Elite Clubs National League
Pre-Professional (L1–L2) · Boys & Girls
The premier college-recruiting league, top tier for girls, near-top for boys.
Overview
The Elite Clubs National League started in 2009 as a girls league and added a boys platform in 2017 with 57 clubs. For 2026-27 ECNL Boys runs more than 170 clubs across 15 conferences and ECNL Girls 129 clubs across 10. Both are sanctioned by US Club Soccer. On our ladder ECNL is the top rung for girls and sits one below MLS NEXT for boys.
Membership belongs to the club, not the player. A club can hold an ECNL place at one age group and put another age group in the ECNL Regional League a rung down, so an offer from an "ECNL club" is not always an offer for the ECNL team. Ask which team, in which competition.
The season runs 1 August to 31 July, every member club has to field a team in all six age groups from U13 to U18/U19, and a roster caps at 30. Nothing in the competition rules restricts high school soccer. On exposure, ECNL says its top girls showcases averaged more than 1,000 scouts each and its top boys events drew more than 500 coaches, which is the league counting its own events rather than an audited figure.
- Nothing in the competition rules stops a player doing the high school season
- Every member club fields all six age groups, U13 through U18/U19
- ECNL runs 13 recruitable events in 2026-27 and publishes coach attendance for them
- A season from August to July, with national events on top of conference play
- A 30-player roster cap, so a place at the club is not a place in the team
- For boys, MLS NEXT sits above it on our ladder
Who plays here
364 clubs we catalogue play in ECNL. Open one to see every league its teams actually enter, not just this one.
1974 Newark FCPre-ProfessionalNewark, CA
210 FC San AntonioNational EliteSan Antonio, TX
956 UnitedNational EliteMcAllen, TX
AC MarinNational ElitePetaluma, CA
AFA FilliesNational EliteSt. Louis, MOAjax UnitedPre-ProfessionalModesto, CAAlabama FCPre-ProfessionalAL
Albany Berkeley Soccer ClubCompetitive RegionalCA
Albany Berkeley Soccer LeagueTravel / SelectAlbany Berkeley, CA
Albertson SUSAPre-ProfessionalCentral Islip, NY
Albion Hurricanes FCPre-ProfessionalTX
ALBION SC ColoradoPre-ProfessionalLongmont, COCollege commitments
5,313 college commitments from 165 New York and New Jersey member clubs, taken from public commitment lists. Those two states are the only ones these counts cover.
These counts cover this league’s New York and New Jersey member clubs only. “Unverified” means the school matched but the program level did not. No league publishes college placement by youth league, so read this as one slice of two states rather than a scoreboard. We never print a current youth player’s name.
Rules
What this league asks before your kid can register: the ages it runs, whether they can still play the high school season, and who sanctions it. The college-exposure and cost lines are our read of the league, not a figure the league publishes.
HS soccer policy
Players can also play high school soccer
Age groups
U13-U19
Geographic footprint
National
College exposure (our read)
Elite
Cost level (our read)
Premium
Governing body
US Club Soccer
Founded
2009
The other leagues at this level
Leagues on the same rung of the ladder, so you can hold a club’s pitch against what the alternatives actually ask of a family.
| Factor | ECNL This league | MLS NEXT Academy | NAL |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gender | Boys & Girls | Boys | Boys & Girls |
| Ages | U13-U19 | U13–U17 | U13-U19 |
| Clubs in directory | 364 clubs | 277 clubs | 186 clubs |
| HS soccer ok? | Yes | No | Yes |
| Footprint | National | National | National |
| What it is | The premier college-recruiting league, top tier for girls, near-top for boys. | The second tier of MLS NEXT — clubs developing toward Homegrown promotion. | A national academy league run by 3STEP Soccer, and an MLS NEXT Academy Division operator. |
Pathway from here
Level 1 is the top of our ladder: MLS NEXT on the boys’ side, ECNL and the Girls Academy on the girls’ side. Clubs here run national schedules and the showcase events college coaches travel to. Each league counts its own college commitments and nobody audits those counts, so the answerable question is about the club rather than the badge: where did its last three graduating classes go, and at what division.
Every league at this level publishes college numbers about itself and none of them are audited, so they are worth reading as marketing. What you can check is the club: ask which coaches came to its showcases in the last two seasons, and where its last three graduating classes went and at what division. A club that can name programs has the data.
Which ECNL clubs are inside your drive time?
Put in your ZIP and the finder shows the Elite Clubs National League clubs near you alongside everything else at that level. Or tell us about your kid and we’ll rank them with the reasoning spelled out.