If it's for an "average" team then it would be in the middle of the tiers since there are also new teams and disasters of teams.
CSL Strong???
- Thread starter dreamz
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If it's for an "average" team then it would be in the middle of the tiers since there are also new teams and disasters of teams.
At U11, U12, U13 most teams absolutely do not play at silver (at least on the boys side). Look at the regions on line. That's simply not true. There are a ton more at the bronze. Silver may have a few more teams in them but there are far more bronze than silver. At the upper ages it's that many of those bronze teams just go away and dissolve....all the good kids having moved on....all the rest having given up.
Further, the thing about "earning" levels makes no sense because of the churn NOTIF talked about. Assume he's right and the churn is about 20% on an average team. On a bronze or relegated team it may be more because families leave a situation where all the games are lost (thinking the coaches aren't developing the players) and on a team that's advanced maybe a little less (because clearly then the coach is doing a good job), though coaches may use the opportunity to engage in recruiting upgrades and cut the weaker kids to make the team even stronger and advance yet another level. In addition kids move, their interests change, financial circumstances may force them to drop out.. So by the time you get to U14, the team is completely different from U9. My son's former United team (which won one of the state cups) has when last I checked 5 or 6 players from the original squad. So what exactly has the U14 "earned"....that it wasn't relegated despite the fact that CSL and the clubs bend over backward to not relegate unless everyone agree it's in the best interest?....that it was really good at recruitment and recruited top kids and upgraded others? The team that earned the silver or silver elite title couple be proud of that, but there's no "dance with the one that brung you" rule. That U14 is a completely different team from the one that started, and may have even gone through a couple coaches. How less arbitrary is that then just having the coaches decide let's play x level???
Its up to CSL whether to put Silver or SE in the middle of the bell curve. You want it to be, I get that. But, suppose for a second it isn't.
They usually promote the top 3 or so teams in the group each year, but there isn't anywhere to demote the "disasters" as you call them. If it is promoting the exceptional ones but not demoting the unexceptional ones, it is going to be the largest group by default.
You promote anyone that’s been around more than 2 years out of the bottom tier making it clear it’s for new teams (or teams in the penultimate tier that loses more than 50% of its players and are effectively new). If a team still has an exceptionally bad record (most such teams will have exploded) you allow them to play there too. If a team has an exceptionally good tournament season before you allow them to start the penultimate tier to avoid 15-0 monsters like my sons United team. It also eliminates the stigma of the lower tier( they can’t recruit good players because they are “just bronze”) and you have 3 intermediate tiers (for a total of 6-7 tiers). It would involve more driving and it would mean in the penultimate tier there would be very few games against disaster teams. Except for exceptional circumstances of voluntary relegation or a team reforming, there wouldn’t be relegation to the new tier. I’d also impose a dance with the one that brung you rule the first year of a teams promotion to levels higher than penultimate. Top teams in the new division skip penulrimate.
Line them all up and let St. Luigi Scrosopi seed the circuits.
Or you can let logic help --
Assign each team to a small group at the beginning of the season. After a few games (3 for groups of 4) determine 1-2-3-4 in each group by whatever the league rules and tiebreakers are. Reform the group so #1 plays in a group of #1s down to #4 plays in a group of #4s. Repeat a few times until it is clear who the persistent winners are. Bracket #1 to #4 for a league playoff (or more for a longer playoff as the calendar permits).
And in a leap year you can promote the team with the tallest hair styles.
Or we deal internally with the "stigma" of being in the lowest rung of club soccer. Any kid who plays club is in rarified air relative to most other kids, but there are also other teams and players that get placed into higher levels of competition or recognition. You can learn to be happy with what you have or make a big change. Sometimes the answers are internal.
Bronze is great. I salute any kid playing soccer, playing club soccer, and I know my daughter is always positive when she meets another kid in club, too. They have more in common than other kids in school.
I like it (that itself is a sign there’s a problem)
the parents will hate it because that means by random chance there’s still a possibility of 12-0 blow outs, lots of driving, and they can’t be sure their little billy will be placed on that silver elite team if the stupid teammates do badly
the big clubs would hate it because their positions wouldn’t be secure and god forbid the b team should ever beat the a team. How can they poach players if they can’t promise a level?
the coaches will hate it because it puts them under enormous pressure to get through those early rounds. Will resort to the usual short cuts: big legged defender kicks goalkicks long, keeper punts, longballs, running game, foul game.
the admins won’t like it. Lots of work for them, lots of anti cheating steps will need to be taken in those early rounds, and lots of complaints of 12-0 victories
You can fix the 12-0 problem by seeding based on the prior years results but that’s not perfext
why call it bronze then? If it’s average then under the bell curve it should hold the most players and there should be players under it. If it’s below average the distribution shouldn’t be slated as heavily there
the bronze division also tends to swing wildly because of the entry of new teams. You had my sons team which beat almost all teams 10-0 to 15-0. Then there are wrecks of new teams that can’t win a single game.
the other issue is the bronze teams struggle to recruit good experienced players that can lift the team and lose their best players forcing the team to rebuild. How do you fix that?
Eliminate blowouts with a mercy rule or make a team play a man down for every 3 goals they are ahead (or add players to the trailing team).
The initial groups can be based on geography to reduce long drives at least in that round, and distance can be factored into the lower groups as the season proceeds. I am assuming that the teams who have won their way into the higher groups will be more willing to travel further to maintain their positions.
We can still have voluntary assignment to "Flights", with the above procedures to be used within a flight. Otherwise, there will be too many teams to manage. The number of teams that can be accommodated by this scheme is limited by the length of the season and the number of games people are willing to play each week.
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Not sure if anyone saw this, but more clubs are leaving CSL for SoCal (SCDSL) for next season. Biggest loss for CSL in my opinion is Tudela, very strong girls program. Claremont Stars, NHB, and SoCal Elite are gone also. Not sure which league the other clubs play in.
SOCAL adds nine new clubs, announces partnership with The Coaching Manual (usclubsoccer.org)
SOCAL adds nine new clubs, announces partnership with The Coaching Manual (usclubsoccer.org)
The 05 team will be in your division next year. Probably the best team you will play.
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Oh, I know that. My daughter played against them a couple of times when she was with SoCal Academy 05 Hazell. Those games were a battle. My money is on them to win this year's Cal South National Cup.
If we win our quarterfinal game, we play them in the semis. You guys get to play them this weekend.
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Yep...looks like we got placed in the famous “group of death”... Definitely some challenging games, but that’s why we’re going. Looking forward to it.If we win our quarterfinal game, we play them in the semis. You guys get to play them this weekend.
So recently came across an example of why the CSL tier system works imperfectly. So, in my son's 2019 bronze grouping one team swept all their games except for 1 which they tied. Against a new team coming up from AYSO, they won 12-0. Some of the games were closer including against my son's team 3-1 with both teams having good opportunities. They took promotion to silver. For the truncated 2020 season this promoted team was in a group with 5 other teams which had been together for a while, all of whom were gunning for silver elite. The newly promoted silver team did "upgrade" for the season, recruiting some strong kids on the grounds they were now silver and even upgrading their goalkeeper who was dropped and shifted to another bronze team. They lost every single game in their bracket, some by as many as 8 points.
So what do you do with this team? Relegate them to bronze where they'll lose their best players but still destroy the newly formed teams up and coming? Another team from the 2020 season is taking promotion which won only about 80% of its games. This team is far weaker than the previously promoted team and will likely play in the same silver bracket due to geography. Is it going to fare much better in the bracket with silver teams that have now been playing together for a while? At least the 2019 promoted team will now have someone to beat if they stay in silver.
So what do you do with this team? Relegate them to bronze where they'll lose their best players but still destroy the newly formed teams up and coming? Another team from the 2020 season is taking promotion which won only about 80% of its games. This team is far weaker than the previously promoted team and will likely play in the same silver bracket due to geography. Is it going to fare much better in the bracket with silver teams that have now been playing together for a while? At least the 2019 promoted team will now have someone to beat if they stay in silver.
So you come up with one example, therefore the whole system works imperfectly...hahahaha, that's so funny. I can show you an exhausting amount of teams that were placed in F2 or F1 that got absolutely destroyed and were obviously placed in the wrong group, so does that mean SoCal league works imperfectly as well. There is no perfect formula, you will always have cases where teams are not placed in the right level, but that doesnt mean throw out the baby with the bathwater!!! There was a team in Discovery this spring that lost 19-1, so there you go??? So leaving the choice to DOC's isn't always the answer either!
a. But there's really no place to put this team. If you move them down to the bronze bracket they'll wreck the new teams coming in. If you keep them in the silver bracket, they'll have 1 team they can beat (and unless that team gets upgrades, wreck). You could make them drive long distances to a more balanced silver bracket but CSL doesn't like to do that because it leads to people lobbying to be placed into brackets they can win. If the entire point is to balance the scores, it's failing in these 2 examples.
b. It's a much more common problem in the bronze and silver levels where you have teams and players that have been at it a while. At the bronze level you get new teams like my son's AYSO team (example 3) that go in and destroy everyone 12-0 and then they aren't ready for league cup because they haven't had that experience. And you get new teams like the new AYSO team (example 4) in the bronze bracket which lose every game because they aren't playing in a new teams bracket.
c. Silver elite and gold tend to work a little better. There's less shame for a silver elite team that struggles to play down to silver (my son's current team has that dilemma). But take a relegation to bronze and the team tends to fall apart. I'd bet you a drink this team that lost every game DOES NOT get relegated, and it would make no sense in any case to promote a weaker team over them (which I bet, notwithstanding the obvious signs, will take the promotion).
d. The answer would seem that particularly in SoCal where we have a wealth of teams would be more brackets, but that would mean more driving for everyone, which is the main problem parents seem to protest.
e. The team in Discovery that gets destroyed though can adjust the following year relatively easily because again there is that choice. And they can sell it to the parents that it doesn't need to be forever. The teams in my example have no happy outcomes if the CSL rules are applied as is: the silver team will get relegated and stomp on the bronze competition, including a raw new team, the bronze team will take its promotion and get stomped on in the silver team's place (and more badly than that team), and the newly minted club team formerly AYSO will likely dissolve since the kids don't like to lose every game (many by double digits) and the parents will blame the coaches for not developing their kids (which should be playing MLS next after all).
There probably isn't any place to put that team, but what I am saying the same thing can happen in SoCal league as well. This problem isn't specific to one type of league, it's universal. I think you are also looking at this through a youngers lense, as the kids get older this becomes less of a problem.
I think a lot of it has to do with players at the younger ages still don't know if they really like soccer, or they just want to play a sport, or their parents just want them to play. As they approach middle school those fridge players who didn't really want to play, or they are just average players, begin to drop off and the levels begin to balance out.
Here's the other major problem...Younger ages still have rec players wanting to play club, I think that's the biggest problem, club is not unique anymore at the younger ages so you get these lopsided teams from clubs that take ANYONE, and then you have other clubs that still treat it as "club" and only take players that are "club ready" If clubs would only take kids that can actually play, there distribution would'nt be so vast and teams would be more balanced at the younger ages.