League Play 06

Is this a surprising result for both teams? I haven’t really followed ECNL results other than reading on here that they both dominated the SW conference. How Do PDA, Tophat and others play?
 
Is this a surprising result for both teams? I haven’t really followed ECNL results other than reading on here that they both dominated the SW conference. How Do PDA, Tophat and others play?

As far as LAFC goes...surprising? Idk. We went into the game level on points, but behind on second tiebreaker (goals scored), so we had to win.

Sting Dallas sent their top 06s, that had been playing up with the 05s all year, to play with the 06s for this tournament. We played the regular season version of the 06s at Phoenix showcase and beat them 4-0, so just looking at the result you might think a 0-0 draw was surprising, but knowing that they sent an almost completely different team to play should explain their results.

Also, just want to say that I think ECNL completely botched playoff berths. You have a team like Colorado Rapids, who are good don't get me wrong, but they play FIVE conference games, went 5-0 and qualify as #1 seed and get their own bracket? Meanwhile PDA plays almost twenty games, and gets put in the same bracket as us. Also, San Juan, the best team in NorCal stays at home because they have to play Mustang and MVLA and drop points during their much longer conference season.

Also there should be some sort of rule forbidding what Sting did. How are you going to have one set of girls play the entire season, win the conference, then bring in a whole new set of players that were rostered to the 05s?
 
Last thing. PDA played well and deserved to win. Sting played well, and while I don't agree with the club's tactics, I'd much rather play their top 06s for the experience. This was the core of the team that won back-to-back Surf Cups I believe.

Getting out of the parking lot was hell, but the facility was good.
 
That sucks that they brought in new players to the roster for this event. Teams do it all the time, so I guess it’s a question of how many and the type of event. You guys brought an 06 playing 05 to a recent showcase, for example. I can see how that could be perceived as different than doing so in an end of year championship event, however.
 
That sucks that they brought in new players to the roster for this event. Teams do it all the time, so I guess it’s a question of how many and the type of event. You guys brought an 06 playing 05 to a recent showcase, for example. I can see how that could be perceived as different than doing so in an end of year championship event, however.
A single player, not 3/4 of a team :D
 
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Is this a surprising result for both teams? I haven’t really followed ECNL results other than reading on here that they both dominated the SW conference. How Do PDA, Tophat and others play?
I think Blues expected to advance out of group play, but hoping it was a good learning experience for our girls. We had a one goal lead in our first two games of group play, only to get scored on in extra time of both games to tie it up (there wasn't even a kick-off after each goal as the referee called time). Had we held on to win those two games, we would have advanced to semifinals regardless of the last game. Hopefully the lesson learned is that you have to play until the very end of every game.

Except for maybe 1-2 teams, I was impressed by the competition overall at the event. Certainly some strong teams across the country in ECNL for this age group. Not sure how it will look next year at this age group. My guess is there will still be some really good teams across the country, just not as many of them as some girls choose to play DA next year.
 
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