hmmm playing some of the best players in the country versus a high school league game... and having a high level of year round training...not a tough choice for a kid whose goal is to play in college!

I don't know of any players this past Spring skipping high school soccer to participate.

ECNL supports (in theory?) participation in high school soccer, so they schedule no events in the Fall to avoid a conflict. However, as ECNL fully implements its plans you may find clubs from states that don't play Fall HS soccer could discourage HS participation rather than ECNL as an organization discouraging participation. All ECNL events ("Final Four" being the exception) and what will become league play are concentrated in the Spring/Summer months. Eliminating State Cup takes care of eliminating qualifying for Southern Regionals, Nationals, etc. as well as Premier League the next year.

The final segregation of players from USYS events will be the restriction against participation in the USYS ODP system of tryouts. High school soccer for those players playing in the Fall should be safe.

1. Change takes a while: I suspect it will not be that simple.
2. Perhaps, this will lead to an academy type of program for the girls
3. The "off" season could be spent conditioning: weight lifting, running, etc. working on fundamental skills that always need to be practiced and even position specific training
4. A good club will find ways to set up high level scrimmages. This might, also, be a good time to enter big tournaments.
5. What about 3v3, 4v4, 6v6 tourneys?
Just a few ideas from a simple person. I am sure there are great soccer minds that will have even better ones! not to mention ways to implement them!

More congrats for the teams in Seattle... 2 more wins and a tie. Major congrats to the U-16 team on an important win today setting up very big game tomorrow. Best of luck in their efforts there.

Delta Dog,
Thanks for the updates from Seattle. Is there a website for this tournament? Which teams from SC are participating?
Thanks!

CESA U-15/16/17 ECNL Teams. This link will get you to the Crossfire tournament page where you will find a link to the ECNL schedules...

http://www.crossfiresoccer.org/tournaments/index_E.html

(U-15 Challenge B, U-16 Challenge A, U-17 Challenge B)

7/17/10

U16
CESA Premier 16 1-0 Pleasanton Rage 16

Congratulations on a quality win.

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.

ak86, as a player that has had the opportunity to play at the higher levels...

1) Looking back at your experiences would you have given up State Cup, Southern Regionals (possible Nationals), Premier League (possible National League), ODP, High School (I'm guessing you picked up a ring or two there, and if so may still be wearing at least one of them) and the "Proving Grounds" of the Disney Tournament to make those trips you listed?

2) Do you think a player over the next 1-3 years will necessarily have to trade the opportunities listed in the first question to play ECNL in order to achieve the highest levels of competition they are capable of playing?

Given full evolution of ECNL I think these are the questions players will have to make decisions on in the not too distant future. Looking back, and since I believe you have no dog in this, do you think the system you came up in fell short of providing the opportunities necessary for you to fully develop your game?