How’s the 2025-2026 season going?

Breakers and Koge are definitely athletic, big and physical. From what I have seen Breakers have more speed but think Koge has more technical ability. Think some teams are struggling because players have caught up. Early bloomers who dominated at 13 are getting caught up to and surpassed by late bloomers who are now experiencing improvements at 15. Teams relying on players who were dominant when they were younger might be running into trouble now that girls are catching up and the playing field has leveled off. That's why there is more parity in the league. Also, injuries are a huge factor. They are more serious at this age and take longer to bounce back from and when they do some players just aren't the same as before. All of this is the reason colleges don't seriously look at players until sophomore/junior year. Should be an interesting remainder of the fall season. It's a long road.
 
Teddy_Olive said:
Breakers and Koge are definitely athletic, big and physical. From what I have seen Breakers have more speed but think Koge has more technical ability. Think some teams are struggling because players have caught up. Early bloomers who dominated at 13 are getting caught up to and surpassed by late bloomers who are now experiencing improvements at 15. Teams relying on players who were dominant when they were younger might be running into trouble now that girls are catching up and the playing field has leveled off. That's why there is more parity in the league. Also, injuries are a huge factor. They are more serious at this age and take longer to bounce back from and when they do some players just aren't the same as before. All of this is the reason colleges don't seriously look at players until sophomore/junior year. Should be an interesting remainder of the fall season. It's a long road.
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Post-puberty is a total game changer, especially on the defensive side. Players are stronger, faster, and more disciplined, which makes breaking down defenses much harder. That’s why U16 girls soccer feels like a completely different game, especially for offensive players who used to dominate on their own. That’s not happening as much anymore.

At this stage, offense can’t rely on pure athleticism or only on 1v1 moves like back in U14. To be effective, it takes real soccer IQ, smart ball movement, quick give and go combinations, third man runs, and players reading and reacting off each other. The teams that understand spacing and timing are the ones that separate themselves offensively. Looking forward to seeing how the Breakers look this year. They are one of the local teams from where I live. I know of a lot of the girls on that team since they are in my DD’s Hs league.
 
Fieldsofgold said:
Not all SW defense is going backwards, HBK,breakers- they seem to be doing just fine.
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I'm really confused on the rise of Breakers. Don't really understand the rankings app and how they jumped so quickly. They did poorly (Didn't win a game) in playoffs (Lost to #47, #3 and #21) and played only 2 top 20 teams since. They won one by one goal Mustangs #15 in a Tournament and tied one Slammers #18. Now they are ranked #6 in the nation. Make that make sense please because it makes absolutely zero sense to me.
 
Probably when they played West Coast tournament this summer beating up on a bunch of teams including their own RL team and an AYSO united team.
 

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SuperSoccerStar said:
yeah, just shows how whack the rankings app is.
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How so? I don't know anything about this team so this question is related the comment about the app and rankings itself.

Here are the actual results vs expected results as predicted by the rankings app for the Breakers 5 league games so far:
Pats: 3-1 actual; 4-1 expected
Slammers: 2-2; 2-1
Eagles: 3-1; 3-0
LAFC: 2-0; 2-1
Sporting: 6-0; 5-0

Seems pretty spot on. What am I missing? Why is the app whack?
 
j2five said:
How so? I don't know anything about this team so this question is related the comment about the app and rankings itself.

Here are the actual results vs expected results as predicted by the rankings app for the Breakers 5 league games so far:
Pats: 3-1 actual; 4-1 expected
Slammers: 2-2; 2-1
Eagles: 3-1; 3-0
LAFC: 2-0; 2-1
Sporting: 6-0; 5-0

Seems pretty spot on. What am I missing? Why is the app whack?
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because they jumped from like wherever they were to 6 and only played 2 teams in the top 20 and none from the top 10 so how do you get to 6? Normally for southwest the predictor is pretty close but a jump like that makes me question the actual rankings. It is called the Rankings App.
 
SuperSoccerStar said:
because they jumped from like wherever they were to 6 and only played 2 teams in the top 20 and none from the top 10 so how do you get to 6? Normally for southwest the predictor is pretty close but a jump like that makes me question the actual rankings. It is called the Rankings App.
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Yup, I know the app. The expected results I listed were directly from the app and are based on Breakers rankings today, which is 3 in CA, 6 in country. Their actual league results seem in line with the expected results of the #3 in CA/#6 in US team. In other words, the current rankings seem fair. Unfortunately, we can't go back in time to look at predicted results based on old rankings.

If you consider the individual game results, the ranking makes sense as well.

Beat the #19 team in CA 3-1.
Tied the #7 team in CA 2-2.
Beat the #13 in team CA 3-1.
Beat the #9 team in CA 2-0.
Beat the #29 team in CA 6-0.

Maybe you can argue they should be a slot or two lower but I don't see how you draw the conclusion that this "just shows how whack the rankings app is"? Can you give more specifics on what this is based on other than it doesn't feel right to you? What am I missing?
 
The 2010G Breakers have been on a tear the past few months. If you look at their game history, they have performed as expected, or above what is expected, in every single game going back the the beginning of July. This is comparing their current rating (50.58), against the rating of their opponents. You can see this by the color of the results (green for overperform, black for expected, red for underperform). Looking at the most recent ECNL league results, it seems like their rating may start to go down a smidge, as it went up significantly when they demolished all of the GA and RL team by many goals (many more than would have been expected) in early August.

Remember - the sole intention of the rating is to predict whether this rated team will beat this other rated team if its rating is higher. Ranking them is all well and good, and should generally show strength correlating with the relative ratings - but it's not about getting a Ranking top score. It's about continuing to beat the opposition.

breakers.jpg
 
SuperSoccerStar said:
I'm really confused on the rise of Breakers. Don't really understand the rankings app and how they jumped so quickly. They did poorly (Didn't win a game) in playoffs (Lost to #47, #3 and #21) and played only 2 top 20 teams since. They won one by one goal Mustangs #15 in a Tournament and tied one Slammers #18. Now they are ranked #6 in the nation. Make that make sense please because it makes absolutely zero sense to me.
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Where I thought you were going, and what I think is interesting, is how did this team improve? Was it an influx of talent? Or did the team gel and get coached up? If it's the latter, that's awesome, kudos to Breakers, and what we'd hope to see happen in youth soccer.
 
j2five said:
Where I thought you were going, and what I think is interesting, is how did this team improve? Was it an influx of talent? Or did the team gel and get coached up? If it's the latter, that's awesome, kudos to Breakers, and what we'd hope to see happen in youth soccer.
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yes its what you were saying. Its a totally new coach and team. I still don't see how your a 6 when you have a tie and a one goal win vs only 2 teams in the top 20 but I guess we will see what happens when this team plays any of the big dogs.
 
As far as I can tell, there's no mystery here. A team gets its rating by playing other rated teams, and it gets affected positively or negatively depending on how it performs. This is the same for every team, from the very weakest to the very strongest. It is interesting to watch when a team starts to markedly change their rating/ranking, and see what factors may have gone into it.
 
Here's what the ECNL 2010G SW current standings bracket looks like:

ecnl sw 2010g.png

and here's what it looks like if you sort it by SR:

ecnl sw 2010g by SR.png

To my eyes, Legends San Diego is so far the most surprising, leading the bracket with still a #60 rank. If their performance continues, that rating/ranking is poised to move quite a bit.
 
JustaSpectator said:
Along with a new coach, who set early goals and is doing great. I think the coach moved herself and her RL girls over to the Breakers, no? Either way, they're dominating right now and the team to watch.
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That's for sure. They are kicking some ass and need to be respected! I think there's a lot of teams that wish they could be in their spot and just turn it on. There have been a lot of teams rebuilt this year with an influx of talent but I don't think Coaches at this level are getting enough credit. The coaching now is becoming oh so important. A good coach is the differentiation on if these newly rebuilt teams will succeed or not. There are definitely some well built teams in Southwest seriously underperforming right now.
 
JustaSpectator said:
Along with a new coach, who set early goals and is doing great. I think the coach moved herself and her RL girls over to the Breakers, no? Either way, they're dominating right now and the team to watch.
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Breakers also had some really solid pieces from last year's team. I specifically remember a very fast and dangerous right winger on that team.

LegendsSD has definitely improved but they've also only played mid to lower table teams so far with 1 goal margin wins in each of those games. Also, they will only have 5 games played through the end of October so the sample size is low. The real tests will start in November for them then the entirety of their Spring fixtures coming off the high school break as they run the gauntlet of some tough teams.
 
Think Breakers replaced/replacing their old coach with a new one who came from Beach RL. She bought a couple RL players but most of the players and the ones making the biggest impact came from the Beach NL team. She seems to be a coaching upgrade for this team and doing great with the combined players. Breakers and Koge are clearly the best so far. Heat, Slammers, Rebels looking strong. could see either of them making a run to finish out the rest of fall season near the top.
 
That's great to hear. So many times, its just the addition of a few talented players at the top that result in teams improving. Sounds like while there some of that with the Breakers, a lot of the improvement can be credited to a good coach coaching the team up (my interpretation of the above posts). Hats off to the coach. We need to shine a light on these types of coaches more often.
 
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