Spring 2025 Youth Soccer Rankings: Who’s Rising?

Jennifer Dunaway
May 7
3 min read

Our last team rankings post from Fall 2024 gained a lot of attention, and with that traffic came one big question: Have the rankings changed since October? The short answer — yes, quite a bit.

If you're new to team rankings, check out our older post where we break down the three major ranking systems we look at.

Just remember — rankings aren’t everything. But saying they’re totally meaningless? That’s not quite true either.

What Do the Rankings Mean?

Each ranking site uses different criteria:

GotSoccer ranks teams based on points earned at events hosted through its platform. If your team only plays in leagues like ECNL or MLS NEXT — or attends Tourney Central events — you might not show up at the top of GotSoccer, even if you're a top-level team.
Youth Soccer Games and Rankings (App) use algorithmic models to determine rankings. These are evolving and becoming more accurate over time. They can be used pretty accurately to predict outcomes and compare potential offensive and defensive matchups.

One cool tool on Youth Soccer Games: a tracker showing ECNL vs. GA matchups. Nationally, ECNL teams win about 62% of the time. In Ohio, they tracked 13 matchups — ECNL teams won 8, and GA teams won 5. A small sample, but still interesting.

If You're a Data Nerd...

The Rankings App is a goldmine. You can view club-wide performance across boys’ and girls’ teams, check how many teams each club has in each age group, and explore game history..

Dive into any team and you'll see:

Offensive and defensive ratings
Overall ratings (which can be used for ranking and to predict outcomes across age groups)
Schedule strength
Unpredicted losses (red) and wins/ties (green)

We highly recommend it — especially for $9.99/year if you opt for the paid version.