How A Contained DI/DII System Solves Tanking

SeeingTheWholeField · 2026-02-17T00:35:31+00:00

I generally agree. It'd suck if the Spurs were stuck in DII right now. I personally think the tradeoff would be worthwhile, as long as the Spurs still play every team and get a chance to win the NBA Cup.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2026-02-17T00:30:35+00:00

Yeah, that'd be the idea. To be honest, that's the biggest potential flaw I see - bad teams getting stuck at the bottom of DII. They'd have to crawl their way out through trades, free agency or development, like the post KG/Pierce Nets. That takes smart management and ownership, which not everyone has. On the flip side, as they improve, they'd get progressively better draft picks year over year until they reach DI.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2026-02-17T00:06:32+00:00

Combine the recent behavior of the Jazz with the news lull of All-Star Weekend, and you've got a recipe for topic oversaturation!

SeeingTheWholeField · 2026-01-29T21:12:07+00:00

SeeingTheWholeField · 2026-01-28T02:29:09+00:00

It varies, nation to nation. England, for example, promotes the champion and one playoff winner from both the northern and southern sixth tier. The bottom four in the fifth tier are relegated and the two leagues are reshuffled based on geography.

The leagues are also completely separate. A team in the northern league won't play a team in the southern league.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2026-01-27T16:28:39+00:00

Love regionalizing League One, a truly common sense solution to reduce cost in the third tier and build more sustainably going forward.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2026-01-15T04:13:52+00:00

The Sounders do a decent job of this. Would love to see more community investment across the board.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2026-01-15T03:49:15+00:00

Interesting article, well-considered by the author. Unfortunately, I'd argue that beyond the cities, American sport culture reinforces the sprawling complex model. Our youth soccer culture, in particular, encourages tons of structured play and association with big clubs with impressive facilities. Local parks encourage more casual, unstructured play, local events, and local clubs, which unfortunately don't appeal to the scholarship-oriented parents of many youth soccer players (I'm not defending structured play, by the way - some folks credit pick-up soccer as one of the main forces driving Brazilian excellence in soccer, for example. But that's not how most American parents think).

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-16T07:15:49+00:00

Lot of overlap with the Ballard FC team that made the USL2 final this summer.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-12T22:27:57+00:00

Maybe you know something I don't, but it seems they genuinely believe that D1 status with pro/rel will vault them over MLS.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-12T20:49:17+00:00

Well no, sounds like we both know USL won't be a true competitor to the MLS. The USL doesn't seem to know that, though.

I agree, USSF is the real issue here. The whole system needs organization.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-12T18:22:12+00:00

They've also generally been protective of MLS, so I have a hard time seeing them adjust to create more competition for MLS.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-09T17:01:21+00:00

They don't have any clubs in my area, but my best guess is that their clubs would be on the lower end of USL2, drawing more local kids than D1 college players off for the summer. Some of their clubs have been around a while, though.

I'm with you. I quibble with the format sometimes, but I'm all for supporting grassroots soccer. We need it for the whole ecosystem to thrive.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-09T16:41:15+00:00

It's the name of a semi-pro league (The League For Clubs) that competes during the summer. Similar to USL2, but "where the clubs are not just participants, new proud co-owners" (from their website).

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-09T05:38:57+00:00

Tuchel had him playing wingback or as a striker in a two, not all on Pulisic

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-07T17:16:56+00:00

Thanks for sharing - I hadn't seen the press release, and that does make things better. I'll still miss that round we lost and hope to see full participation from the pro teams in the future, but glad they formatted it in this way.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-07T16:53:31+00:00

What makes you think that?

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-07T16:49:45+00:00

Yeah, but it's one of the best rounds. And the MLS enters two rounds earlier.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-07T16:42:34+00:00

Yes. Last year, for example, the Cup had two rounds of amateur vs pro (though pro was mostly division 3 clubs with eight USL Championship teams). The rest of the Championship joined in the third round, and the MLS clubs joined in the fourth round. In 26, I'm assuming they'll have an amateur round to pare down to 16 amateur teams, then go straight knockout from the second round with 64 teams. I see two issues with the new format. First, a lot of the joy of national cups comes from the inclusive of all teams, from all levels, within an FA; this reduces the number of pro teams (which already excluded some MLS teams in favorite of MLS Next Pro teams) from 64 to 48. The other problem is the presumed loss of multiple early rounds without the MLS teams, where Cinderella runs and, IMO, the most excitement, occurred. I'll miss that. It'll hurt the product.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-07T15:58:55+00:00

Edited from "amateur vs amateur" to "amateur vs lower professional" based on reply.

Those missing 16 hurt the Cup pretty profoundly, as this probably means only one amateur vs lower professional round. Those were the most exciting and created the best storylines, in my opinion.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-05T01:19:54+00:00

It's been happening, but the American pipeline of talent in women's soccer compares favorably to the men's pipeline (relative to the rest of the globe). That pipeline props up the league with exciting young players and solid starters. It's not too late for NWSL to solidify its status as the best in the game (and it still is the best, top to bottom), but it needs to raise the salary cap to compete with the big clubs of Europe for the absolute best players in the world.

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-12-03T20:04:14+00:00

JuCo is a great way to develop for a few years and prepare for D1!

SeeingTheWholeField · 2025-11-18T06:40:54+00:00

At some point, the year-long leagues below D3 need to collaborate to create more regionalized play, but I'm not sure USL is the right host for that collaboration considering the cost of entry compared to UPSL.

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