At just this moment, the elite girls soccer landscape in the U.S. is more confusing than it’s ever been. Just as most families settled into a rhythm with the ECNL, a league with its warts but plenty of compensatory benefits, U.S. Soccer dumped a brand new venture on the doorsteps of thousands of well-meaning parents and players across the nation.
Now the question becomes less about which club to join in which market, and more about which league to split off into within those specific clubs.
The arrival of U.S. Soccer’s Girls Development Academy (henceforth the ‘GDA’ in this article) this fall represents a major departure for the state of girls soccer in the country, and no one’s quite certain what it means. With so many huge questions to navigate this summer in advance of a nation with two legitimate tracks to college soccer looming, I’m here to make some sense from the static.
What follows is something of a primer for players, coaches and just interested onlookers attempting to put together some semblance of a framework around the coming changes. What does it all mean? What comes next? Which league should I choose? This should help you decide.
