Today marks the launch of one of most ambitious projects at TopDrawerSoccer.com – the ClubRank™ feature.

You have seen various rankings of teams and clubs that are mainly about competitive results. While these are fun enough to track, they do not gauge a club’s performance in the most important part of their mission: the development of players.

Today’s launch marks the first installment of what will be a running count of just how well clubs are producing players for the next level. Our definition of next level is full national teams, youth national teams, professional soccer and college soccer. We have attempted to provide an accurate points scale to reflect the magnitude and scope of each achievement. While we realize this is somewhat arbitrary we think it is reasonable and will provide a realistic gauge over time.

Perhaps the most sublime aspect of the feature is that it really does track performance over time. While our first installment reflects rosters and selections from 2008, we will almost continually be updating the point total, starting with 2008 college rosters and then quickly moving into 2009 for all the areas. The cumulative point totals will only grow as there is more evidence to examine and assign points from.

Even in this first effort we see the changing face of elite youth soccer. Some clubs of veteran professionals are no longer in existence, while others who are considered current powers have very little to show for it in terms of the next level, perhaps because their players haven’t had time to get there.

While it may not be possible to learn the club backgrounds of 100 percent of the college, professional and international players from America, we’re confident our staff research gets us very close to that and allows the rankings to be a very accurate reflection of who does what. If you think there is an error or simply wish to inform us of your club’s list of players at the next level, feel free to drop us a note at ClubRank@topdrawersoccer.com .

Once again, we hope you enjoy the feature and that you’ll keep checking back for updates and thank you for your continued support.

Click here to view all the rankings!