One of the most prestigious designations bestowed on a club competing in the various NorCal Premier Soccer competitions is the status of becoming an NPL Club. Each year, only a few clubs meet the standards to become an NPL club.

NorCal Premier Soccer is excited to announce the latest two boys clubs and two girls clubs to receive this honor: Burlingame SC (girls), Elite Soccer (boys), Folsom Lake Surf (girls), and MCS ECFC Salinas (boys). The clubs will begin with their new status this fall, assuming the regular resumption of competitions.

Without regular competition in the past year due to the COVID-19 pandemic, clubs weren’t able to earn their way into the NPL – in the traditional manner. For this reason,  NorCal Premier began to review club data to identify clubs who were clearly on an upward trajectory with their teams results prior to the pandemic, and who would have had a good chance to earn NPL status if competitions had been played.

These Clubs, if they were judged to having met all NPL standards (outside of number of teams), were evaluated in five additional categories during a club interview and onsite technical visit:

1. Club Leadership

2. Technical program

3. Player pool

4. Football Environment

5. Competitiveness

Based on these evaluation, at this time, NorCal has also extended NPL team invites to five clubs on the boys side for certain age groups: Burlingame SC, CenCal Cosmos, Clovis Crossfire, Los Gatos United, and Spurs FC. If these clubs continue to perform in the NPL competition, their teams avoid relegation and they maintain the standard of their club technical program, they would earn full NPL status by next year.