Those were your words I quoted and your response here is exactly what I've been saying. Your silence as to whether DPL was necessary in the first place means you condone its formation. Or at least your constant defense of it based on your positive experiences gives the impression that you condone it. Was DPL Necessary? This has always been my biggest pet peeve. My second pet peeve is that people automatically put it above other leagues in terms of hierarchy.
Girls DPL?
- Thread starter Soccerreccos
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Those were your words I quoted and your response here is exactly what I've been saying. Your silence as to whether DPL was necessary in the first place means you condone its formation. Or at least your constant defense of it based on your positive experiences gives the impression that you condone it. Was DPL Necessary? This has always been my biggest pet peeve. My second pet peeve is that people automatically put it above other leagues in terms of hierarchy.
I always appreciate your willingness to weigh in @Simisoccerfan. My response:
61% of the 2003-2000 DPL teams that registered for National Cup this year failed to advance to the round of 16. So if National Cup is "diluted and a waste of time" then surely the same could be said of DPL itself (doubly so next season as the good teams will be forced to play the weak teams twice).
The idea of teams just playing each other in league over and over (except for a few showcases) sounds terrible to me. Yes, training is important, but that doesn't mean that games are wholly unimportant. DA and ECNL start out with much better competition to begin with and then allow better teams to play each other at the end of the year. You are proposing essentially a year's worth of scrimmages for lesser teams of far more varying quality.
I think you know my view at this point, which is that development requires playing teams of similar talent. My DD spent a short stint on lower level club some years ago, and while the 10-0 victories were fun for some parents, it did nothing for her development. Similarly, we have a friend whose daughter had been a star who could take any opponent 1 on 1 (or even 1 on 3). But now that she's facing improved competition she has become a liability for her team because she repeatedly holds on to the ball too long and turns it over. She's a great athlete, but her bad habits are so ingrained I don't know if she'll ever be able to adjust at this point. Yes, part of the blame goes to her coaches for not forcing a change earlier. But I don't see her picking up those bad habits if she had played better competition earlier.
In any event, if the good DPL and SCDSL players hope to beat the odds and join a college roster after playing in those leagues, I don't see how spending more and more of the year playing weak teams helps them achieve that goal.
61% of the 2003-2000 DPL teams that registered for National Cup this year failed to advance to the round of 16. So if National Cup is "diluted and a waste of time" then surely the same could be said of DPL itself (doubly so next season as the good teams will be forced to play the weak teams twice).
The idea of teams just playing each other in league over and over (except for a few showcases) sounds terrible to me. Yes, training is important, but that doesn't mean that games are wholly unimportant. DA and ECNL start out with much better competition to begin with and then allow better teams to play each other at the end of the year. You are proposing essentially a year's worth of scrimmages for lesser teams of far more varying quality.
I think you know my view at this point, which is that development requires playing teams of similar talent. My DD spent a short stint on lower level club some years ago, and while the 10-0 victories were fun for some parents, it did nothing for her development. Similarly, we have a friend whose daughter had been a star who could take any opponent 1 on 1 (or even 1 on 3). But now that she's facing improved competition she has become a liability for her team because she repeatedly holds on to the ball too long and turns it over. She's a great athlete, but her bad habits are so ingrained I don't know if she'll ever be able to adjust at this point. Yes, part of the blame goes to her coaches for not forcing a change earlier. But I don't see her picking up those bad habits if she had played better competition earlier.
In any event, if the good DPL and SCDSL players hope to beat the odds and join a college roster after playing in those leagues, I don't see how spending more and more of the year playing weak teams helps them achieve that goal.
Simisoccerfan
PREMIER
Justafan, just because it is my opinion that DPL’s depth is better doesn’t mean I think it is superior. Those are two different things in my mind. Flight 1 has way more teams with a greater spread of talent from top to bottom in my opinion. Also the Rebels is likely the best team among these leagues. I think it’s on par with Champions and Premier. I do condone DPL based on my dd’s actual experience in it. Regarding whether it is necessary I had nothing to do with it’s formation. Obviously the clubs that formed it though it was necessary. For us it was a means to and end and it worked as advertised for us.
I wish my daughter’s SCDSL team was still playing fall league with some of the big club DPL teams. From what I see at National Cup, the big club DPL teams have many of the same second team players that we had been playing for years, so my guess is that the games would be just as competitive now as they always were - with or without the DPL patch.
We now are forced to drive past these clubs to play less competitive teams who have been promoted to fill the vacancies created by their DPL teams’ departures. Fortunately, we have it better than some of the big club DPL teams that have to drive Phoenix to play games. In either case, this is an unnecessary waste of time and money.
Beach, Legends and Real So Cal, please come home!
Yes--and most of the leagues cut exactly the same--the top 20% win 80-90% of the games --seems that way for DA, DPL, ECNL, CSL, and top couple flights of SCDSL. There are not enough premium players to form this many premium teams. Would look so much better to have 1/2 or 1/3 of these teams and get some good even competition among the girls. There was a post that suggested a true pool of players for DA, where week in week out the roster could be changed with different players from the pool. I love this idea for those kids who are really committed and driven in regard to soccer. That could leave the rest of the teams to play in a league structured similar to SCDSL or Coast and participate in tournaments that college coaches could attend (sounds so pie in the sky, I know...).
I didn't ask whether you had anything to do with its creation. I am asking you whether you believe (your opinion) there was a need to create this league?
Simisoccerfan
PREMIER
There is always a danger in numbers since you can use them without understanding the full picture. I took a look at the National Cup results to see what is going on. You can't include the 2000's for DPL since almost all of these teams are actually 1999 teams and most of those teams have stopped playing. So if you look at the 2001-2003 age groups there were 190 teams entered (this includes 26 DPL teams). 5 out of the 8 DPL teams for the 2001 age group advanced to the round of 16 (one forfeited). 5 out of the 9 DPL teams for the 2002 age group advanced. 3 out of the 9 DPL teams for the 2003 age group advanced to the round of 16. So this means 13 out of the 26 teams have advanced to the round of 16 which is 50%. There are only 48 teams in these age groups in the round of 16 so with 190 teams entered only 25% of the teams advance. So DPL has advanced to the round of 16 at Twice the normal rate. Another way of looking at this is 13/26 DPL teams advanced (50%) and only 35/164 of the other teams advanced (21%).
Now I looked specifically at the Champions bracket of SCDSL and 15 out of the 30 teams entered advanced for the same 50% advancement rate. Looking at CSL Premier 6 out of the 27 teams advanced for a 22% advancement rate. So this data would seem to indicate the DPL and Champions League are similar to each other but both are far better than CSL Premier and the rest of Flight 1. The funny thing is that CSL teams are probably favored to win 2 of these age groups.
Simisoccerfan
PREMIER
No and I am on the record stating there was no need to create SCDSL either. But we deal with the hand we are dealt. No use complaining about it.