Sporting California! What are they doing?

I guess this is the time where the rest of the clubs will get new players now, as most parents aren't seeing this with good intentions.
 
Jamisfoes said:
I think Sporting is doing the right thing. Why should a branch get all the benefits? Spread the love.
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You must be one of those parents that signed contracts to an unknown and undeserved RL roster spot.. while the main ECNL-RL teams are withholding giving out contracts or asking parents not to make payments!

Money doesn’t buy success! You’ve got to earn it
 
BLN World said:
It's true. We've just been told our current ECRL team has to battle Jenny Lawlor's NPL team from Sporting Temecula. No warning, just that we will have a "playoff" game scheduled with them sometime soon to determine this. Nevermind the fact that we had ECNL/ECRL tryouts last month that her entire team would have been welcome to attend. Also, we have numerous end of season injuries and girls who cannot attend this game due to pre-planned vacations, etc... My thought is if anyone wants to play NL or RL they are welcome to tryout and if anyone thinks they should coach one of those teams, that coach should present that to the director and make the argument they should coach that team. Rather than have their entire team displace an existing team. Lots of girls will be leaving as there are other, better choices to go to in the area...Sporting has a hard enough time keeping players and this is for sure creating a mass exodus as well...
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Our team was also supposed to battle out one of her teams but she already was given the ECRL title for one of her teams so we were told for our age bracket, there will be no RL challenge. :rolleyes:Apparently she threw a fit and got it automatically.
 
ScrParentSocal said:
Our team was also supposed to battle out one of her teams but she already was given the ECRL title for one of her teams so we were told for our age bracket, there will be no RL challenge. :rolleyes:Apparently she threw a fit and got it automatically.
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You mind saying what age group?



10+1?
 
Keepitrealdad said:
You must be one of those parents that signed contracts to an unknown and undeserved RL roster spot.. while the main ECNL-RL teams are withholding giving out contracts or asking parents not to make payments!

Money doesn’t buy success! You’ve got to earn it
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I can see why you are afraid to play the small club A teams.
 
AGUILAUNOE said:
I guess this is the time where the rest of the clubs will get new players now, as most parents aren't seeing this with good intentions.
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Do you think they care about losing the B team at the main branch? They have added 3 new locations and who knows how many teams. Having this internal competition is the right thing to do.
 
Jamisfoes said:
Do you think they care about losing the B team at the main branch? They have added 3 new locations and who knows how many teams. Having this internal competition is the right thing to do.
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Like i mentioned in my previous reply, if your record shows your a better team than the one holding the higher status than by all means, but when that aint the case then it becomes ridiculous. How is the team supposed to grow and plan a new season when this is happening? how do you convince players and families to join and/or continue when the coach doesn't know if they will continue with their program?
how does a player in this case take the game? i get it, "if you're the better team than just prove it", but we all know that a lot can happen in one game. Now you are asking to judge a whole season just off of one game. the question here is what did the challenging team do to get that chance? in most cases "NOTHING" just have a doc that complain.
 
AGUILAUNOE said:
Like i mentioned in my previous reply, if your record shows your a better team than the one holding the higher status than by all means, but when that aint the case then it becomes ridiculous. How is the team supposed to grow and plan a new season when this is happening? how do you convince players and families to join and/or continue when the coach doesn't know if they will continue with their program?
how does a player in this case take the game? i get it, "if you're the better team than just prove it", but we all know that a lot can happen in one game. Now you are asking to judge a whole season just off of one game. the question here is what did the challenging team do to get that chance? in most cases "NOTHING" just have a doc that complain.
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If they are going to do it every year (as opposed to just 1 and done), it's also a recipe for complete disaster in terms of the stability of teams. Winning teams that win their conferences would be immune, but teams that are mid or low table are going to constantly be destructing and won't be able to attract talent because that talent knows now the slot can always be pulled out from under them at a whim. Ooops...our star striker this year is out for the game this year because of an injury too bad....ooops we just lost our goalkeeper so a field player will have to go in there....bunch of stuff parents and players have no control over and may not even know about until the day of the game. Unless the switch is permanent, people will stay away. Chesterton's Fence: There's a reason clubs don't do it this way.
 
BLN World said:
Several age groups on the girls' side. Currently we haven't been given a date or time for this game. Been told one game, not a round robin.
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I'd love to come watch these games just for the drama of it all and the pearl-clutching of the dads! Anyway, I have a feeling the club will withdraw this deal if there's an unexpected upset. Considering there's just about zero loyalty or honoring one's word in this biz.
 
AGUILAUNOE said:
Like i mentioned in my previous reply, if your record shows your a better team than the one holding the higher status than by all means, but when that aint the case then it becomes ridiculous. How is the team supposed to grow and plan a new season when this is happening? how do you convince players and families to join and/or continue when the coach doesn't know if they will continue with their program?
how does a player in this case take the game? i get it, "if you're the better team than just prove it", but we all know that a lot can happen in one game. Now you are asking to judge a whole season just off of one game. the question here is what did the challenging team do to get that chance? in most cases "NOTHING" just have a doc that complain.
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I see your point. If I am in charge I would handicap the challenger by one goal to eliminate the lucky winner scenario.
 
I can see both sides to this argument. Hey, if you have a good smaller size club team why not just take over that spot based one one game? The people on here agreeing with this - has your player ever been in this position that their team has been taken over and displaced by another? We have been in this position with another club on the boys' side and it's not fun or funny to my child. In Sporting's case, we have girls coming from all over the IE, OC and LA areas to the main Sporting Hub out of Ontario/Walnut where it's always been to make that NL or RL commitment. One of the reasons we decided to try out there in the first place was location of the NL/RL hub. If that hub is moving to Temecula, then yep we probably wouldn't bother trying out for NL/RL for Sporting. But now the RL will be limited mainly to girls in Temecula area unless parents are willing to make that drive to training 3x a week. But doesn't appear that this coach is looking to add to the team, but to keep the girls she always has had, is my understanding. Look at Legends. If you want to play on a top girls team there your butt better be driving out to Silverlakes 3x per week for training. If you don't like it, then play at a local club which may be a big or small club. Hopefully this team understands the money, travel and time commitment required for NL/RL and this isn't just a desire of the coach. RL level at Sporting has now been determined by one game and not multiple weeks of trying out and seeing how players all fit in with one another and whether these players can play at this level against the dominant clubs like Legends, Surf, Slammers. And because of this upheaval, we will be looking for a new club whether this game is win or loss.
 
I don't personally know any of the coaches, players, or administrators for Sporting - all I can see is numbers on a screen. But it looks like the teams named Lawlor are already stronger, and performing better, than the RL teams in the 2009, 2008, and 06/05 age groups, and are only slightly behind the RL team in the 2010 age group. If they are stronger teams - there's not many justifiable reasons for the club to keep the inferior teams named RL, and the better teams in NPL. Whether it's a 1 game playoff, a season's worth of competition, or a DOC's perspective, it seems like the better team should play in the harder conference, and that team should continue to recruit players that will continue to let them grow stronger. In some sense it doesn't matter whether a player trained for years or drove X hours for tryouts/practice, or at least it shouldn't outweigh the ability for the team to succeed. Now getting to this outcome can be communicated poorly, well, and everything in between - and if anyone was promised something where the club is now changing their mind and saying they didn't mean it, I can certainly understand people being upset.
 
Grace T. said:
If they are going to do it every year (as opposed to just 1 and done), it's also a recipe for complete disaster in terms of the stability of teams. Winning teams that win their conferences would be immune, but teams that are mid or low table are going to constantly be destructing and won't be able to attract talent because that talent knows now the slot can always be pulled out from under them at a whim. Ooops...our star striker this year is out for the game this year because of an injury too bad....ooops we just lost our goalkeeper so a field player will have to go in there....bunch of stuff parents and players have no control over and may not even know about until the day of the game. Unless the switch is permanent, people will stay away. Chesterton's Fence: There's a reason clubs don't do it this way.
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Good points. But do we really care about the B teams? The real talents are looking to join the A team (ecnl) not the B team. B teams can break up, rebuild and do whatever. Nobody really cares. It’s hard to take but it’s the truth. Having this internal competition, Sporting is sacrificing one team to please 3 other teams.
 
RandomSoccerFan said:
I don't personally know any of the coaches, players, or administrators for Sporting - all I can see is numbers on a screen. But it looks like the teams named Lawlor are already stronger, and performing better, than the RL teams in the 2009, 2008, and 06/05 age groups, and are only slightly behind the RL team in the 2010 age group. If they are stronger teams - there's not many justifiable reasons for the club to keep the inferior teams named RL, and the better teams in NPL. Whether it's a 1 game playoff, a season's worth of competition, or a DOC's perspective, it seems like the better team should play in the harder conference, and that team should continue to recruit players that will continue to let them grow stronger. In some sense it doesn't matter whether a player trained for years or drove X hours for tryouts/practice, or at least it shouldn't outweigh the ability for the team to succeed. Now getting to this outcome can be communicated poorly, well, and everything in between - and if anyone was promised something where the club is now changing their mind and saying they didn't mean it, I can certainly understand people being upset.
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Any team can have a better record and standing playing in a lower level league, but the understanding is that no girls currently on ECRL will be able to be on the new ECRL team, even if a particular player is better than every player on the new team and is willing to make the drive to Temecula. Unless they are needing players but the understanding is that the new coach is not making any additions to the team. I've seen this on the boys side. A certain large club took an entire top team from another large club to take over the ECNL spot. This was great for about a year then the boys started dropping off once MLS Next league became the prominent club for boys. Now that former top team is dwindling and not winning one game at Club America Cup. Directors care about the short term success when really long term success is the way to attract and keep players. But that's just my opinion. I don't think club directors are really the smart people they pretend to be. More like used cars salespeople.
 
It’s more than losing a team!

You’re destroying a farm system that feeds the NL teams.. the coaches at sporting work together to give RL players opportunities to play at the ECNL level during the league season and showcases..

There aren’t a lot of clubs that do that purposely..

But that’s the right thing to do, correct? I guess that’s not needed..
 
Jamisfoes said:
Good points. But do we really care about the B teams? The real talents are looking to join the A team (ecnl) not the B team. B teams can break up, rebuild and do whatever. Nobody really cares. It’s hard to take but it’s the truth. Having this internal competition, Sporting is sacrificing one team to please 3 other teams.
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So let's say sporting has four teams in a particular age group. Now they're down to three. And yes, no one gives AF about any teams that are not NL. I get that. I'm just looking for development
 
BLN World said:
Any team can have a better record and standing playing in a lower level league,
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Of course - but anyone just comparing win/loss records without any context is clearly not comparing apples to apples. However, the teams can be looked at in SR to have a fuller picture about what can be expected of them on the field. It may not be definitive on its own, but it is going to give a very good picture about how teams are doing and how they generally compare to each other in playing strength. Here's Sporting California girls teams:

sport1.jpgsport2.jpgsport3.jpgsport4.jpg

Any RL team that has a weaker rating than the existing Lawlor teams is already in a precarious position - and their position in their own bracket should also make it pretty clear.
 
BLN World said:
So let's say sporting has four teams in a particular age group. Now they're down to three. And yes, no one gives AF about any teams that are not NL. I get that. I'm just looking for development
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Well it’s a recipe for instability because if it’s not one and done you are never going to be able to persuade parents, coaches and players it can’t happen to you. You might have an 08 team at one hub and the 09 at the other hub which is just a recipe for a mess and complete turnover year to year unless you have an outlier team that’s above league level.

Laufa actually did it right on the boys side when Laufa exploded and became Albion la. Almost all the existing ea teams were moved to the new hub (except a couple which were grandfathered in but I think might now be gone as well), mls next was kept at the existing hub, they kept their word to the teams which were grandfathered and didn’t try to solicit falsely for new teams later to be demoted from ea, they let their ea2 and e64 coaches know that it was done. Even then it’s still been a recipe for instability as the club isn’t what it once was…

As to the who cares about the b teams…well they are the ones that pay the bills…otherwise stuff like what happened to laufa happens. The mls next teams already built are safe because whose going to walk away from an mls next slot but we’ll see how future teams are able to build considering tfa is right next door and Red Bulls and lasc are now in the area to compete.
 
RandomSoccerFan said:
I don't personally know any of the coaches, players, or administrators for Sporting - all I can see is numbers on a screen. But it looks like the teams named Lawlor are already stronger, and performing better, than the RL teams in the 2009, 2008, and 06/05 age groups, and are only slightly behind the RL team in the 2010 age group. If they are stronger teams - there's not many justifiable reasons for the club to keep the inferior teams named RL, and the better teams in NPL. Whether it's a 1 game playoff, a season's worth of competition, or a DOC's perspective, it seems like the better team should play in the harder conference, and that team should continue to recruit players that will continue to let them grow stronger. In some sense it doesn't matter whether a player trained for years or drove X hours for tryouts/practice, or at least it shouldn't outweigh the ability for the team to succeed. Now getting to this outcome can be communicated poorly, well, and everything in between - and if anyone was promised something where the club is now changing their mind and saying they didn't mean it, I can certainly understand people being upset.
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I have seen clubs nowhere near the NL/RL hub advertise these tryouts for these leagues. No idea if it was to travel to the hub or to form a team to contend for the spot in the league. I also don't know if the satellite location was promised access only to have the story changed down the line. Communication is key and, if done poorly, is a recipe for disaster.
 
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