While looking at the four teams that advanced to Semi-Finals I noticed that three of them come from the NPL South bracket and one from Flt. 1 East. Maybe that should have been expected as most of the NPL South bracket teams are rated high relative to the other Socal League teams. San Diego did not see a single team make it into the Round of 16. A bit disheartening but not really unexpected from my perspective. The San Diego G07 teams have been very mismatched for years; not just players within the individual teams, but the brackets the teams participate in as well. IMO the San Diego Flight 1 Bracket has had stronger teams than the NPL Bracket going all the way back into the Presidio days, when the AAA teams were stronger than the SDDA teams. It was common to see the upper half of AAA teams beat the SDDA teams during summer tournaments. There are also currently some SD Flt. 2 teams I think would be more competitive in the SD NPL bracket than some of this past years NPL teams. Maybe this is why I am a supporter of Promotion/Relegation leagues. It keeps the sandbaggers from playing down, and forces the overzealous to play within their capabilities. I really hope SOCAL actually moves forward with their Promotion/Relegation plan between Flt.1 and NPL this year.
