2023 season
- Thread starter Ljohnso8
- Start date
Willy Falcon
SILVER
-Beach FC has 2 great F1 teams coming in. Program will be strong at this age group.
-Blues Lime should still be the top dog. The 2nd Blues F1 team (Blue) is pretty much is in rebuild mode.
-Legends FC top team will be a top dog. They basically merged the team with Strikers Sandoval and a couple of Blues pieces.
-Legend 2nd F1 team will be formidable and will be scrappy, they are mostly comprised of last years Sporting CA F1 team and a few other pieces.
-Strikers Sandoval fell apart and pieces scattered. Most of the key pieces are at Legends.
-Surf loaded up on some great pieces and will be better.
-Rebels lost 1-2 of their best pieces to Surf. I'd expect some drop off.
-Sporting CA F1 fell apart. Half the players landing at Legends and several others scattered around. Their F2 team from last season will now
step in a be the F1 team there. Expect major drop off.
-Slammers/Koge is a mystery. They picked up pieces, but I'm not sure how good their #1 F1 team will be.
Lots of talent at this age group. 4-5 true elite teams, followed up by several really competitive F1 teams that can pull some upsets.
It'll be a fun year. These girls are still babies though. Hope they all have a fun time out there and continue to develop.
That was a good analysis. The only other thing I understood was the rebels had not only lost 1-2 pieces rather the whole team falling apart with many players going to Surf and South Bay Surf. Nonetheless, should be an interesting season. When do schedules for Man city get released? A week ahead of time?
CharlieMurfee
SILVER
Are there any updates on who the top teams are or is there still a sense it’s Legends, Blues, Surf and Beach?
Willy Falcon
SILVER
It would appear that those 4 programs appear to have a strangle hold on the 2013's in Socal.
Beach has done it organically. Split between 2 great teams. Blues has still been able to hold on to the top spot, with a lean roster
that is very talented.
Surf and Legends appear to have built super teams. I don't know about roster sizes, but it appears they're rolling with around 14 players per team.
To supplement playing time, they are now creating SUPER tournament teams to chase medals. Parents say it for extra touches, but when these same parents are making hype videos and uploading them to social media to show off the trophies, I question that theory. Especially beating teams that are playing them straight up with no guests or mix and matched pieces.
When my dd was at Legends U10, we had a super combo team Willy from the North and Temecula Valley. We 100% chased medals. Keep in mine, you had to win tournaments to get invited to Surf Cup Best of the Best and their was only one Best of the best group. I have to give Beach some credit. They do seem to build within and I have to applaud that way 100%. All I can say is enjoy this time with your kids. My little baby girl is turning 20 next year at it seems like yesterday that she was playing U10. "Hype" videos is classic.
If I’m not mistaken top Blues team won man city with a close game against Surf which would lead me to say top Blues team is still top. Closed second is surf. However, other tourneys and games have been close matches and with some upset wins etc. Therefore, I think the rest is all a toss up. I also think there has been a huge gap closing with more teams remaining competitive throughout SoCal. Only other thing I have noticed is top Blues team really
havent been playing much. I honestly think they played spring league and Man city but that may be it. Anybody know what’s going on? Are they just taking a breather?
havent been playing much. I honestly think they played spring league and Man city but that may be it. Anybody know what’s going on? Are they just taking a breather?
CharlieMurfee
SILVER
I’ve always been told that the Blues jump out quick success within the 7v7 tier. As players get older and the field becomes bigger, their teams seem to fade, while Legends, Beach and Slammers seem to get better and stronger. Just something was brought to my attention. It’s a long road..
rainbow_unicorn
PREMIER
add Surf to Legends/Beach/Slammers HBK
RandomSoccerFan
GOLD
Somewhat hard to tell, with a number of active teams that are still showing unrated. Most of these should work themselves out if they are still active teams 3-4 weeks into the season.
rainbow_unicorn
PREMIER
For any given age group all the way up until U13 Slammers will have a number of good teams...there is no "top" team for Slammers at the younger ages. Having multiple top teams is due to their large reach across OC through affiliate CDA clubs. As girls approach the U13 (ECNL) age Slammers will start getting their top players into the Slammers HB Koge team. That top Slammers HBK team is coached by Pete Aguirre (PA) and begins to take shape around U11 or U12.
SoccerFan6
SILVER ELITE
100% correct. Slammers doesn't care about creating one top team until they get to ECNL. Before that all they want to do is find a few players. Then recruit and fill out the roster with players from other clubs. The 2010 Slammers team that won the national championship this morning had only 2 players that played with slammers from U11, and a few more that came over at U12. The rest were a mix of Blues, Legends, Eagles, Arsenal, and others.
this probably should then be a whole new post. However, what’s the difference on slammers HBK and slammers? Both are ECNL so is HBK top slammers and Slammers is like a second team for ECNL?
SoccerFan6
SILVER ELITE
Correct. Slammers has two NL and two RL teams. Top NL team is Koge. The two RL teams are basically independent from each other and there is no first or second team in RL.
rainbow_unicorn
PREMIER
They are both under the Slammers umbrella. The reason why they have two teams in ECNL is because Slammers struck a deal with ECNL during the height of the great DA vs ECNL war. Slammers went all-in with ECNL and was rewarded with being granted two teams (other clubs I believe had similar deals like Eclipse, PDA). This was a huge risk to take this stance at that time...I'm sure you can find a lot more on this in one of the archived threads on the forum. For the most part HBK is considered the top ECNL team. That's not to say that they are always the top performing team of the two as the 06 Slammers team advanced to national finals whereas the HBK team did not.
Trojan_mule
SILVER ELITE
Slammers IS/PA is the top team at this age. They were advertised as HBK pre-ECNL 2013s.
Trojan_mule
SILVER ELITE
The 06 Slammers out performed HBK 06.. that was the anomaly… all other age groups, HBK was the better team.. either way you look at it, Slammers has an embarrassment of riches..
RandomSoccerFan
GOLD
This appears correct. From every age group 2010s through 2004/2005's, HBK continues to show as the higher rated team compared Slammers, even 2006. But the 2006 teams are both quite good and quite close, and Slammers overperformed in the playoffs this year while HBK underperformed. (HBK #2 in state, Slammers #3 in state by SR rating)
I saw them play this past weekend. Good team. They made it to the finals in Carlsbad Cup lost to Surf. From my understanding most of those pieces came from Blues. Nonetheless, strong team.