A recruiting advisor breaks down youth soccer club tiers: MLS Next, MLS Next 2, and ECNL. Most players should aim for ECNL, where college coaches look hardest. What actually matters is concrete signals: how many coaches email you, call you, review your transcript, and invite you to campus.
MLS Next also owns Boys Elite Academy. So what they want to happen is just engulf all of those Elite Academy into MLS Next 2 teams. Same with NAL, they just want to take all those over and they'll just have the MLS Next badge on them, but they still will be operated by the organization of NAL or Elite Academy because there's so many different clubs. But with the new MLS Next badge, you will then have the opportunity to then go to these showcases that you otherwise would not have been able to. Now you still need to go to camp, you probably need to go to 4 to 6 camps in a given year depending on how good you are and your level and how much current interest you have at this moment. Now the main question you're asking yourself is, should you play ECNL or MLS NEXT 2? The short answer is I would just play ECNL. That's what I would do. However, if you are a 7th, 8th, 9th grader, then I would probably play MLS NEXT 2 because you're more closely related to an MLS NEXT team, assuming there is an MLS NEXT team within your club. If there's only an MLS NEXT 2 team and there's also, say, an ECNL option, the college coaches will still review ECNL higher than MLS NEXT 2. Now remember, showcases are that matters, and camps. So all of this club stuff is really important if I was a club guru, but I'm not the club guru. I'm the college soccer guy. I'm here to help you play college soccer. So what actually matters is how many emails have you received talking about how much they love your video? How many phone calls have you had? Have you had your transcripts reviewed? Have you had a pre-read? Have you had a visit? Where are you in the process right now? And that's how we develop your plan.
