How’s the 2024-2025 season going?

shirivelli said:
Bad grass fields do impact games in several ways. Below are the main observations from my playing days and recent experiences:
  • If one team plays more tiki-taka passing soccer versus the other, their effectiveness is reduced with poor grass conditions.
  • If one team plays more physical soccer versus the other, it benefits them because the balls are bouncier and more often out of control, making it easier for the physical team to fight for possession.
  • If one team is used to having practices and games on Artificial Turf (AG) versus the other, it harms them more on grass fields, especially bad ones. Many teams from NorCal practice and play mostly on AG fields, so bad grass fields are their worst nightmare.
Of course, this only matters when two teams are closely matched, making a slight difference and benefiting during the match.
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I’m pretty sure most of every SoCal team NL and RL team practices on AG and most games are played on AG…

I’ve seen the crap fields in Oceanside play an adverse role against our team during blues cup where the patches caused a reaction ball type bounce that lead to being scored on, but that’s part of the game unfortunately. Kids across the world play in worse conditions and I’m sure not of them being this up as a reason for losing.

Both teams have to play on the same field and both teams for the most part practice on the same medium. Still an excuse in the end but as a parent and fan of my team I’m going to be salty about it.

Better luck next time
 
SuperSoccerStar said:
Extremely disappointed in the quality of fields at the SD ECNL Showcase. I thought ECNL had standards. Surf Sports of whoever manages these fields should be ashamed. Having teams travel to play on this crap is a shame. Half dirt and half grass. Impossible to make a clean pass as it goes from dirt to grass to dirt. Girls getting hurt all over the place. Yellow cards all over the place because the crap fields lead to boot ball and balls bouncing all over the place. Absolutely unacceptable. There are a couple great fields and the rest are absolutely unacceptable. They didn’t even bother re-striping them for the showcase.
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I checked with the facilities management and they responded that they were embarrassed and admitted that half of the fields were as described above. The facility was grossly over used and they got behind the 8 ball for this event. I suspect even they didn’t realize how bad it would be. Starting in December they are replacing the grass on the bad fields which include the back fields and expect it to be pristine by the time of playoffs. The east side of the facility was wonderful so it truely was great fields or horrible fields. Not much in between.
 
Carlsbad7 said:
It impacts both sides evenly.
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It actually doesn’t. Teams that play the ball “over the top” don’t have to adjust much. Teams like Surf that do virtually nothing but play the ball on the ground didn’t see a rolling ball the entire game when played on some of those fields. I saw the center back pass to their right back and it must have bounced two feet in the air in the middle of rolling to the player. The ironic thing is the bad fields probably affect Surf teams more than any team and you can be sure, the Surf coaches could be heard saying unkind things about the condition of the fields. Dribbling was virtually impossible because you just didn’t know where the ball would be from touch to touch.
 
Surfer_dad said:
It actually doesn’t. Teams that play the ball “over the top” don’t have to adjust much. Teams like Surf that do virtually nothing but play the ball on the ground didn’t see a rolling ball the entire game when played on some of those fields. I saw the center back pass to their right back and it must have bounced two feet in the air in the middle of rolling to the player. The ironic thing is the bad fields probably affect Surf teams more than any team and you can be sure, the Surf coaches could be heard saying unkind things about the condition of the fields. Dribbling was virtually impossible because you just didn’t know where the ball would be from touch to touch.
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Did the poor fields sneak up on you like some kind of green ninja?

You have the homefield advantage of knowing what the fields would look like weeks before you played on them.

Adjust your game to the conditions.
 
Surfer_dad said:
I checked with the facilities management and they responded that they were embarrassed and admitted that half of the fields were as described above. The facility was grossly over used and they got behind the 8 ball for this event. I suspect even they didn’t realize how bad it would be. Starting in December they are replacing the grass on the bad fields which include the back fields and expect it to be pristine by the time of playoffs. The east side of the facility was wonderful so it truely was great fields or horrible fields. Not much in between.
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This is good to hear. As long as they agreed it was not ok and have an action plan to fix it that makes me happy. Honestly these fields at Del Mar are the pride of SoCal now. There are no real grass fields that can touch these in my opinion when they are maintained to the standards they recently set with them and I think that's why everyone was so blown away by the conditions at the showcase. The back fields or the letter fields were so bad they shouldn't of been played on. The number fields mentioned above were amazing compared to those letter fields. The excuse saying well both teams played on them so it doesn't effect anything is absolutely ridiculous. If one team is a possession based team and the other is not then the possession based team was greatly effected. Hopefully the plan is to make the fields larger for playoffs as well as those tiny fields are just too small.
 
SuperSoccerStar said:
This is good to hear. As long as they agreed it was not ok and have an action plan to fix it that makes me happy. Honestly these fields at Del Mar are the pride of SoCal now. There are no real grass fields that can touch these in my opinion when they are maintained to the standards they recently set with them and I think that's why everyone was so blown away by the conditions at the showcase. The back fields or the letter fields were so bad they shouldn't have been played on. The number fields mentioned above were amazing compared to those letter fields. The excuse saying well both teams played on them so it doesn't effect anything is absolutely ridiculous. If one team is a possession based team and the other is not then the possession based team was greatly effected. Hopefully the plan is to make the fields larger for playoffs as well as those tiny fields are just too small.
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Styles make fights. Teams need to adapt. It can’t be one style of play every match. Sometimes you need to play direct, sometimes physical, and when needed use your passing where it gives you advantage. It sounds like everyone here is complaining that the square peg didn’t fit in the round hole that they wanted.
 
TeamDadJokes said:
Styles make fights. Teams need to adapt. It can’t be one style of play every match. Sometimes you need to play direct, sometimes physical, and when needed use your passing where it gives you advantage. It sounds like everyone here is complaining that the square peg didn’t fit in the round hole that they wanted.
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Well, you also need the caliber of players to play certain style of game (happens in the pros also). The complaint is the terrible field.
 
A handful of fields were bad but I guarantee you teams didn’t play all three of their games on those said fields.
Sounds like excuses. Yes, it impacts the game but these kids don’t play on perfect field conditions week after week, this weekend was proof.
 
JustaSpectator said:
A handful of fields were bad but I guarantee you teams didn’t play all three of their games on those said fields.
Sounds like excuses. Yes, it impacts the game but these kids don’t play on perfect field conditions week after week, this weekend was proof.
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I don't know about others but I brought it up only because the fields were bad. The letter fields were really bad. Teams traveled thousands of miles to play there and it was not acceptable. I didn't say it caused a loss or anything but it for sure fostered a type of play that can injure girls. The other fields on the normal side were fine. Not up to the normal standards of that location which is normally perfect fields but those were definitely playable and nowhere near how bad the letter fields were. For "locals" that play there a lot it was definitely very surprising to see the fields like that. Sounds like though the facility has owned up to it and next time we are all there for ECNL Playoffs it will be pristine again. I know the girls really look forward to playing there now and they were also super bummed as yeah they mostly play on AG now and they look forward to those nice grass fields at Del Mar.
 
SuperSoccerStar said:
I don't know about others but I brought it up only because the fields were bad. The letter fields were really bad. Teams traveled thousands of miles to play there and it was not acceptable. I didn't say it caused a loss or anything but it for sure fostered a type of play that can injure girls. The other fields on the normal side were fine. Not up to the normal standards of that location which is normally perfect fields but those were definitely playable and nowhere near how bad the letter fields were. For "locals" that play there a lot it was definitely very surprising to see the fields like that. Sounds like though the facility has owned up to it and next time we are all there for ECNL Playoffs it will be pristine again. I know the girls really look forward to playing there now and they were also super bummed as yeah they mostly play on AG now and they look forward to those nice grass fields at Del Mar.
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I should've clarified my reference was to the 4 or so numbered fields.. Terrible you had bad fields at the other end too but hey, at least it's been acknowledged and we will see come playoffs.
 
JustaSpectator said:
I should've clarified my reference was to the 4 or so numbered fields.. Terrible you had bad fields at the other end too but hey, at least it's been acknowledged and we will see come playoffs.
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Yeah I went to watch a game over there when I heard about the quality and IMO there was no comparison of the letter fields compared to the low numbered fields. I just hope no girls or even the youngers that were over there got injured from those fields. It was really unacceptable. The low number fields on the other side were not as expected for their normal high standards but they were totally fine to play on. I should of clarified my initial post. It was the lettered fields that were unacceptable. No joke you couldn't make a comfortable 5 yard pass on the field the 2010's were on. But yeah lets put this to bed. They know they messed up and will fix it:)
 
Carlsbad7 said:
Did the poor fields sneak up on you like some kind of green ninja?

You have the homefield advantage of knowing what the fields would look like weeks before you played on them.

Adjust your game to the conditions.
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Absolutely snuck up. I suspect you weren’t there. Some games were in world class conditions, others were cow pastures. Surf didn’t have any influence on who played where. It was ECNL. Just the facts and are you really saying that 11-14 year old girls are going to be able to change how they have been trained to play moment to moment? Even the pros struggle doing that.
 
Culer said:
Yes, something is going wrong with Slammers FC. This team was really good last year. Anyone know what’s happening?
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Not sure exactly. I know they did move some players around on the backline and have 2 different keepers. Maybe they need time to work with each other more before things start to click.
 
TeamDadJokes said:
Not sure exactly. I know they did move some players around on the backline and have 2 different keepers. Maybe they need time to work with each other more before things start to click.
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looks like several new players

when do we find out how many teams from southwest make playoffs?
 
Avocados said:
looks like several new players

when do we find out how many teams from southwest make playoffs?
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You can go to the ECNL website and go to standings > southwest > G2010 > conference tab select champions league.

It shows that Rebels is the last Southwest team seeded at 33rd out of 48. So looks like top 8 advance.

Then there’s North American Cup which has Eagles seeded as 8th out of 13 leading me to believe that 9th and 10th place will make that showcase during playoffs.
 
TeamDadJokes said:
You can go to the ECNL website and go to standings > southwest > G2010 > conference tab select champions league.

It shows that Rebels is the last Southwest team seeded at 33rd out of 48. So looks like top 8 advance.

Then there’s North American Cup which has Eagles seeded as 8th out of 13 leading me to believe that 9th and 10th place will make that showcase during playoffs.
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thank you. very helpful. I wonder if it depends on overall record or if the eighth team automatically gets in.
 
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