Soccer America today named the Top 20 Boys and Girls Youth Soccer Clubs in America. The magazine has named the top 20 annually since 2003. The top club on the boys and girls side for this year, each hail from Illinois (Eclipse Select for the girls and Chicago Magic for the boys).
You can see the complete list at www.USYouthSoccer.org. There you'll also find links to the Soccer America pages that detail each club in the rankings.
For the fourth year, Soccer America selected the top 20 boys and girls clubs, based on success of their teams in national youth competitions over the last three years and national recognition for players from these clubs in 2006. The most important criteria for determining 'America's Best Youth Clubs' was success in the US Youth Soccer National Championships during a three-year cycle (2004-2006) an and the number of players who went on to U.S. Soccer national teams and were selected to US Youth Soccer Olympic Development Program All-Star rosters via the annual Thanksgiving Interregionals.
If you were to judge the top clubs in the country how would you set the criteria? Would you like to see a weekly or monthly ranking for youth soccer?
Do you think your club should have made this list? Why?
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7 comments:
I think it is a joke that US Youth Soccer names it's best clubs and defines them based on winning. They also base them on how many players are recognized nationally. Why don't you also base it off the the number of years with a club. DELCO is the best recruiting club in PA, thanks inpart to these rankings. But by no means are they the best club in PA.
This is the fourth year that they are doing this. I like that they removed the subjectivity of what clubs college coaches like. So the rankings are based on Championships and player placements. Congrats to the top clubs. Clubs should be proud just to be in this list, forget about the numbering.
Congrats to the Illinois clubs of Chicago Magic and Eclipse! What a feat for the Magic to be number one for the third year running. Hats off to the Texans, to be so high inboth boys and girls is UNBELIVEABLY TERRIFIC!!!
I would like to see rankings by characteristics of clubs that indicate they follow the right coaching philosophy, appropriate training and develpoment instead of it being just about winning. Let's recognize any clubs that are trying to do the right thing.
Michigan??? Vardar won one boys state cup in Michigan last year and gets a top ten National ranking?? What a joke. The storied "Vardar" family club they refer to in the article folded up in '05 and players went to Michigan Wolves who won 5 boys state cups in '06. Get a clue
I think it's great because the rankings are based on National Championships and the number of players who get placed with in the U.S. National youth teams. So a small club like Schulz Academy in Boca Raton Florida can get well deserved recognition for the quality of players they produce (i.e., Josmer Altidore - U.S. U20 and Donovan Henry - U.S. U15). But what about clubs who have place players in other National team programs? This year alone Kendall Soccer Coalition (in Miami, FL) has placed 2 players in the Columbian National U17 Team, 1 player in the Puerto Rico National team, and of course Bryan Arguez in the U.S. National U20 that played in the 2007 U20 qualifiers in Panama.
Why is such a ranking needed? All you hear from the official types at US Youth Soccer and the USSF is that youth soccer is supposed to be about player development, not winning. All you hear from the official types is that players are playing too many games and tournaments and not doing enough training. So what are these rankings based on? A club's winning rate at a major tournament. It makes a mockery of the pablum you hear about how winning should be secondary to player development.
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