2023 Surf Cup Seeding Sh!^$how

[Code]

Well at the goading of SoccerDad & Ref, I took a deep dive into the Girls 2007 Bracket seeding for the upcoming Surf Cup. I expected some questionable placements as per the usual. However, after looking at each teams current National Ranking and Rating in the SR app (as of 7/19/23), it is a complete mess. There are some ridiculous errors. This is just one group, so who knows what some of the other ages and genders look like. Did Surf Cup Sports even try?? Mismatched events suck for all teams. This event is a big draw for college recruiting, I am sure the College Coaches would like to see the players competing against comparable teams. The integrity of this event is going to come into question at some point. Maybe it is today.

 

[Code]

Hey Surf Cup Sports, I went ahead and fixed the G2007 brackets for you. Here, is what they should look like. You just need to figure out where the unranked teams really fit in, and make a couple educated adjustments.

 

[Carlsbad7]

Well at the goading of SoccerDad & Ref, I took a deep dive into the Girls 2007 Bracket seeding for the upcoming Surf Cup. I expected some questionable placements as per the usual. However, after looking at each teams current National Ranking and Rating in the SR app (as of 7/19/23), it is a complete mess. There are some ridiculous errors. This is just one group, so who knows what some of the other ages and genders look like. Did Surf Cup Sports even try?? Mismatched events suck for all teams. This event is a big draw for college recruiting, I am sure the College Coaches would like to see the players competing against comparable teams. The integrity of this event is going to come into question at some point. Maybe it is today.
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I'm fine with how Surf Cup currently is seeded. Super even games across the board will make every game a nail biter. You have to have a couple of blowouts and upsets here and there to keep everything exciting.

However, if you want to show things more clearly use the following...

mis-seeded up
mis-seeded down
extremely mis-seeded up
extremely mis-seeded down
ridiculously mis-seeded up
ridiculously mis-seeded down

The way you have things highlighted now it shows something is in you your perspective wrong. But you're not showing who's getting screwed and who's benefiting.

 

[Orangeteam]

I don't mean this to be an end all statement for Surf's seeding as it relates to all age groups.
But, the 2007s are a tough age group as most kids in this age group are going into their Jr year and there is typically some movement since the recruiting stakes are higher for these girls. Over time my belief that the age groups moving from 9v to 11v and the kids entering jr. year see the most natural movement of kids leaving for new teams.
As an example above. Davis Legacy ECNL is seeded as Super Black, but the math would seed them in Best of Best.

Davis lost 4 or 5 top players in June to other area clubs, including 2 closely watched Mexican National team prospects.
The current shape that team is in fits either Super Black or Super White.
A NorCal 2008/2009 PDP combo team beat the Davis 2007 ECNL team 5-0 or 6-0.
If Surf orignally tried to put them in the BOB bracket I assume the Club requested a re-seeding.

My feedback doesn't explain the seeding in full, but just calls a specific example. This age is now recruitable and parents and kids want the starting positions, or the better teams with better visiability, that sometimes leaving a club offers.

 

[Soccer Dad & Ref]

I'm fine with how Surf Cup currently is seeded. Super even games across the board will make every game a nail biter. You have to have a couple of blowouts and upsets here and there to keep everything exciting.

However, if you want to show things more clearly use the following...

mis-seeded up
mis-seeded down
extremely mis-seeded up
extremely mis-seeded down
ridiculously mis-seeded up
ridiculously mis-seeded down

The way you have things highlighted now it shows something is in you your perspective wrong. But you're not showing who's getting screwed and who's benefiting.

huh? Seems like the tables and coloring tell the story to me. Takes a few seconds to determine what you’re asking.

Bottom yellow in top bracket mis-seeded up

Top yellow in 2nd bracket mis-seeded down

etc.

 

[Carlsbad7]

huh? Seems like the tables and coloring tell the story to me. Takes a few seconds to determine what you’re asking.

Bottom yellow in top bracket mis-seeded up

Top yellow in 2nd bracket mis-seeded down

etc.

Ahh, that makes sense.

I was looking for a way to more visually call out the teams that are down a bracket when they should (according to this data) be in a higher bracket.

Usually nobody cares about being placed in a higher bracket than normal. Parents are the ones that get upset about playing down a bracket.

You have to keep in mind that some of this might unofficially be clubs asking to play down a bracket. (Although nobody would ever admit it) Maybe for wins, injuries, lost a top player, etc. Also Surf Cup wants to provide incentives for clubs that travel for their event or are in a league they don't see very often.

Surf Cup is a business that provides a tournament event for youth soccer. There's probably a million reasons for how teams get seeded + 5% are specifically tied to performance. The big ones I can think of are reciprocal arrangements between clubs (your club attends mine + we attent yours). Maybe a club has 4 teams attending + 3 are amazing + 1 sucks and they're threatening to not attend if their 1 sucky team isn't placed in a higher bracket than they "deserve". Maybe a club just bought the tournament director a new car with the wink wink understanding that their teams are highly seeded. You understand what I'm saying, running a tournament would be a thankless job of herding moody cats. Current Surf Cup seedings aren't awful for the most part the big teams will have an opportunity to play against someone close to their talent level.

 

[espola]

Well at the goading of SoccerDad & Ref, I took a deep dive into the Girls 2007 Bracket seeding for the upcoming Surf Cup. I expected some questionable placements as per the usual. However, after looking at each teams current National Ranking and Rating in the SR app (as of 7/19/23), it is a complete mess. There are some ridiculous errors. This is just one group, so who knows what some of the other ages and genders look like. Did Surf Cup Sports even try?? Mismatched events suck for all teams. This event is a big draw for college recruiting, I am sure the College Coaches would like to see the players competing against comparable teams. The integrity of this event is going to come into question at some point. Maybe it is today.
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I appreciate the effort. Surf has always had their own set of rules.

 

[Zeke]

Ahh, that makes sense.

I was looking for a way to more visually call out the teams that are down a bracket when they should (according to this data) be in a higher bracket.

Usually nobody cares about being placed in a higher bracket than normal. Parents are the ones that get upset about playing down a bracket.

You have to keep in mind that some of this might unofficially be clubs asking to play down a bracket. (Although nobody would ever admit it) Maybe for wins, injuries, lost a top player, etc. Also Surf Cup wants to provide incentives for clubs that travel for their event or are in a league they don't see very often.

Surf Cup is a business that provides a tournament event for youth soccer. There's probably a million reasons for how teams get seeded + 5% are specifically tied to performance. The big ones I can think of are reciprocal arrangements between clubs (your club attends mine + we attent yours). Maybe a club has 4 teams attending + 3 are amazing + 1 sucks and they're threatening to not attend if their 1 sucky team isn't placed in a higher bracket than they "deserve". Maybe a club just bought the tournament director a new car with the wink wink understanding that their teams are highly seeded. You understand what I'm saying, running a tournament would be a thankless job of herding moody cats. Current Surf Cup seedings aren't awful for the most part the big teams will have an opportunity to play against someone close to their talent level.

Seeding a team too high is rough on the players. You see some very long faces by the end of the third 5-0 game.

 

[Code]

[QUOTE="Carlsbad7, post: Current Surf Cup seedings aren't awful for the most part the big teams will have an opportunity to play against someone close to their talent level.
[/QUOTE]

45 teams misseeded in a single age group. Some of them by 4 Brackets up or down. 82 teams total. 45/82= 0.55=55%. That's 55% of the age group misseeded. What is your standard of awful?? By any grading criteria that is a hard F.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

45 teams misseeded in a single age group. Some of them by 4 Brackets up or down. 82 teams total. 45/82= 0.55=55%. That's 55% of the age group misseeded. What is your standard of awful?? By any grading criteria that is a hard F.

It certainly doesn't look great - but unfortunately the best measure of a mis-seeded tournament is in hindsight, not foresight. Perhaps there is info about changes to some of the teams that aren't reflected in the ratings. Perhaps the coaches lobbied for a particular bracket. But once the tournament is over, the aggregate score differences for all games will tell a detailed picture of how well matchups were chosen throughout. SR publishes those ratings from time to time, usually by state, for which tournaments are well-seeded and which ones tend to turn into a pointless exercise of blowouts. Would be interesting to see where the Surf Cup events fall.

 

[Soccer Dad & Ref]

I'll be willing to wager that Code's numbers will be reflected in scores and Champions. And more so, with the mismatched brackets, making it appear that the eventual outcomes were more magical than they should have been. With evenly seeded brackets, many teams expected to win 1-0 will end up losing. The closer two team's ratings are to each other makes the variability in outcome much greater.

 

[Code]

I would say in an appropriate game between competiteve teams, a three goal differential in the final score would be reasonable. Four or more goal differential, it is likely a mismatch of teams, of course there are exceptions, every team has a good day and a bad day. Let's say a team wins all three games in pool play by 3 goals, or loses all three by 3 goals. The GD result would be +9 or -9 respectively. A bracket pool where all of the teams GD falls in to a +9 to -9 range is a competitive appropriate bracket. If a team's GD hits the double digits, +/-10, it is highly likely they or other teams in the pool were not properly seeded. I'll definitely do a hindsight comparison analysis with the actual GD results added.

Expected results of misseeded brackets:

Bracket 1: West Coast FC GA and Eastside FC ECNL end pool play with -10 GD or worse.

Bracket 2: Utah Royals AZ ECNL, Pataedores ECNL, LA Breakers ECNL end pool play with +10 GD or better; at least two of these three end up in the Semi-Finals. Bay Area Surf ECRL, SDSC Surf GA, Fram SC GA end pool play -10 GD or worse.

Bracket 3: Beach ECRL, Slammers ECRL, Legends E64 end pool play with +10 GD or better; at least two of the three make it to Semi's. Beach makes Finals, probably wins the Bracket. Rebels IE Brown, Northwest Elite FC ECNL, Pleasanton Rage ECNL, end pool play -10 GD or worse.

Bracket 4: Sharks ECRL, Future FC NPL, end pool play with +10 GD; both make it to Semi's, likely both Finalists. Sacramento United GA, Los Gatos United I, Seattle Celtic DPL end with -10 GD or worse.

Bracket 5: Legends ECRL, South Valley Surf E64 end pool play +10 GD or better. Legends ECRL wins the Bracket.

Bracket 6: Empire Surf Academy NPL wins the Bracket.

 

[SDMama]

I would say in an appropriate game between competiteve teams, a three goal differential in the final score would be reasonable. Four or more goal differential, it is likely a mismatch of teams, of course there are exceptions, every team has a good day and a bad day. Let's say a team wins all three games in pool play by 3 goals, or loses all three by 3 goals. The GD result would be +9 or -9 respectively. A bracket pool where all of the teams GD falls in to a +9 to -9 range is a competitive appropriate bracket. If a team's GD hits the double digits, +/-10, it is highly likely they or other teams in the pool were not properly seeded. I'll definitely do a hindsight comparison analysis with the actual GD results added.

Expected results of misseeded brackets:

Bracket 1: West Coast FC GA and Eastside FC ECNL end pool play with -10 GD or worse.

Bracket 2: Utah Royals AZ ECNL, Pataedores ECNL, LA Breakers ECNL end pool play with +10 GD or better; at least two of these three end up in the Semi-Finals. Bay Area Surf ECRL, SDSC Surf GA, Fram SC GA end pool play -10 GD or worse.

Bracket 3: Beach ECRL, Slammers ECRL, Legends E64 end pool play with +10 GD or better; at least two of the three make it to Semi's. Beach makes Finals, probably wins the Bracket. Rebels IE Brown, Northwest Elite FC ECNL, Pleasanton Rage ECNL, end pool play -10 GD or worse.

Bracket 4: Sharks ECRL, Future FC NPL, end pool play with +10 GD; both make it to Semi's, likely both Finalists. Sacramento United GA, Los Gatos United I, Seattle Celtic DPL end with -10 GD or worse.

Bracket 5: Legends ECRL, South Valley Surf E64 end pool play +10 GD or better. Legends ECRL wins the Bracket.

Bracket 6: Empire Surf Academy NPL wins the Bracket.

How did your predictions for bracket play pan out?

And do you know how Surf ended up playing a team that finished 3rd in their bracket for semis?

 

[Soccer Pop]

How did your predictions for bracket play pan out?

And do you know how Surf ended up playing a team that finished 3rd in their bracket for semis?

Slammers HB Koge pulled out because of Injuries that's why Surf is playing Seattle United. Looks like SDSC Surf won their bracket and definitely proved they were not mis-seeded.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

It looks like in tournament play, the GD isn't nearly as magnified - what timings were they running in G07, were they 30/35/40 min halves? Overall the apparent mis-seedings seem to have less of a bias than might have been expected, and there were some surprises.

Expected results of misseeded brackets:

Bracket 1: West Coast FC GA and Eastside FC ECNL end pool play with -10 GD or worse.

Nope. West Coast ended up drawing 2, East side ended up drawing one. (-6 and -4)

Bracket 2: Utah Royals AZ ECNL, Pataedores ECNL, LA Breakers ECNL end pool play with +10 GD or better; at least two of these three end up in the Semi-Finals. Bay Area Surf ECRL, SDSC Surf GA, Fram SC GA end pool play -10 GD or worse.

No teams had a GD of 10, but Pats were closest. Only one of them made it to semis. SDSC Surf won their Group.

Bracket 3: Beach ECRL, Slammers ECRL, Legends E64 end pool play with +10 GD or better; at least two of the three make it to Semi's. Beach makes Finals, probably wins the Bracket. Rebels IE Brown, Northwest Elite FC ECNL, Pleasanton Rage ECNL, end pool play -10 GD or worse.

Looks pretty close. Beach dominated +13 (though finals results aren't posted yet?). Pleasanton did much better than expected, but still went 1-2.

Bracket 4: Sharks ECRL, Future FC NPL, end pool play with +10 GD; both make it to Semi's, likely both Finalists. Sacramento United GA, Los Gatos United I, Seattle Celtic DPL end with -10 GD or worse.

Sharks ended with a -2 GD (but still went 2-1), didn't make the semis (Futures did). None of the other teams had a -10 GD, but all did have losing records. 2 of them ended with a draw, 1 of them had a win.

Bracket 5: Legends ECRL, South Valley Surf E64 end pool play +10 GD or better. Legends ECRL wins the Bracket.

Legends were 2nd in their group (+5), made the semis. South Valley 1st in group, also made semis. Finals not posted yet.

Bracket 6: Empire Surf Academy NPL wins the Bracket.

Empire went 0-3 in group play. East County & Central Coast made final, results not posted yet.

 

[splat123]

It looks like in tournament play, the GD isn't nearly as magnified - what timings were they running in G07, were they 30/35/40 min halves? Overall the apparent mis-seedings seem to have less of a bias than might have been expected, and there were some surprises.

40-minute halves

 

[SDMama]

Slammers HB Koge pulled out because of Injuries that's why Surf is playing Seattle United.

Was Koge using a small roster? It seems like many of the top club teams roster more than 18 for big tournaments and have to limit themselves to 18 to suit up for each game. (Surf Cup allows 26 to be rostered for the weekend.) How many injuries did they have to decide to pull out?

Did Placer United pull out, too? (Do you know why?)

Seattle U finished 3rd in that bracket. Talk about an easy path to the championship. +15 GD in bracket play and then playing a team in the semis that lost 2 and won 1. None of Surf’s games until the final seem like a good use of anyone’s time.

 

[RandomSoccerFan]

40-minute halves

Ah, I see it now. Thx! Full game length for all pool play, slightly shorter for semi/final.

https://surfcupsports.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/06/Surf-Cup-2023-Rules.pdf

 

[Carlsbad7]

It looks like in tournament play, the GD isn't nearly as magnified - what timings were they running in G07, were they 30/35/40 min halves? Overall the apparent mis-seedings seem to have less of a bias than might have been expected, and there were some surprises.

So, another way of saying this is that data derived from league play doesn't translate (as well) to tournament cross-league play when used as a predictive indicator.

Which to me makes sense, the less data available the less accurate the prediction.

Also, League and tournament rules are very different. As an example in league, you can only sub X number of times + once you're subbed off players are typically out for the half/game. In tournaments you can sub like crazy. Another example is in league you can't put together super teams with players from multiple clubs. In tournaments you can do this. Surf Cup won't let true super teams play in the top flight but 1-2 top players might be guesting with top teams which wouldn't happen in league.

 

[Slobodan]

Well at the goading of SoccerDad & Ref, I took a deep dive into the Girls 2007 Bracket seeding for the upcoming Surf Cup. I expected some questionable placements as per the usual. However, after looking at each teams current National Ranking and Rating in the SR app (as of 7/19/23), it is a complete mess. There are some ridiculous errors. This is just one group, so who knows what some of the other ages and genders look like. Did Surf Cup Sports even try?? Mismatched events suck for all teams. This event is a big draw for college recruiting, I am sure the College Coaches would like to see the players competing against comparable teams. The integrity of this event is going to come into question at some point. Maybe it is today.
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The integrity of Surf Cup was questioned many years ago. The only one still thinking it's "Best of the Best" is the printer that does the banners.