Posted by

Aaron Nielsen ,

May 12, 2014 Email

Aaron Nielsen



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Soccer in North America at an established club level continues to grow. All levels of the game have expanded, including the PDL, a league that has always been well represented across North America. Despite two clubs, Oklahoma and the Ottawa Fury, moving up levels, the number of PDL cluba have actually increased in size, including a new Canadian club the Montreal Impact U-23 following the direction of the Vancouver Whitecaps who have had a PDL club since 2008.



The PDL is a development league that is mostly amateur although there are some players making some money on a game by game basis. The league’s primary purpose is to provide an off-season league for college-based players over the summer from the NCAA, NAIA and even a few from the CIS. The comparison would be Summer Leagues in baseball. Although in baseball the leagues are independent from each other, in the PDL, despite ten different divisions, all teams play within the same league rules and there is a playoff with the 1st and 2nd place teams in each division qualifying.



The league even announced expanding to an additional U-23 division for players who already finished school, with games being played in the Autumn. The goal of this new PDL+ platform is focused on furthering the development and exposure of recent college soccer graduates and elite academy players.



For those who have yet to finish school more than half of the players I have in my top 100 prospects for the 2015 MLS draft are projected to play in the PDL this summer and the list of current pros who played PDL is quite impressive, including US World Cup members Geoff Cameron, Sasha Kljestan, Michael Parkhurst, Tim Ream and Graham Zusi. Canadian Internationals Kyle Porter, Oliver Occean and current FC Edmonton striker Frank Jonke have also once played for PDL clubs.



Canada is also well represented in terms of franchises with 8 clubs. As mentioned, Montreal U-23 in Quebec, Toronto Lynx, K-W United, Forest City London, and the Thunder Bay Chill in Ontario, WSA Winnipeg in Manitoba and the Victoria Highlanders and Vancouver Whitecaps U-23 in British Columbia. The Canadian clubs have been very successful on the field with four clubs making the final 8 last year and the Thunder Bay Chill eventually losing the 2013 PDL Championship to the Austin Aztex (Kekuta Manneh's former club) in the Finals.



Although in my own observations I've been critical about the lack of Canadians being represented on some of these Canadian clubs, there has been a few exceptions including the direction the K-W United FC seems to be going. The club moved from Hamilton to the Kitchener-Waterloo region last year and the crowd has come out in good numbers with an increase of 600 fans per game. However, what is interesting to me were the type of players they brought in, including Toronto FC and Vancouver Whitecaps academy players and potential Canadian MLS draft prospects, including last season with Tomislav Zadro and MLS prospect for the future Jay Chapman.



Like all USL leagues, the schedule isn't even in terms of when teams play so some teams have already started their 2014 season, including Victoria already playing Whitecaps U-23 and winning 3-2 through a strong game by Carlo Baso, a 6'4 striker who plays with Simon Fraser and used to play with the Ottawa Fury PDL club and should be on the radar for Canadian professional clubs once his schooling is complete. Clubs such as K-W United will not start their season until May 18th, so their 2014 rosters are not even out yet.



Now truthfully not all of the top NCAA players elect to play PDL in the summer and so far, for the most part, success in the PDL doesn't necessarily mean that a player’s chances of being drafted in the MLS increases. At this time of year, as part of my business, I'm putting together the final statistics for many leagues around the world, as their current seasons comes to end, and one thing you notice no matter the age of the player or the leagues they participate in, they play between 25 to 45 games a season which means there is a lot of games to work from in terms of scouting the potential of each player.



Right now on average players play around 16 to 20 games in college, so if you add the 14 game PDL schedule it means a North American prospect could play a similar number of games as comparable players around the world and, by the time a player is ready for is draft after his senior year, a player could have played up to 140 games, which should be a great barometer of what you can expect from the player at an MLS level. This being said, I would like to see some rule changes such as limiting substitutions or, like the Cape Cod league in baseball, have an elite division in PDL, so potential professionals are playing against comparable competition throughout the season.



Despite some concerns, the PDL continues to prosper and there seems to be huge interest from players. I was recently speaking with the father of a player who tried out and made a PDL club this spring which isn't one of the higher profile clubs in the league and he told me that the team had 200 players at the club’s open try-out and a number of players from good college programs did not make the team. So stories like this and the new development of the Ontario Provincial Elite League shows a continued growth in the game domestically and a desire at every level of the game to develop players who can play the game professionally Aaron Nielsen has worked within the soccer/sports industry for over 15 years. His statistical analysis brings the beautiful game in a whole new light. The detailed player data and prospect lists he produces are used by many scouts, agents, and football insiders around the world.You can find updating stats regularly at ENBSports.

