Teams are beginning to gather in suburban Chicago as the Elite Clubs National League conducts its national championship competition in the U14 to U18 age groups.

Actually, several hundred teams will be on hand as the event will double as a feature showcase event for nearly every team in the competition, with one of the very best selections of college coaches all year on hand to scout recruiting prospects.

In the championship flights, 16 teams per age group will be involved, with a straight knockout format being chosen to determine a champion. The U14 and U15 age groups will compete from Sunday through Wednesday, while the U16 through U18 teams will play Wednesday through Saturday at the Waukegan Sports Complex.

While focus on this year’s championship will be intense, league directors and members have already agreed to change the competition format for all of next season in a fairly comprehensive fashion. Gone will be the A and B brackets that were intended to mirror promotion and relegation battles in professional leagues around the world. Instead, next year’s ECNL competition will look quite a bit more like the USSF Development Academy on the boys’ side.

The 73 teams in next year’s competition will be divided into 8 conferences, featuring home and away matches played with each conference opponent. Additionally, teams will gather at some national level showcases for additional matches. The U15 and U18 age groups will meet twice, while the U16 and U17 teams will gather three times, all during the regular season. Teams will thus play in 20-36 regular season games (including showcases) depending on their conference sizes (8 to 11 teams). U14 teams will additionally play in two conference-wide showcases.

A national playoff event will be held in June for U15, U16 and U17 age groups, with the top 3 teams in each of the 8 conferences qualifying for the top flight, along with eight wild card teams in each age group for a total of 32 teams. Lower-placed teams in the regular season standings will compete in separate tiers of playoffs.  The teams will be divided into 8 groups of 4 at the playoffs, with 8 group winners (chosen after a 3-game round robin schedule in each group), qualifying for the national finals in July.

The eight U15, U16 and U17 teams at that event will go through group play followed by championship matches in each age group. The 16 U14 and U18 teams qualifying from regular season play will compete in a straight knockout format.

But before any of that starts, the teams gathering in Waukegan will have to decide this year’s ECNL National Champions.