So, where does UPSL figure in this conversation? I don’t know of any UPSL clubs in my area (West Florida) but I think there are quite a few elsewhere in the state….
This is one of those discussions that I truly love about lower-division soccer. You touch on it the end of the article, but for the most part, there are two major silos here: summer leagues, and year-round (or Spring/Fall, whatever we want to call them) leagues.
From a player development standpoint, most of the focus is on Summer leagues, rightly so. Pro/rel can and will matter there for properly differentiating the quality of competition: the 'best' players should be looking to the 'best' leagues and clubs for development. The fly in the ointment is USL2 (and USLW). There's not going to be a summer league club that can truly be promoted up into the professional pyramid.
By contrast, UPSL and APSL could theoretically have a structure that would be more in line with a full-blown pyramid. Simply because of calendar. But the level of competition is generally not nearly as high.
The key word is "pyramid" --it should be indeed that there are far more lower level clubs that aspire to and feed into increasingly more elite upper levels. So the growing proliferation of USL-League 2, LfC, and remnants of NPSL --and even higher level Division 1 college soccer programs?!-- could ultimately aspire to USL League One?
The elevation could happen once a club has built the community and public support, both in games attendance, money, and political influence needed to build a soccer specific stadium....
So, where does UPSL figure in this conversation? I don’t know of any UPSL clubs in my area (West Florida) but I think there are quite a few elsewhere in the state….
This is one of those discussions that I truly love about lower-division soccer. You touch on it the end of the article, but for the most part, there are two major silos here: summer leagues, and year-round (or Spring/Fall, whatever we want to call them) leagues.
From a player development standpoint, most of the focus is on Summer leagues, rightly so. Pro/rel can and will matter there for properly differentiating the quality of competition: the 'best' players should be looking to the 'best' leagues and clubs for development. The fly in the ointment is USL2 (and USLW). There's not going to be a summer league club that can truly be promoted up into the professional pyramid.
By contrast, UPSL and APSL could theoretically have a structure that would be more in line with a full-blown pyramid. Simply because of calendar. But the level of competition is generally not nearly as high.
The key word is "pyramid" --it should be indeed that there are far more lower level clubs that aspire to and feed into increasingly more elite upper levels. So the growing proliferation of USL-League 2, LfC, and remnants of NPSL --and even higher level Division 1 college soccer programs?!-- could ultimately aspire to USL League One?
The elevation could happen once a club has built the community and public support, both in games attendance, money, and political influence needed to build a soccer specific stadium....