Dodgerblue1884
BRONZE
Please read my post again. No complaining, just honest truth from a veteran soccer dad’s perspective. Pretty sure I am not the one who looks like a jerk, or stupid based on this exchange.
G2010 - How’s the 2022 season going?
- Thread starter TeamDadJokes
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Dodgerblue1884
BRONZE
Before you all call me out, excuse my “DA” typo. Fat fingers, GA.
I don't hate anyone. Just got annoyed...
2022-2023 Girls Academy (GA) has 92 member clubs + started in 2020 (but really is just a continuation of Girls DA which started in 2017)
2021-2022 Girls ECNL had 115 member clubs + started in 2009
10% of 92 = There should be roughly 9 top teams
10% of 115 = There should be roughly 12 top teams
As you can see purely from a numbers perspective because Girls ECNL has more clubs it will also have more top teams.
ECNL started in 2009 which gave it an 8 year jump on GA/DA.
When DA blew up many of the top clubs went to ECNL because it was a safer bet than joining an unproven league that was a continuation of what had just failed.
At this point everyone knows the history + GA has shown that its not going anywhere.
In SoCal ECNL is especially strong at the 2010 level. You can see it in ECNL playoff results. You can also see that SoCal GA is strong but not as dominate because two SoCal GA teams made it to the playoffs but were eliminated in the group stage.
What does this mean?
Yes there are 3-4 very good SoCal 2010 girls ECNL teams. But when compaired to the rest of the nation 1-2 SoCal GA teams are very good as well. It's just hard to see because SoCal is so stacked with talent.
If you want to play the top ECNL teams challenge your GA club to play in their tournaments. I've never seen a top ECNL club turn down a top GA team or vice versa.
MyKidsDriver
SILVER
Any truth to FRAM and City each playing in NJ GA playoffs with 11/12 players because they lost players to ECNL teams and injury after the end of the regular season? Heard that from a potentially reliable source.
I've heard some of that as well. You have to keep in mind that cross country travel is hard for everyone. It's just a fact that local teams will have an advantage when you're doing national leagues.
Not sure if players coming or going really matters. GA is just like ECNL in that you can roster players from other leagues during the season. ECNL to ECNL or GA to GA is much more difficult + has more defined limitations. When teams are winning players will find a way onto that team.
One thing I can say about GA that might perk some ears up is that Tophat Gold 2010 is a very good team. They play like a mashup of Surf and Blues styles. Strong possession + players that never lose 1on1s + super fast and strong forwards that rarely miss shots on goal.
any of these top 10 teams can beat each other on any given day. Tophat is the only GA team sitting in tier 1 (Top 10) across the USA. I’m sure they would compete and win vs any of these top 10 teams. This app is more accurate than the current ecnl rankings. Just look at the results. 5/8 teams that made finals are in the top 10 on this app and I’m sure one from this top 10 list will most likely take it. The 3 other Cinderella teams sit in tiers 2 and 3. 2 in the top 20 and 1 in the top 30.
RandomSoccerFan
GOLD
This is like saying because there are more Toyota Corollas than 911s, Toyota makes the faster car. It's just as ludicrous. In 2010s, of the top 20 teams in the nation, 17 of them are ECNL. 3 are GA. The 20th ranked ECNL team is 24th in the nation. The 20th ranked GA team is 100th in the nation. It's not even close. In 2023, the leagues are differentiated very clearly. While anything can theoretically happen in a single game - a top ECNL team will beat a top GA team the vast majority of the time. An average ECNL team will beat an average GA team the vast majority of the time. A bottom tier ECNL team will beat a bottom tier GA team the vast majority of the time. Anyone betting against these mathematical certainties would be a great guy to play poker against. And 2010 is one of the best showings for GA. In 2009s they have 2 in the top 20, 2008s have only 1, 2007s have 1, 2006s have 3. 05/04 is the best showing of the bunch with 5 of the top 20, but even then it's only 1 in the top 10.
Tophat 2010G is a fantastic team. The best 2010 GA team in the nation, and the best team (by national rank) of any age that Tophat has. Extrapolating Tophat's excellence to be indicative of the rest (or any) of GA teams in general is like saying all ECNL teams are as strong as Surf.
There's no reason it has to be like this forever, and in 5 years, 10 years, 25 years, perhaps everything will be completely different and these leagues will swap superiority - or completely new leagues will develop and usurp them both. But your perspective of the leagues being roughly equivalent and having similar levels of top talent and/or strong teams in 2023 is just not accurate. It's not even close enough to be debatable.
DCSoccerDad
BRONZE
Predictions anyone? Surprise, surprise NorCal vs SoCal in the finals. Don't be surprised if the bottom half of the bracket looks completely different Eclipse team and Bethesda teams have top defenses and could play spoiler. Top half of bracket is ultra competitive though and any of those four teams could win it all. Slammers HBK was the best team (in my humble opinion) last week and has easier path to finals than the other three Cali teams.
Attachments
I don't like when people use the soccer app to say with 100% certainty X will beat Y week after week. It takes a lot of the fun away from the game. I do believe that the soccer app is a good way to keep huge blow outs from happening in tournaments though.
The big downside of the soccer app is that becomes nearly impossible for lower level teams to break into the top tier because they never get a chance to play higher level teams.
Regarding the Poker comment top players are very conservative + play the statistically best hand almost all the time. But what allows them to get ahead of a table of players all playing the exact same way is that sometimes they bluff. So yes I agree playing poker against someone that's wild and goes 100% on their emotions is great + an easy win. The ones you don't want to play are the grinders that play perfectly 95% of the time and exactly the opposite 5% of the time.
GA is what it is + isn't going anywhere. Eventually one of the big ECNL clubs will move to GA or a big GA club will move to ECNL it's just how things work. Over a span of 5, 10, 15 years level of play will equalize. Maybe one league will get smart + just buy the other one out so they're the only game in the US for high level girls soccer.
A couple years ago, when this topic came up, the commentary here was always "GA isn't even as good as ECRL, forget about ECNL!"
That is rarely argued here anymore, as the GA teams - on average - have moved up and ECRL teams have stayed put mostly, and occasionally declined.
So at least that's an improvement for GA!
In general, GA is very well-run and doing the right things (mostly) to make a run at the top dog, which is a very difficult thing to do.
That is rarely argued here anymore, as the GA teams - on average - have moved up and ECRL teams have stayed put mostly, and occasionally declined.
So at least that's an improvement for GA!
In general, GA is very well-run and doing the right things (mostly) to make a run at the top dog, which is a very difficult thing to do.
RandomSoccerFan
GOLD
I don't like when people don't understand math. Nobody is saying 100% certainty of everything. But it is incredibly predictive. Betting against it is losing money. It *is* going to be the right winner 82% of the time for ranked teams. It is going to be the right winner 75% of the time for the best teams in their age group. A team ranked better than another in SR *is* statistically a better team and *will* win more than lose against a lower ranked team. The closer the ratings, the closer the games would be expected to be, and the closer the outcome becomes a toss-up. But that just isn't the case here. There is a wide gulf between top teams in ECNL and GA, with only 1 or 2 exceptions. One can certainly choose to believe it or not to believe it - but that doesn't change the reality.
Something I find interesting about GA leadership (both Club and National levels) is that they all appear to be loosely working as a team regarding who they play, when they play, and how they play,
I'm not talking about picking and choosing tournaments for wins. It's more like all the DOCs, Club Leadership, Top Coaches, + National Leadership are all on the same page about how they're going to move forward. I can't figure out if it's just experience and wisdom or if there's a top down game plan in place.
Use math day in + day out at work. I 100% understand what the Soccer app does.
If I was betting on youth soccer games I'd trust it all the way. Problem is so would everyone else and books would incentivize the other side of the bet to keep everything even so they don't have a payout.
Again my issue with the soccer app is you end up with group of top teams that won't play anyone but themselves. You also eliminate Cinderella stories. Which I personally think make sports more fun.
Look at it from the perspective of a team like Surf or Top Hat. They already get a lot of 8-0 games. Not much to learn, but a risk of injury.
More than once, they've watched kids get hurt as someone on the losing team gets angry and plays carelessly.
In the last two months, I've seen:
- cleats up straight leg slide tackle after the ball is gone.
- late blind side hit knocking a player over.
- direct kick to the chest.
All three were by a team that was clearly beaten and had to chance to win or even tie. Just a decent kid who got frustrated and started playing too aggressively.
Yea I've seen that before + agree with you on this one.
However, situations like this is when bench players get minutes.
RandomSoccerFan
GOLD
Again - your dislike of the existence of the app is a reasonable position. If you believe that top teams aren't playing weaker leagues often because it would affect their rating, I think you're delusional, but you're entitled to that belief as well. It's when you discount the results in the app because of your dislike; that's where it goes off the rails. I think that most parents (and players) would prefer a more inclusive national setup where all teams were playing with similar rules, and playoffs/promotion/relegation was all in one coherent system. But financial motivations, geographical realities, and any number of other relevant factors instead make the US soccer setup much more fragmented. All of that can be abstracted pretty well with statistical ranking apps, but it's never going to be as satisfying.
The other thing that hasn't been mentioned yet here is that all of this quibbling is still about the very top of youth soccer in US. There are ~3300 2010G competitive teams in the US that have their results captured in the app, and have played within the last 7 months. This is likely an undercount, but perhaps not by much. Even the #100 team nationally, #20 in GA, is in the top 3% of those 3300 teams, and would be expected to beat 97% of US teams of that age they shared a pitch with. But as good as they are - they'd get shellacked by any decent ECNL team, and likely some that folks here wouldn't regard as decent. It's all relative. The 100th best professional baseball team is playing AA ball somewhere for beer money, while players on the 20th best are worth tens of millions.
futboldad1
PREMIER
this ^.
Carlsbad, bro, I’m happy you love City SC and support the GA but you gotta stop with the nonsense for your own health
Socma has chosen to make me their enemy #1this ^.
Carlsbad, bro, I’m happy you love City SC and support the GA but you gotta stop with the nonsense for your own health
I have them on ignore + dont even see what they write.
It's not that I like or dislike GA or CitySC. I'm neutral on all of the Clubs and Leagues.this ^.
Carlsbad, bro, I’m happy you love City SC and support the GA but you gotta stop with the nonsense for your own health
(I don't even hate Sharks anymore now that I've seen that some are happy with the changes implemented)
What bothers me is that you have a few ECNL cheerleaders that love putting down the other leagues and the players within them.
Kids work their butts off 3-4 times a week year-round in Socal chasing a tournament trophy or a medal. All high-level teams go through the same work rate and dedication. Writing teams and players off or saying disparaging things about a team or club just because they're not currently ranked top 10 in the country in a crazy parent created soccer app is ridiculous.
Socma likes to say that I'm spinning misinformation. I'm not, I'm just writing things they don't like to read because they're so full of Kool-Aid that they can't see straight.