The best youth soccer in America is hard to say because there are good teams and players from coast to coast. One thing that is easier to see is the amount of good teams in each state. Things that play a role are the size and population. How we decide who’s the best youth soccer area is by seeing which clubs go to the national championships and players on the national teams [male and female].
Do larger states have an advantage?
You might say that states like Texas and California have an unfair advantage, but really they don’t.
Example: In Texas, 90% of the best youth soccer teams are in Dallas/Fort Worth. Austin and Houston don’t have that many great teams.
You could fit NY, NJ, Massachusetts, Virginia, Georgia and Florida inside Texas and California. Although, many of these smaller states have multiple big cities, which is why the size of the state doesn’t matter much. Most of CA and TX are uninhabited land.
North Carolina isn’t big, but they have several good soccer cities spread out. Charlotte, Raleigh, Wilmington & Greensboro.
Georgia is larger than NC, but most of the good teams in GA are from the Atlanta area.
10 Best youth soccer states
- California
- Texas
- Virginia
- New Jersey
- Florida
- New York
- Georgia
- Ohio
- North Carolina
- Colorado
Pennsylvania, Missouri, Kansas, Illinois, Washington. could also make the top 10.
If you look at competition, national team placement, and opportunity there are many factors that influence these numbers.
MLS NEXT teams [boys]
The highest tier for boys league is MLS NEXT. Top Drawer came out with a ranking a few years ago of the best.
- FC Dallas
- LA Galaxy
- New York Red Bulls
- Real Salt Lake
- Vancouver Whitecaps
- Toronto FC
- Seattle Sounders
- Philadelphia Union
- Orlando City
- Atlanta United
- Sporting Kansas City
- Chicago Fire
Although these are the top MLS Academy teams, some players move from out of state to join these teams. Not all are “homegrown”.
ECNL top clubs [girls]
ECNL is the highest tier for girls.
- Solar SC (TX)
- Slammers FC HB Koge (CA)
- PDA Blue (NJ)
- Internationals (OH)
- Real Colorado National (CO)
- Legends FC (CA)
- SLSG Navy (MO)
- Beach FC (CA)
- MVLA (CA)
- Concorde Fire Platinum (GA)
Soccer wire came out with a top 25 club rankings if you want to see the rest.
Other strong leagues nation wide
There are several other good leagues across the nation besides ECNL and MLS Academy. Matter of fact, they’ll probably come out with a new league a few months after I publish this. In other words, there are always changes.
I’m not going to name each one, but there are many leagues. My point is there are leagues in some areas that are considered tier 4 that will have players go to the same colleges as players in tier 2 or even tier 1.
Example: In North Texas [Dallas/Ft. Worth] the tiers go like this for boys… MLS academy, ECNL, ECRL, Classic. There are more, but those 4 have good players in all. Not all the MLS academy players are the “best”. I know players in Classic that could easily play ECNL.
Some kids don’t like the stress of the top tiers… You shouldn’t play soccer to be in the “best league”. In an unselfish way you should play for yourself. Have fun and be challenged how you want. It all ends one day, so enjoy the chapter in your life and do you.
Differences in the leagues:
- MLS Academy and ECNL are more travel. Teams in their league/conference are from out of state.
- ECRL and Classic stay more local – in-state.
The experienced college coaches know to recruit from all of these leagues, not just the “best”. Because there are some diamonds to be found. Not every family can or wants to travel year round. In addition, some players come out of nowhere – development wise – from age 14-17 (Bobby Boucher style:).
8 reasons California is arguably the best youth soccer state
- Cali is diverse with people from South and Central America, Asia, and Europe. This adds futbol culture.
- Great weather year-round is helpful for any outdoor sport.
- Pro Teams: California has 3 MLS Teams to support along with several semi-pro teams which means there is good soccer to watch live as well as more trainers who played at a higher level than most coaches.
- College Soccer: In the Bay Area has 6 Division-1 Soccer Programs within 45 minutes from one another. Cal, Stanford, San Fran, Santa Cruz, St. Mary’s, and Santa Clara. And in SoCal it’s the same thing with Santa Barbara, Stanford, Santa Clara, UCLA, USC, Pepperdine and Loyola Marymount to name a few.
- Many of the National Team coaches and camps are in Cali so I think there is favor. The coaches are going to know more CA players and may want CA to represent well on paper.
- San Diego Surf Cup is one of the best tournaments for youth in America.
- Big Cities = bigger player pools of talent. These include San Diego, San Francisco, San Jose, and L.A… The Los Angeles area has tons of talent.
- The population is super high which, as I stated above, means a bigger talent pool yes but it also means the competition is much harder due to more kids wanting to play the sport.
Why are so many of the USYNT members from Cali? On average the boys and girls U15 – Senior Team are 30% from CA.
Best clubs in these states [boys and girls]:
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