Nebraska State Soccer is excited to announce a new initiative to help our members with our newly defined Levels of Play! This is a project our staff has been working on, along with our league leadership and other leaders in our soccer community for awhile and we are excited to push this out to our members.
Mission
The mission of Levels of Play initiative is to help educate and clarify the player pathway and playing options for teams across Nebraska. One of the challenges many of our teams face is in the identification of what ‘level’ they should be at. Admittedly, our current play levels are confusing and at the same time, not all encompassing. Many of our teams are ‘more than rec’ .. but not quite ‘premier.’
In addition to helping individual teams, this document is the first step in creating a Nebraska State Soccer Leagues Council, made up of league representation and other soccer leaders in our community and providing a pathway for all of our leagues to work together.
The goal for this project is a simplified menu of play level choices, with leagues that clearly fit a level and where our leagues all operate with similar rules, expectations, and calendars to provide our members with the best games.
Vision
The vision is that, as this grows, play levels will coincide with the levels of our leagues, where Nebraska League will truly be a premier league where teams earn their way in, while ENSA and Sarpy County Soccer League offer high level competitive play based on level and location of the team.
Ultimately, the vision of this Levels of Play initiative is that teams will not have to choose between similar leagues because one service seems better or one league runs things totally different than another. Instead, our leagues will align in function to form a clear pathway for play where teams can advance or drop pending their talent level. The idea is that all leagues offer the same excellent service, so that your teams can play where their competition level best fits and get the most enjoyable games possible.
Click for the full document
Timeline
2019/2020- This document will serve as an educational guide for our leagues as they work together on aligning rules and operations, and on potential bracketing and scheduling of games. Clubs, tournaments and teams should start considering the new levels and how it relates to their product.
2020/2021- We anticipate that the leagues applications will be ready to fully adopt this model including a clear policy of promotion/relegation between leagues to help foster the best playing environment for all teams.