The Aztexan

Amid the continuing troubles engulfing the USL's 1st and 2nd divisions, the league is busy organizing their extensive lower divisions' 2010 season. Last week they announced the 2010 "alignment" of the Premier Development League (PDL).

The PDL is made up of amateur teams (with a few pro exceptions), and college-age players (with a few older exceptions) who are, well, developing. At this lower end of the American soccer ladder, teams come and go and get shuffled around fairly regularly. Last season, for example, saw the addition of the West Texas United Sockers and the Rio Grande Valley Bravos, which moved former Austin rivals New Orleans and Mississippi from the Mid South to the Southeast division.

Looking at the 2010 alignment announcement, though, gave Austin Aztex U23 fans a surprise: the team isn't listed under the Southern Conference's Mid South Division. In fact, the team isn't listed at all!

Chantico's Army tracked down the explanation, getting the following statement from Aztex owner Phil Rawlins:

"We have not registered to play in the PDL in 2010, although we continue to reserve the rights to the franchise for coming years and will continue to review our decision of whether we play in the PDL in future years. Our hope had been to replace the U23 team with a U20 team in the Super 20 League. A Texas division was being formed and we felt it was a long term better fit for the Aztex. At the last minute a couple of teams dropped out of the Super 20 League and without a viable core the Texas division was put on the back-burner for another year. By the time the decision was taken, the PDL registration window was long closed."

(According to Wikipedia, the USL's Super-20 league is "an American-Canadian soccer league for players 17 to 20 years of age. Introduced in 2006 it took the place of the U-19 age bracket in the Super Y-League.")

I wondered what this turn of events meant for the U23 coaching staff (head coach Wolfgang Suhnholz, assistant coach Ron Dennie & goalkeeper coach Alex Parra), but found via followup with Phil that Suhnolz and Parra were only on staff part-time during the season (they're both still listed as staff with Lonestar Soccer Club), and that Dennie is now working with the Austin United Capital Soccer Club.

Speaking of area youth clubs, Phil also made the excellent point that if a Texas Super-20 division had gotten off the ground, that would have served as a better stepping stone than a PDL team for bringing youth players into the Aztex fold.

I'm sure I was not alone in wondering, lastly, whether the ongoing turmoil between USL-1 and its breakaway teams, and the uncertainty that situation has created, had anything to do with these plans falling through. Phil, however, assured me that the decisions of the last-minute dropout teams were purely financial.

So, although I remain hopeful that the top-tier Aztex team will find some way, somehow, to play somebody in some league (despite continued brinkmanship), this sad fact is certain: there will be no amateur Aztex team this season.

Labels: coaches, U-23