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If you”re going to accuse someone of cheating, you need to provide a link to the evidence. If there is no evidence, it’s not really fair to post it.

True. I appologize for my hasty assumption that your teams were caught cheating based on rumors without hearing the otherside of the story first. I was curious what happened and certainly should have worded my question in a less accusing tone. Tudula made the right, and honorable decision to let the second place NPL teams countinue on in their place. Also the right decision for thier players to participate in confliciting GA/ECNL events. In no way should your teams face any negative reprucusions from SOCAL. Keeping teams that perform like yours in the NPL should be SOCAL's number 1 priority, if they truly want to compete with the ECNL/GA for top talent teams. I wish I could delete the unfair comment, but I will just have to own it.
 
Tudela's GA Showcase Results

- 2004/2005 - 3-0-0, 8 GF and 3 GA - Showcase F (7th Bracket) **(1st out of 6)**
- 2006 - NO TEAM ENTERED
- 2007 -2-1-0, 5 GF and 5 GA - Showcase E (6th Bracket) **(2nd out of 6)**
- 2008 -0-3-0, 3 GF and 9 GA - Showcase E (6th Bracket) **(6th out of 6)**

Is this enough to get them into GA? Thoughts?
 
Based on a comment from KJR in which he stated that Tudela will not participate in the Discovery League any more, I infer that Tudela has already received some kind of assurance from either the GA or the DPL that the club will be added for next year. But if not, I would still say that Tudela is a good candidate for GA or DPL status. My reasoning follows:
  • The club has grown to the point where it has filled all GA/DPL age groups for next Fall, except for the G2006s. It should not be that hard to fill that one age group for next year.
  • Competitively, the club’s teams have performed well at the U13 and older age groups.
  • The GA and the DPL are in a battle for relevance and need to add more clubs to their program.
2021 Fall Season
2022 Fall Season
2004
2005Discovery White: 2nd of 13 teams
Flight 2 Gray: 3rd of 10 teams
Discovery White: *See note below
2006
2007Discovery White: 2nd of 15 teams
Flight 1 Blue: 12th of 12 teams
Discovery White, playing as G2006s: *See note below
Flight 1 Blue: 4th of 7 teams
2008Flight 2 White: 2nd of 11 teamsFlight 1 White: 1st of 9 teams
2009Flight 2 White: 7th of 9 teamsDiscovery White: 11th of 11 teams
2010Flight 2 Blue: No StandingsFlight 1 White: 2nd of 8 teams
Flight 2 Blue: 5th of 7 teams
2011Flight 2 White: No Standings
Flight 3 Blue: No Standings
Flight 1 White: No Standings (11 wins)
Flight 2 Blue: No Standings (4 wins)
Flight 3 Gray: No Standings (3 wins)
2012Flight 2 White: No Standings
Flight 3 Blue: No Standings
2013Flight 3 White: No Standings
Flight 3 Blue: No Standings
2014Flight 3 White: No Standings
Flight 4 Blue: No Standings


*I believe the team performed well, but its wins were forfeited based on a decision against participating in the NPL playoffs.
 
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Based on a comment from KJR in which he stated that Tudela will not participate in the Discovery League any more, I infer that Tudela has already received some kind of assurance from either the GA or the DPL that the club will be added for next year. But if not, I would still say that Tudela is a good candidate for GA or DPL status. My reasoning follows:
  • The club has grown to the point where it has filled all GA/DPL age groups for next Fall, except for the G2006s. It should not be that hard to fill that one age group for next year.
  • Competitively, the club’s teams have performed well at the U13 and older age groups.
  • The GA and the DPL are in a battle for relevance and need to add more clubs to their program.
2021 Fall Season
2022 Fall Season
2004
2005Discovery White: 2nd of 13 teams
Flight 2 Gray: 3rd of 10 teams
Discovery White: *See note below
2006
2007Discovery White: 2nd of 15 teams
Flight 1 Blue: 12th of 12 teams
Discovery White, playing as G2006s: *See note below
Flight 1 Blue: 4th of 7 teams
2008Flight 2 White: 2nd of 11 teamsFlight 1 White: 1st of 9 teams
2009Flight 2 White: 7th of 9 teamsDiscovery White: 11th of 11 teams
2010Flight 2 Blue: No StandingsFlight 1 White: 2nd of 8 teams
Flight 2 Blue: 5th of 7 teams
2011Flight 2 White: No Standings
Flight 3 Blue: No Standings
Flight 1 White: No Standings (11 wins)
Flight 2 Blue: No Standings (4 wins)
Flight 3 Gray: No Standings (3 wins)
2012Flight 2 White: No Standings
Flight 3 Blue: No Standings
2013Flight 3 White: No Standings
Flight 3 Blue: No Standings
2014Flight 3 White: No Standings
Flight 4 Blue: No Standings


*I believe the team performed well, but its wins were forfeited based on a decision against participating in the NPL playoffs.
Among our top six age groups in SOCAL, we had three first place league finishes (two of which we surrendered when we pulled out of the national cup playoffs), one second place, and one undefeated team in a non-standings age group. That's...pretty good.

Our 05 team has played in two GA events and has yet to lose; the 07s lost one game in the mud on Sunday; and our 08s had their first experience at a national showcase, missing several players to illness. I'm proud of how they played, and they'll be fine moving forward. Which is to say: armchair judgements like "Is this enough to get them into GA?" from another poster are silly. Context is important (also, I don't see calls to remove another SoCal team from the GA just because their oldest team went 0-3-0 in their bracket. Weird how people want to drill down on our results though.)

We've been very intentional in our growth over the past five years -- I think every large club in SoCal has asked us to "merge" at some point (meaning we wear their shirts and pay them fees but get their access to GA/ECNL), but we've remained independent because we believe in what we do, from development to financial aid. Even as our top teams had to fight for top brackets in events (because GA and ECNL clubs don't want to risk being beaten by some random, small indie one), we stayed patient. Our oldest girls went through college recruiting without the platform of those big circuits; we (and they) made it work.

And finally: we've finished the conveyor belt of age groups, with the exception of an 06 team that we're currently putting together. So yes, we're ready to take our next step as a club.

All we want is for our girls to be challenged competitively every year as they develop. With the way youth soccer is set up, that means getting access to the big leagues, and the GA has been very supportive of our club for a couple years now. We're very happy to have our teams represent them. We also have a lot of respect for the ECNL, but let's not pretend it's a strict meritocracy. When Breakers were admitted, a reasonably competitive local team was suddenly "ECNL." They got blown out their first season and Breakers had to go graft a better outside team onto their 05 age group. Ultimately, ECNL wanted a foothold in Los Angeles, and the Breakers' financials made sense--the assumption was that, with time and the ECNL label, the results would follow. And I get why both sides made that deal. But we weren't going to buy our way into ECNL--it's not who we are. So our road was longer and went in a different direction.
 
KJR, thanks for the extensive write up, no question the 05 & 07 groups are the best teams at Tudela so the results they earned are not surprising, especially in the 6th bracket of each age group at the GA showcase.

Case in point is an example is the 2007 LA Surf GA team. The team has a 0-7-2 record in GA fall league play. They played in the GA Showcase H, went 2-1 with 7 GF and 2 GA. Success right? Well, its important to note that bad So Cal teams are battle tested going into these national events. When So Cal teams get the opportunity to play a team from Oregon or middle of America, Cal south teams will usually come out on top unless you are playing in top 2-3 brackets. I am not saying it is why you had success this past weekend with 05 & 07 but the teams certainly were not tested.

I appreciate how Tudela has organically grown and from the outside looking in, it looks like every team that JT has his hand on is successful and does well. What I think could be holding the club back from "higher leagues" are the following:

-Politics - (GA you have to think LA surf will fight like hell to keep you out as you are direct competition to them, ECNL same situation with LA Breakers)
-Resources - My understanding and correct me if I am wrong, the club had to cancel several games this fall season to do lack of fields or field closures, to be in GA or ECNL you will need a field for an entire day, same sight to be able to host another club for 6 age groups, everyone thinks they can find this, but its hard to find in your area especially on 7-8 weekends. Does Tudela only use LAUSD fields?
-Player Pool - Results is So Cal league are not important in my honest opinion for age groups 2010 and older. ECNL and GA both start at that age so that removes 17 of the best ECNL and 9 GA teams from the equation. Lets just say 20 of those teams are high level as we know there are always some bottom feeders in every age group that don't belong playing in those leagues. You aren't playing the best competition so in turn your results are skewed. Id be curious to see how your 2011 and 2012 teams did as those are playing the best teams from ECNL clubs.
-Coaching Depth - no question the coaching line up is legit, but we also know that these coaches were not present in the fall as they have college commitments and its impossible for them to do both...

I think it will be interesting to see how the 2009 and 2010 age groups will do at the GA West Regional Event in Phx in March. If the results are similar to the 2008s will the question be is the depth there to get every age group up to speed for admittance to GA for 23-24season. There is no question that the GA wants you to be successful which is why they are providing you the opportunity to do this and I think you will start to pull more talent into the club if its announced sooner than later.
 
KJR, thanks for the extensive write up, no question the 05 & 07 groups are the best teams at Tudela so the results they earned are not surprising, especially in the 6th bracket of each age group at the GA showcase.

Case in point is an example is the 2007 LA Surf GA team. The team has a 0-7-2 record in GA fall league play. They played in the GA Showcase H, went 2-1 with 7 GF and 2 GA. Success right? Well, its important to note that bad So Cal teams are battle tested going into these national events. When So Cal teams get the opportunity to play a team from Oregon or middle of America, Cal south teams will usually come out on top unless you are playing in top 2-3 brackets. I am not saying it is why you had success this past weekend with 05 & 07 but the teams certainly were not tested.

I appreciate how Tudela has organically grown and from the outside looking in, it looks like every team that JT has his hand on is successful and does well. What I think could be holding the club back from "higher leagues" are the following:

-Politics - (GA you have to think LA surf will fight like hell to keep you out as you are direct competition to them, ECNL same situation with LA Breakers)
-Resources - My understanding and correct me if I am wrong, the club had to cancel several games this fall season to do lack of fields or field closures, to be in GA or ECNL you will need a field for an entire day, same sight to be able to host another club for 6 age groups, everyone thinks they can find this, but its hard to find in your area especially on 7-8 weekends. Does Tudela only use LAUSD fields?
-Player Pool - Results is So Cal league are not important in my honest opinion for age groups 2010 and older. ECNL and GA both start at that age so that removes 17 of the best ECNL and 9 GA teams from the equation. Lets just say 20 of those teams are high level as we know there are always some bottom feeders in every age group that don't belong playing in those leagues. You aren't playing the best competition so in turn your results are skewed. Id be curious to see how your 2011 and 2012 teams did as those are playing the best teams from ECNL clubs.
-Coaching Depth - no question the coaching line up is legit, but we also know that these coaches were not present in the fall as they have college commitments and its impossible for them to do both...

I think it will be interesting to see how the 2009 and 2010 age groups will do at the GA West Regional Event in Phx in March. If the results are similar to the 2008s will the question be is the depth there to get every age group up to speed for admittance to GA for 23-24season. There is no question that the GA wants you to be successful which is why they are providing you the opportunity to do this and I think you will start to pull more talent into the club if its announced sooner than later.
That's all very thoughtful, and I won't be able to do full justice in this response.

Politics is certainly an issue with youth sports generally, and youth soccer in SoCal is no different. There are things that happen behind closed doors that no one outside can control; that's why we've just tried to build our club and hope that, eventually, others would agree that there are enough players for everyone and good local competition helps us all.

As for resources, being at the mercy of LAUSD didn't help us as we came out of lockdown, though we certainly weren't the only organization affected by its reluctance to grant permits. I will say that the cancelled games were examples of poor admin by SOCAL schedulers. When LAUSD informed us they wouldn't be able to process permits for some dates we'd been promised, we told SOCAL and assured them that we had alternative fields we could use; minutes later our games were listed as canceled. As you can imagine, that inflexibility was incredibly frustrating--particularly when we were at the same time agreeing to reschedule one of our teams' games because their opponent had a conflict with prom. Fortunately we were able to move our training and home field away from LAUSD, at an incredible facility, and meet any league requirements.

Regarding depth in the player pool, I think that opens up a broader issue in youth soccer: the emphasis on results over development in younger age groups. When some of our 05s were first coming together as 8- and 9-year-olds, Jacob warned parents that if they were only looking for trophies for the next few years we might not be the right team for them. Winning is more fun than losing, but our focus was on development and effort; and we don't want to change that just to impress whoever might be looking at the results of our younger teams. Those 2012 girls might have 70% possession and be learning how to build out from the back, make smart overlapping runs, etc. and lose to a bigger, more direct team on two free kicks. We'll take that loss and tell the girls that, when they're sixteen and the sizes have evened out, things will be different. Our 05s have proved that point (not just with "easy" league wins but with tournament and showcase results, as well as college recruiting) and, we hope, set an example for players, and parents, in the rest of the club.

Coaching education and retention is critical for any club. We have an insanely talented, committed staff right now, but any club that isn't constantly striving to improve its coaching depth is either naive or coasting.

We don't have 100 girls coming to try out in every age group; our margin for error is smaller than bigger clubs, who can basically just swap out underperforming teams. All we can do is develop the girls we get as well as we can and then play whoever we're put against. (Trust me: our girls would have loved to play higher than the 6th bracket last weekend, but we were happy to go where the GA put us.) But yes, being in the GA would certainly help us bring more girls into our program; based on what we've already accomplished, we think that would be good for us and for the GA.
 
That's all very thoughtful, and I won't be able to do full justice in this response.

Politics is certainly an issue with youth sports generally, and youth soccer in SoCal is no different. There are things that happen behind closed doors that no one outside can control; that's why we've just tried to build our club and hope that, eventually, others would agree that there are enough players for everyone and good local competition helps us all.

As for resources, being at the mercy of LAUSD didn't help us as we came out of lockdown, though we certainly weren't the only organization affected by its reluctance to grant permits. I will say that the cancelled games were examples of poor admin by SOCAL schedulers. When LAUSD informed us they wouldn't be able to process permits for some dates we'd been promised, we told SOCAL and assured them that we had alternative fields we could use; minutes later our games were listed as canceled. As you can imagine, that inflexibility was incredibly frustrating--particularly when we were at the same time agreeing to reschedule one of our teams' games because their opponent had a conflict with prom. Fortunately we were able to move our training and home field away from LAUSD, at an incredible facility, and meet any league requirements.

Regarding depth in the player pool, I think that opens up a broader issue in youth soccer: the emphasis on results over development in younger age groups. When some of our 05s were first coming together as 8- and 9-year-olds, Jacob warned parents that if they were only looking for trophies for the next few years we might not be the right team for them. Winning is more fun than losing, but our focus was on development and effort; and we don't want to change that just to impress whoever might be looking at the results of our younger teams. Those 2012 girls might have 70% possession and be learning how to build out from the back, make smart overlapping runs, etc. and lose to a bigger, more direct team on two free kicks. We'll take that loss and tell the girls that, when they're sixteen and the sizes have evened out, things will be different. Our 05s have proved that point (not just with "easy" league wins but with tournament and showcase results, as well as college recruiting) and, we hope, set an example for players, and parents, in the rest of the club.

Coaching education and retention is critical for any club. We have an insanely talented, committed staff right now, but any club that isn't constantly striving to improve its coaching depth is either naive or coasting.

We don't have 100 girls coming to try out in every age group; our margin for error is smaller than bigger clubs, who can basically just swap out underperforming teams. All we can do is develop the girls we get as well as we can and then play whoever we're put against. (Trust me: our girls would have loved to play higher than the 6th bracket last weekend, but we were happy to go where the GA put us.) But yes, being in the GA would certainly help us bring more girls into our program; based on what we've already accomplished, we think that would be good for us and for the GA.

SOCAL have clear rules when fields are lost and games cancelled. If you cancel a game Thursday or Friday before, it’s a forfeit. These rules were put in place years back to stop clubs ‘claiming’ a lost field. Clubs used to cancel late with no repercussions so the rule was brought in by the clubs. My daughters teams had multiple moved and cancelled games against Tudela all because the club lost fields. They’re just following their rules.

All coaches of NPL teams signed an agreement before the season, as did our coach, who shared this agreement with us. It says that we would commit to play in any postseason event or pathway. Tudela obviously had no intention so wrongly signed the agreement.

Best of luck to your club in the future but it will good to have more trustworthy organizations to play against that will fulfill their commitments to where 100% of their teams play in. SOCAL have made huge improvements in the past year and we for one would not continue to publicly bash a group that are teams have had an exceptional experience with. Your teams have developed to the level they’re at because of SOCAL not inspite of them, so it seems like you should show a little more respect
 
SOCAL have clear rules when fields are lost and games cancelled. If you cancel a game Thursday or Friday before, it’s a forfeit. These rules were put in place years back to stop clubs ‘claiming’ a lost field. Clubs used to cancel late with no repercussions so the rule was brought in by the clubs. My daughters teams had multiple moved and cancelled games against Tudela all because the club lost fields. They’re just following their rules.

All coaches of NPL teams signed an agreement before the season, as did our coach, who shared this agreement with us. It says that we would commit to play in any postseason event or pathway. Tudela obviously had no intention so wrongly signed the agreement.

Best of luck to your club in the future but it will good to have more trustworthy organizations to play against that will fulfill their commitments to where 100% of their teams play in. SOCAL have made huge improvements in the past year and we for one would not continue to publicly bash a group that are teams have had an exceptional experience with. Your teams have developed to the level they’re at because of SOCAL not inspite of them, so it seems like you should show a little more respect
Michelle is this you?
How do you come to these conclusions considering SOCAL has only been in business for 2 years? Are you saying SURF, LEGENDS, SLAMMERS, KOGE, BLUES, etc.... all owe their allegiance to CALSOUTH because CALSOUTH lasted a lot longer
 
Michelle is this you?
How do you come to these conclusions considering SOCAL has only been in business for 2 years? Are you saying SURF, LEGENDS, SLAMMERS, KOGE, BLUES, etc.... all owe their allegiance to CALSOUTH because CALSOUTH lasted a lot longer

Not my fight. But, to be fair, SoCal is just rebranded SCDSL which has been around for a lot longer than 2 years. I'm pretty sure all/most of those clubs you mentioned played SCDSL (in addition to other leagues).
 
Michelle is this you?
How do you come to these conclusions considering SOCAL has only been in business for 2 years? Are you saying SURF, LEGENDS, SLAMMERS, KOGE, BLUES, etc.... all owe their allegiance to CALSOUTH because CALSOUTH lasted a lot longer

No I am not Michelle. I have two girls that play in SoCal. When a business rebrands it doesn’t erase their history. I believe SoCal/SCDSL has been around for 11 years or so now
 
at 04/05 ranked 18
06 - ranked 27
07 ranked 10
08 ranked 9
09 ranked 18
10 ranked 21

not sure this is a club you would brag about adding. Non Letter league clubs ranked way above them.
Not sure what ranking you're referring to. Is this nationwide? Just Washington?

I looked at Rush + theyre in a league called the Washington Youth Soccer’s Regional Club League (RCL) apparently theres 18 clubs in this league + it says that RCL is the highest level for youth soccer competition in Washington. Whatever that means.
 
Not sure what ranking you're referring to. Is this nationwide? Just Washington?

I looked at Rush + theyre in a league called the Washington Youth Soccer’s Regional Club League (RCL) apparently theres 18 clubs in this league + it says that RCL is the highest level for youth soccer competition in Washington. Whatever that means.
What I've noticed is that the new teams that get added to GA usually improve greatly once they get added. This could be because they attract better players at their next tryout, but sometimes the club actually just goes out and recruits one of the top teams teams from non-letter leagues to come over as a group, which gives them access to GA and the new GA club gets stronger teams top to bottom. If this is the GA's strategy, it is pretty brilliant, or maybe that's just the way it's been done forever.
 
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