Youth Soccer Rankings

[Surf Zombie]

My only concern with it is Tournament acceptance and placement. As someone mentioned above, Surf Cup asks for it on its application. MyD's team does 10 tournaments a year and it's always nice to have the top seeds appropriately spread out over the different brackets. Not saying YSR is the end all be all of figuring that out but I suspect it plays into the equation when you are playing in an unfamiliar event.

 

[Frank]

A question. Why is the ranking so important?

Just think about it beyond the obvious for moment. Does it really matter?

Very simple; Tournaments use it and others to determine if you are accepted. it is sort of a way to ensure quality teams and competitive balance

 

[jrcaesar]

Is there an email address to send correction to other than: mark@usyouthsoccerrankings.com

@Surf Zombie - I saw your post but didn't have the info at the time. The Mark address is still valid, but Ryan is the one running it. The reply address I see from Ryan is wonky because he's using a customer messaging platform (Intercom, good sign that he's serious). I'd stick with the mark@ address from the How to Report An Error block.

 

[Surf Zombie]

@Surf Zombie - I saw your post but didn't have the info at the time. The Mark address is still valid, but Ryan is the one running it. The reply address I see from Ryan is wonky because he's using a customer messaging platform (Intercom, good sign that he's serious). I'd stick with the mark@ address from the How to Report An Error block.

Thanks!

 

[mirage]

The high-end tournaments use gotsoccer rankings along with reputation and club recognition. Not the ranking we're discussing herein. You've clearly notice that these high end tournaments (e.g., Surf, Dallas, etc) are all top gotsoccer points awards, right?

I hope you guys don't believe its all based on "ranking" to get into some of these tournaments. Its a very small community at the upper-end of youth soccer. Year-after-year, same set of clubs send their top teams to these tournaments, not based on rankings/points alone.

Since many top tournaments (Surf, Disney, etc) are running "qualifier" tournaments, doing well there is perhaps more important than ranking itself, unless you are in top 10 in the nation for more than a moment, if you want to rely strictly on results.

So with all that said, why is the ranking still so important, now that we've discussed the obvious....

 

[TangoCity]

Shouldn't a good tournament director be able to tell the levels of each team? Most of the tournaments that we've played in have had teams placed in the appropriate brackets except for the Las Vegas tournament that obviously went strictly by GotSoccer points.

 

[tylerdurden]

Shouldn't a good tournament director be able to tell the levels of each team? Most of the tournaments that we've played in have had teams placed in the appropriate brackets except for the Las Vegas tournament that obviously went strictly by GotSoccer points.

Unless this has changed, one of the things that I've found that makes GotSoccer less accurate is that they don't poll games from SCDSL, only Coast (not sure about Presidio). The Coast teams are weighted higher as a result.

 

[Bananacorner]

Shouldn't a good tournament director be able to tell the levels of each team? Most of the tournaments that we've played in have had teams placed in the appropriate brackets except for the Las Vegas tournament that obviously went strictly by GotSoccer points.

You would think -- but I know a very reputable tournament that didn't appear to look at rankings or past performance, they just went by what the team asked for. In this instance, the team wanted to sandbag, win the lower bracket and accumulate Got Soccer points, so they asked to be placed in the lower bracket. The tournament director obliged, even though they play at a higher level and have more Gotsoccer points (and YSL ranking) than 75% of the teams in the higher bracket.

 

[coachrefparent]

You would think -- but I know a very reputable tournament that didn't appear to look at rankings or past performance, they just went by what the team asked for. In this instance, the team wanted to sandbag, win the lower bracket and accumulate Got Soccer points, so they asked to be placed in the lower bracket. The tournament director obliged, even though they play at a higher level and have more Gotsoccer points (and YSL ranking) than 75% of the teams in the higher bracket.

What team was that?

 

[Surf Zombie]

Shouldn't a good tournament director be able to tell the levels of each team? Most of the tournaments that we've played in have had teams placed in the appropriate brackets except for the Las Vegas tournament that obviously went strictly by GotSoccer points.

I think that holds true more so with the older teams, especially when the majority of the teams are local known commodities. My daughter plays for a club in the Boston area and we do all of the big east coast tournaments from New England to Florida, so we see a lot of unfamiliar competition.

As an example we did a tournament in PA in late August. Our U12-U14 teams were all appropriately placed in the top brackets for their ages. However, my daughter's U11 (2007) team couldn't crack the top bracket (which had 12 teams) despite being one of the strongest 2007 teams in the tournament. Their YSR was all messed up from picking up games from another team. It got sorted out last minute and they went on to make the semis in the top bracket, getting beaten by the eventual champs.

Is it a coincidence the tournament director tried to place them lower with that messed up YSR? Not sure.

 

[Bananacorner]

What team was that?

I'm not going to call them out publicly, but this is the third time I've noticed they have done this. In 2 of the cases I alerted the Tournament director to the issue. The first time the Tournament Director was pissed off and dropped the team from the tournament -it was still early enough. The second time I caught it too late and schedules were already out, so the Tournament director just played dumb, kept the team as is, and let them sweep the division with no problem.

That is one of the main reason I hate the GotSoccer rankings -- it encourages sandbagging behavior for some who are just looking for rankings.

Oh, and also this club will have their teams drop out of a tournament if they see the competition is tougher than they thought. They wait as long as possible to see who signs up, then they go for a lower bracket, but if another higher-level team sneaks in at the last minute, they just drop out of the tournament.

 

[coachrefparent]

I'm not going to call them out publicly, but this is the third time I've noticed they have done this. In 2 of the cases I alerted the Tournament director to the issue. The first time the Tournament Director was pissed off and dropped the team from the tournament -it was still early enough. The second time I caught it too late and schedules were already out, so the Tournament director just played dumb, kept the team as is, and let them sweep the division with no problem.

That is one of the main reason I hate the GotSoccer rankings -- it encourages sandbagging behavior for some who are just looking for rankings.

Oh, and also this club will have their teams drop out of a tournament if they see the competition is tougher than they thought. They wait as long as possible to see who signs up, then they go for a lower bracket, but if another higher-level team sneaks in at the last minute, they just drop out of the tournament.

Wow. Now I really want to know. Dirtbags should be called out, assuming its true.

 

[TangoCity]

There is nothing to gain by having a lot GotSoccer points. If someone is trying to win the GotSoccer points race then they probably aren't the brightest bunch.

 

[Surf Zombie]

I agree that Got Soccer Rankings are useless. That said, I wonder if some clubs try to rack up Got Soccer Points in order to tout their program to those who aren't in the know?

Ironically, the #1 ranked 2007 Got Soccer team in the country at the moment is NEFC Central Elite Red. In reality, they are probably a top 50-60 team nationally. My daughter's team beat them in the final of the FC Stars Labor Day tournament earlier this month and the Got Soccer points went to another team from our club by mistake! Looks like Got Soccer isn't all that accurate either!

 

[chargerfan]

I agree that Got Soccer Rankings are useless. That said, I wonder if some clubs try to rack up Got Soccer Points in order to tout their program to those who aren't in the know?

Ironically, the #1 ranked 2007 Got Soccer team in the country at the moment is NEFC Central Elite Red. In reality, they are probably a top 50-60 team nationally. My daughter's team beat them in the final of the FC Stars Labor Day tournament earlier this month and the Got Soccer points went to another team from our club by mistake! Looks like Got Soccer isn't all that accurate either!

There are a few teams that have racked up points playing flight 2 in lower level tournaments this summer. Got Soccer is a joke.

 

[mirage]

There are a few teams that have racked up points playing flight 2 in lower level tournaments this summer. Got Soccer is a joke.

Question on your statement. Gotsoccer awards almost no points for flight 2/lower tier bracket. If they do we're talking about few hundreds. By simply beating team with higher ranking gets you more points, regardless of the flight. If just winning a game vs lower ranked team gets you nothing or 50 pints.

How do you rack up points by playing in flight 2 bracket or lower tiered tournaments for that matter?

 

[futboldad1]

Question on your statement. Gotsoccer awards almost no points for flight 2/lower tier bracket. If they do we're talking about few hundreds. By simply beating team with higher ranking gets you more points, regardless of the flight. If just winning a game vs lower ranked team gets you nothing or 50 pints.

How do you rack up points by playing in flight 2 bracket or lower tiered tournaments for that matter?

Usually you'd be correct saying this but look at the ridiculously high points girls teams got for winning flight two "blue" at Blues Cup this past week. They were all third tier teams yet they got rewarded like it was a flight one tourney! It really adds even more weight to the argument that GotSoccer rankings are meaningless.

YSR may have its glitches but it's pretty darned accurate and shames the other "systems".

 

[NumberTen]

Question on your statement. Gotsoccer awards almost no points for flight 2/lower tier bracket. If they do we're talking about few hundreds. By simply beating team with higher ranking gets you more points, regardless of the flight. If just winning a game vs lower ranked team gets you nothing or 50 pints.

How do you rack up points by playing in flight 2 bracket or lower tiered tournaments for that matter?

This is what happened to our team this year. Last year our team had a very poor showing and this year there was a lot of changes to the roster and the team got drastically better. Every tournament that we played this summer we were assigned to flight two and finished 1 or 2 in most. After the first two or three we had to many points and often received 0 points for 1st or 2nd. If your points are to high relative to the available points for the flight, your calculated points are often negative.

 

[chargerfan]

Question on your statement. Gotsoccer awards almost no points for flight 2/lower tier bracket. If they do we're talking about few hundreds. By simply beating team with higher ranking gets you more points, regardless of the flight. If just winning a game vs lower ranked team gets you nothing or 50 pints.

How do you rack up points by playing in flight 2 bracket or lower tiered tournaments for that matter?

In the 04 age group, Rebels got approximately 300 more points for winning the united cup against flight 2 teams than surf got for being a semi-finalist at surf cup in the DA bracket. This is just one example. Got soccer is a joke.

 

[1dad2boys]

My understanding is that you can use GotSoccer points at Starbucks. We were pushing the kids because with just a few more wins, all the parents and coaches get a free latte.