Boys 2008 VA state rankings- lots of changes

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I just saw this and was surprised to see no Arlington teams in the top 10. The highest rank is #15 for their Academy team.

https://home.gotsoccer.com/rankings/results.aspx?Level=State&Gender=Boys&Age=13&State=VA&pos=10&hl=1257611

You're probably trolling. But if not:

The 2008 team seems to be weaker than most of the Arlington teams so probably doesn't deserve to be all that high in any case. Equally gotsoccer is a bit silly. For example you get points for EDP league games, but not ECNL or MLS Next games.

So take the Arlington 2005 team for example. Got soccer ranks them behind Alexandria - but then look at the details. Alexandria got 4200 of its 6200 ranking points from playing in EDP. Arlington only played in one ranked competition - state cup, which it won, but has less points in total because got soccer doesn't count ECNL league games.

In general https://youthsoccerrankings.us/rankings/VA/13/Boys/ is better because it does at least count all games played, although still struggles to get the relative ranking between different leagues correct. YSR shows Arlington 08 boys as 6th in the state which is probably a better reflection of their ability - although not of Arlington's general quality across all age groups.

I think we will continue to see declines for Arlington at these ages as the impact of migration from da to encl becomes evident. It doesn’t mean the Arlington talent moves to the mlsnext teams (though some might). It just means that there is no particular reason to travel further to play at Arlington vs any of the other ECNLs. Longer term you will see upside for McLean and BRYC out of all this.

As long as there continues to be a clear difference in coaching I think Arlington will be fine - but Arlington will have to maintain that edge in order to maintain the gap. Whereas before DA would have allowed them to slack off and still draw kids.

There is not a clear difference. We will see what they do with these 08s. This is their second year with them and last year was just as ugly.

They lost quite a few really good players early on due to the typical bs shenanigans.

Early on this year? Early on last year? What shenanigans?

Early on when the age group started. A lot of talent went to play for other Clubs.

Wasn't 08 the youngest age group affected when they changed to birth year teams? As in some of the kids who would normally start travel at U9 had to jump to U10? I remember there being a lot of upheaval at that time with the 08s.

We are looking for factors that did not affect everybody at all clubs. I am lost on why this would have any greater impact on Arlington vs other clubs.
Or on this team vs other 2008 teams. Their other younger teams appear to have those issues.

As a purely academic point - if one particular club usually manages to get most of the talented kids from an area and some external event that occurs which causes a percentage of kids on every team to switch teams - then that club would suffer a drop in talent while others would experience a rise.

That said - I have no idea whether this was the case.

I'm not sure what you are suggesting re the other younger teams. 2009 is the youngest academy team and is 6-0-1 in CCL and leading it's league on a PPG basis. The 2007, 2006 and 2005 teams have all performed exceptionally well and are playing really attractive soccer - significantly different in style and quality to other nearby ECNL clubs. 2008 and 2004 are the teams which are arguably underperforming by Arlington standards. I haven't seen any of the 2008 games so can't comment directly - but the coach of that team is new to the program - so maybe he isn't as good as the others. It will be interesting to see if he stays with the club and whether his results improve if he does. The 2004 team, which performed very well last year, was arguably unlucky in a number of its earlier games. However the results have continued to be poor - although I haven't seen them play for a while so don't know if the coaching is at fault.

Top team at 2009 is not red. Stop guessing and go watch if you want to be credible, and then talk about it all you want.

I've seen most of the teams play - but not the 2009 team as they play in a different league with different opponents so we are rarely in the same place let alone at the same time. Apologies if I mistakenly reported results for the red team as the Academy team. Looks like the academy team results are not public. How are they doing?

Let’s start with problem 1: assuming that their results tell you how U12s are developing. It is pretty evident you are at the right club. Let’s continue with problem 2: assuming that any club, much less Arlington, is attracting talent from all over NOVA at age U9. Are you totally high? Arlington doesn’t and certainly did not in those age groups. Splitting the ages had zero to do with it and had no impact on that group. Players were largely the same from U9 to 10. Younger players completely unaffected by the age group have departed elsewhere.

1. I don't think their results necessarily tell you how they are developing. I do believe there is some correlation between results and development. But I agree that it is necessary to watch a team to form a full judgment. I have watched most of the teams practise and play fairly regularly. I have not seen either of the two youngest teams play and hence was referencing the results as the best info I had.

2. I don't think Arlington or any other club is attracting talent from all over NOVA at U9. Not sure why you think I thought that.

3. I don't think splitting age groups had anything to do with anything. I did profer an explanation as to how it could possibly have done so - just as an academic point which I thought was mildly interesting. do not believe it did - nor does it make any difference to whether or not Arlington's coaching is better than other local clubs.

What I believe is that
- Arlington, at the academy age groups, has better coaching than other local ECNL clubs.
- as long as that continues, Arlington will continue at older age groups to draw talent from outside their own home turf.

That's it. That's all I believe.

Being more specific wrt the coaches I don't believe that every single coach is better than every single coach elsewhere - but that the average level of coaching is superior. Right now I believe they have one absolutely excellent coach who coaches 2 teams, one good coach who coaches two teams, one average coach who coaches one team, and one coach about whom I have no opinion as yet who also coaches one team.

So I'm not sure if we actually have a disagreement or not...

I found the coaching at Arlington to be underwhelming. If you actually leave Arlington and get a real comparison--you would likely conclude the same. The only coaches we valued are all coaching elsewhere now. My kid actually plays for one of the former ones.

Are you talking about the academy coaches, or the travel coaches? There's a big difference.

He must be talking about the travel coaches I think. As far as I'm aware only one academy coach has left since the new TD took over three or four years ago and he's currently coaching at LA Galaxy so unlikely to be coaching the kid of a parent posting here.

It is worth noting though that it's possible that the main differentiator between Arlington and other local clubs is just the coaching of the TD himself - which I agree is really good. Even last year they only had four teams formally in the academy 2004-2007 (+ maybe the 2008 team - not sure if that fell under him or not) - so he was coaching either half or almost half the teams himself and was probably able to help out with the others. It will be interesting to see if they can manage to keep a full set of teams competing at a high level.

[Anonymous]

That Arlington 2008 team is definitely an anomaly for the full Arlington ECNL program. They lost 1-7 to VDA 2008, and, looking at the other Arlington teams, you do not see any results like that against any other ECNL team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That Arlington 2008 team is definitely an anomaly for the full Arlington ECNL program. They lost 1-7 to VDA 2008, and, looking at the other Arlington teams, you do not see any results like that against any other ECNL team.

Actually there are lots of results like that. It's just that it's usually Arlington dishing it out rather than being the recipient .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That Arlington 2008 team is definitely an anomaly for the full Arlington ECNL program. They lost 1-7 to VDA 2008, and, looking at the other Arlington teams, you do not see any results like that against any other ECNL team.

Actually there are lots of results like that. It's just that it's usually Arlington dishing it out rather than being the recipient .

That was kind of an outlier for that team. They've lost to VDA in other matches last Fall, but a much closer scoreline and even those loses were much closer matches than the scorelines suggested (i.e. late goals / blooper goals).

One note about the 2008 team is that they don't have a lot of depth. I think the roster is barely 14 kids and that is with some guest players from the Red side, sometimes playing league games with only 1 or 2 subs, so they often tire out against teams that can sub in 5 or 6 fresh legs late in the game.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That Arlington 2008 team is definitely an anomaly for the full Arlington ECNL program. They lost 1-7 to VDA 2008, and, looking at the other Arlington teams, you do not see any results like that against any other ECNL team.

Actually there are lots of results like that. It's just that it's usually Arlington dishing it out rather than being the recipient .

That was kind of an outlier for that team. They've lost to VDA in other matches last Fall, but a much closer scoreline and even those loses were much closer matches than the scorelines suggested (i.e. late goals / blooper goals).

One note about the 2008 team is that they don't have a lot of depth. I think the roster is barely 14 kids and that is with some guest players from the Red side, sometimes playing league games with only 1 or 2 subs, so they often tire out against teams that can sub in 5 or 6 fresh legs late in the game.

Let's see what happens next year. A new coach and one or two new players might be all that is needed to make a big improvement. The 2005 and 2006 teams went from losing seasons under one coach (now departed) two years ago to winning almost every game this season. The improvement in the 2006 team was almost immediate after the coaching change; it took a little longer for the 2005 team as they needed to attract a couple of key players as well as improve the coaching.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That Arlington 2008 team is definitely an anomaly for the full Arlington ECNL program. They lost 1-7 to VDA 2008, and, looking at the other Arlington teams, you do not see any results like that against any other ECNL team.

Actually there are lots of results like that. It's just that it's usually Arlington dishing it out rather than being the recipient .

That was kind of an outlier for that team. They've lost to VDA in other matches last Fall, but a much closer scoreline and even those loses were much closer matches than the scorelines suggested (i.e. late goals / blooper goals).

One note about the 2008 team is that they don't have a lot of depth. I think the roster is barely 14 kids and that is with some guest players from the Red side, sometimes playing league games with only 1 or 2 subs, so they often tire out against teams that can sub in 5 or 6 fresh legs late in the game.

Let's see what happens next year. A new coach and one or two new players might be all that is needed to make a big improvement. The 2005 and 2006 teams went from losing seasons under one coach (now departed) two years ago to winning almost every game this season. The improvement in the 2006 team was almost immediate after the coaching change; it took a little longer for the 2005 team as they needed to attract a couple of key players as well as improve the coaching.

In describing these “improvements” in record, you are comparing wins against BRYC, Loudoun and McLean this year with competition last year against dcu and Bethesda. I would be very surprised if the ex-DA teams did not improve their records dramatically this year. I don’t think coaching has much to do with it. Also, it might not have hurt that a bunch of rising U14s could not go to DCU after the DCU transition to U15 as youngest team. We will see what happens but don’t pin your hopes on magical coaching or dramatic improvements in recruitment. You can always switch leagues again if worse comes to worst.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That Arlington 2008 team is definitely an anomaly for the full Arlington ECNL program. They lost 1-7 to VDA 2008, and, looking at the other Arlington teams, you do not see any results like that against any other ECNL team.

Actually there are lots of results like that. It's just that it's usually Arlington dishing it out rather than being the recipient .

That was kind of an outlier for that team. They've lost to VDA in other matches last Fall, but a much closer scoreline and even those loses were much closer matches than the scorelines suggested (i.e. late goals / blooper goals).

One note about the 2008 team is that they don't have a lot of depth. I think the roster is barely 14 kids and that is with some guest players from the Red side, sometimes playing league games with only 1 or 2 subs, so they often tire out against teams that can sub in 5 or 6 fresh legs late in the game.

Let's see what happens next year. A new coach and one or two new players might be all that is needed to make a big improvement. The 2005 and 2006 teams went from losing seasons under one coach (now departed) two years ago to winning almost every game this season. The improvement in the 2006 team was almost immediate after the coaching change; it took a little longer for the 2005 team as they needed to attract a couple of key players as well as improve the coaching.

In describing these “improvements” in record, you are comparing wins against BRYC, Loudoun and McLean this year with competition last year against dcu and Bethesda. I would be very surprised if the ex-DA teams did not improve their records dramatically this year. I don’t think coaching has much to do with it. Also, it might not have hurt that a bunch of rising U14s could not go to DCU after the DCU transition to U15 as youngest team. We will see what happens but don’t pin your hopes on magical coaching or dramatic improvements in recruitment. You can always switch leagues again if worse comes to worst.

Not really. Firstly the DCU thing is a non-issue. That affected 2007 age group and below.

The 2006 team improved from a losing record in 2018-2019 to something like 9-2-2 last year finishing ahead of DCU while still in the DA pre-covid.

The situation with the 2005 team is harder to judge for the reason you note. But they certainly improved during 2019/20 while still in the DA as a result of improved coaching but I believe they improvement has accelerated this year with the couple of key players I mentioned above. I'm making that judgment based on the way they are playing, not just results - and I'm discounting the games against weaker opposition. I agree that games against BRYC in particular indicate nothing useful. Loudoun and McLean are both reasonably athletic and well organized defensively so provide an environment where it is possible to at least judge how well the team is playing. In any event, even if you throw out all those games, they are playing really well and beating ex DA teams handily in showcases and scrimmages as well. For example NCFC was in the DA last year with a 16-6-4 record finishing ahead of Atlanta in its division. This year it is in ECNL in a division with lots of ex DA teams which it has continued to beat. Arlington just beat them 4-1 in the Jeff Cup. They also just beat DCU 4-2 in a scrimmage where Arlington was clearly the better team. They've beaten Bethesda twice in a scrimmage and a showcase. All in all against teams which are either currently in MLS Next, or were in DA last year, they are currently 6-1-2 with the one loss coming in the first pre-season scrimmage against Baltimore. And I know that the coach, the parents, and the kids themselves all believe they are much better team than they were last year. And, even though some wins have come against weaker opposition - to go from September to April with only one loss including all tournaments, showcases and scrimmages is pretty impressive. I do not believe the team would have been able to achieve that last year.

It's also worth noting that the DA didn't deliver universally strong opposition. More than one DA club was no better than a typical ECNL club.