Pro/rel, club-centric -- how should youth leagues be organized?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I for one can't wait for my kid's team to be relegated. It's been a painful season.

And this is why Pro/Rel at the youth level is pointless. It is not a development tool. As stated before, professional leagues use Pro/Rel as a way of maintaining competitive integrity during the season. For pro players and pro clubs there is huge financial incentive to get promoted and stick int he highest league. There is no such motivation for a team of 11-12 year old girls. The consequences of dropping a division are minimal. The few kids or parents that actually care will simply seek another club anyway.

[Anonymous]

U10 boys this year in NCSL was competitive I thought. Almost all games were within 2-3 goals. They must have done had some tiers because it seemed like our small club was playing the lower level teams of the bigger clubs. Thought it was very good. Also most teams were within 20-30 minutes. We had maybe one blowout win and one tough loss (6-1) but other than that it was good.

[Anonymous]

Our NCSL season was fairly competitive as well. Majority of the games were within a 3 goal margin. There were 8 games in which a team won by a 4-5 goal margin. There were only 2 games with an obscene goal margin (6 goals or more), and the teams that won those games finished in 5th and 6th place. This was in a 10 team division.

[Anonymous]

How does the pro/rel of NCSL compare to EDP? Is EDP a lesser candidate for this discussion? I haven't seen it brought up.

[Anonymous]

In NCSL it’s supposed to be 2 up/2 down, but really it’s more like 1 up/1 down guaranteed, and the rest is up to whoever it is that decides the division structure. So I guess depending on the club, it could mean a favorable/harsh promotion/relegation, or no movement at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In NCSL it’s supposed to be 2 up/2 down, but really it’s more like 1 up/1 down guaranteed, and the rest is up to whoever it is that decides the division structure. So I guess depending on the club, it could mean a favorable/harsh promotion/relegation, or no movement at all.

How do the top divisions of NCSL compare to the top divisions of EDP?

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree with you, RSD. And if your experience was a couple of years ago, I believe that NCSL does do more tiering at U9 and U10 than it used to. I have a couple of kids in NCSL and know that the coach was asked to rank the recent U9 team on a scale of 1 to 5. There were a couple of blowouts (like 8-0) but nothing compared to my family's first U9 experience (some games were 8-0 in five minutes). Common sense, coach feedback, and a little bit of effort can go a long way to ensuring that most games are competitive. Absolutely no one benefits from those ridiculous games.

That's good to hear. I'd think the buildout line also helps. That's not the only reason the buildout line is a good thing, but it's a good reason.

And this is why Pro/Rel at the youth level is pointless. It is not a development tool. As stated before, professional leagues use Pro/Rel as a way of maintaining competitive integrity during the season. For pro players and pro clubs there is huge financial incentive to get promoted and stick int he highest league. There is no such motivation for a team of 11-12 year old girls. The consequences of dropping a division are minimal. The few kids or parents that actually care will simply seek another club anyway.

In some cases, sure, but I don't think that's always the case. And it's not about "motivation." It's about finding competitive balance, and yes, a relegated team sometimes finds it.

And to answer a previous question regarding the difference between a CCL and NPL/VPL club playing in NCSL I admit the following two U12 Girls teams as evidence.

I think this shows that NCSL needs to do a better job of tiering things, even if they're going to insist on carrying over the WAGS insistence on not having pro/rel until the U12 spring season.

Here's my takeaway from the discussion so far ...

1. Nothing you do is going to prevent blowouts in their entirety. But I don't think anyone's arguing that.

2. If you did *nothing* to tier the teams, you'd have a bunch of college prospects playing what's essentially a rec team.

So there's clearly a value in having *some* form of tiering teams.

Now let's consider a couple of options:

1. Current system: Clubs form alliances and form leagues accordingly. Some of these clubs will be traditional powers that can at least be counted on to produce a half-decent A team. Some aren't. You'll have "tiers," but they're determined as much by political considerations as by ability level. Maybe more so.

2. Voluntarily tiered system: Coaches and TDs enter their teams into leagues and give an honest assessment of how they think those teams stack up. If those teams prove to be way above or way below the competitive level of that division, the league steps in to move them the next season. If a team falls apart after the spring, coaches should say so and voluntarily move down -- or the league might step in and do it.

3. Pro/rel system: Hard to gauge now because teams come and go from NCSL (and ODSL) so frequently. I looked back a few years ago at NCSL, and on first glance, it doesn't seem too bad -- http://www.ncsl-soccer.com/archived-scores/spring-2010

Sure, a few bottom teams weren't good. But a lot of divisions had a nice cluster in the middle. I especially loved the division in which the first-place team only won five games!

Nothing's going to be perfect. Nothing's going to give you the competitiveness of a professional second tier like the English Championship -- through 18 games, no team has lost more than 10 and no team has won more than 11.

But again -- if you think it's absolutely pointless, then let's just assign everything at random. We should certainly disband CCL and VPL if tiering is pointless, right? Those leagues are "tiered" in terms of the general soccer landscape -- just artificially so.

And I look forward to having my U16 rec team face D.C. United and Bethesda.

We have tiers for leagues and within leagues now. You are being silly taking this to extremes that do not actually exist. Does your U16 Rec team currently play DC United now? No, it doesn't. And it is likely never going to happen either. In fact the notion of Rec and Travel in and of itself is a voluntary tiered system.

What I am saying is that the job the current leagues are currently doing would likely see no noticeable benefit for the effort of promotion relegation. Of course there should be tiers. In fact tiers is about all we can go on. For U15 there are likely 80+ some teams in the DMV. 10 of them are elite, 20 more are very good and the 30-60/70 clubs in middle are pretty much the same and are just average. The final 20 teams are just bad.

The Elite are in ECNL/DA
The very good are in CCL/VPL/some NCSL

The bulk of the average teams are already in NCSL which is comprised of those 40 clubs smack dab in the middle and have then divided them into four divisions. The promotion relegation within those divisions have had a negligible affect on the competitive balance of the division. But the point is those 40 teams are in the league they should be in. While this doesn't perfectly resolve those poor performing CCL and NPL teams but that is the downside of a club based league, not every age group is strong within a club across all clubs in the league.

And for the bottom 20 teams, well they are in ODSL.

So the point is, the leagues have already served to tier the teams on a rough cut and a large league like NCSL is able to further refine through divisions.

Now, my second point about it all being "pointless" was specifically targeted to promotion relegation aimed at U9 and U10 age groups. And U9 in particular is just a crap shoot and all you can do is really trust the clubs and coaches with their recommendations. And since scores are not kept, other than tournaments, all evidence is anecdotal at best. But I think we can all say with a high level of confidence that U9 soccer at all levels have crazy blowouts. It is just not terribly predictable and that is why even NCSL, who do this every year, likely throw spaghetti against the wall with half of the divisions at U9 and U10. Even with the bigger clubs in CCL the "promise" of the clubs A team is just not enough to keep a competive balance or predictability at this age group. Essentially, having tiers at U9 would be like trying to have tier levels in Rec. Until they all have played and result s come in, you just don't know. So yes, in a sense, it is kinda pointless.

With that in mind, I would go as far as to say that U9-U10 games should be based pretty strictly on geography. On this point I would run through a burning building for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In NCSL it’s supposed to be 2 up/2 down, but really it’s more like 1 up/1 down guaranteed, and the rest is up to whoever it is that decides the division structure. So I guess depending on the club, it could mean a favorable/harsh promotion/relegation, or no movement at all.

How do the top divisions of NCSL compare to the top divisions of EDP?

In the oldest age group of EDP, Barça Academy Garnet has a perfect record. The other 6 teams were pretty competitive amongst themselves. As for the oldest age group in NCSL, the division seemed fairly competitive. Winchester came in 1st, although their only loss came at home against next-to-last McLean. As for the bottom team Firpo, it seems they forfeited at least 5 of their games, even though they were the division winners back in the spring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In NCSL it’s supposed to be 2 up/2 down, but really it’s more like 1 up/1 down guaranteed, and the rest is up to whoever it is that decides the division structure. So I guess depending on the club, it could mean a favorable/harsh promotion/relegation, or no movement at all.

How do the top divisions of NCSL compare to the top divisions of EDP?

EDP is really only a thing for some MD teams and teams in PA and north towards NY/NJ. It is kind of the wild west for local VA teams. Many clubs use it simply as a supplemental league. Other clubs, like Herndon, who are essentially a collection of affiliate teams will use EDP who want more challenge than NCSL but are locked out of club based leagues like NPL and CCL. Barca, right now fits squarely in EDP's wheelhouse.

[Anonymous]

https://youtu.be/1wg9ox9F7Vw

American Samoa vs Australia 0-31

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://youtu.be/1wg9ox9F7Vw

American Samoa vs Australia 0-31

Player pool of 200k vs 25M.........

[Anonymous]

RantingSoccerDad wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In NCSL it’s supposed to be 2 up/2 down, but really it’s more like 1 up/1 down guaranteed, and the rest is up to whoever it is that decides the division structure. So I guess depending on the club, it could mean a favorable/harsh promotion/relegation, or no movement at all.

How do the top divisions of NCSL compare to the top divisions of EDP?

EDP is really only a thing for some MD teams and teams in PA and north towards NY/NJ. It is kind of the wild west for local VA teams. Many clubs use it simply as a supplemental league. Other clubs, like Herndon, who are essentially a collection of affiliate teams will use EDP who want more challenge than NCSL but are locked out of club based leagues like NPL and CCL. Barca, right now fits squarely in EDP's wheelhouse.

As far as I could tell, Doradus (formerly Barca) has a team playing EDP and NCSL this fall:
https://youthsoccerrankings.us/team.html?teamId=2355487

Herndon is CCL now, incidentally.

I've hesitated to plug my blog, but I think to respond to a couple of the other posts, I'd end up regurgitating it. So here goes:
https://rantingsoccerdad.com/2018/11/09/re-organizing-northern-virginia-leagues/

For U9 and U10, I've long argued that we shouldn't have "full-time" travel. Keep playing rec, but make sure you're giving advanced players additional training options and some "crossover" games. Maybe just take centralized leagues out of the equation and make your own matchups. (They do the latter in Georgia, but I have no idea how well it works out.)

I couldn’t disagree more on your rec only for U9 and U10. If you want to lock league play to 4 or 5 nearby clubs and mix up the schedule with A teams playing B teams I would join your army, but leaving the most vital development years to volunteers in a rec environment? No way.

[Anonymous]

^^ :Leaning forward:

I’m listening....

[Anonymous]

We don’t help our young coaches enough.

[Anonymous]

This begs the question, how do we develop young coaches?

We do tend to put inexperienced coaches at the youngest age groups who actually need the best coaches possible at the early ages.