Bethesda Tournament vs McLean Tournament

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That’s a great read, but DA teams scrimmage against our Club. I guess they are breaking the rules. And if you look at brackets there are non-DA teams in as well.

Scrimmages yes, there's no rule against that it happens all the time.

But you said earlier that your team played in a league with DA teams. That is not true.

DA teams can do outside tournaments, on 2 conditions. 1st, they have to get permission in from US Soccer in advance. 2nd, the tournament has to modify its rules to conform to the DA restrictions on game play (in the bracket the DA teams are playing in). That means no more than 1 full length game per day. So usually they'll do 2 x 50 min games one day, and one 70 or 80 min game the other day.


To reiterate, your claim that there is any league with both DA and non-DA teams in it is simply not possible.

[Anonymous]

I've seen DA teams play in regular tournaments. So I think it happens, but it is rare.

I've also seen DA teams scrimmage outside of the club against non-DA teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think they guy who is saying non-DA teams play DA teams is confused because he thinks they whole club is DA. For example when he plays Arlington he thinks he is playing DA but he is actually playing Arlington's second team, which is Arlington's top travel team not their DA team.

Duh. Not.

Arlington doesn’t have DA past U15 on the boys side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've seen DA teams play in regular tournaments. So I think it happens, but it is rare.

I've also seen DA teams scrimmage outside of the club against non-DA teams.

+1

They also call Arlington’s 03 team DA and it’s not. It’s the top team in the age group, but there is not DA in that age group.. They were beat 7-1 by BRYC last weekend.

But, I also have seen true DA teams lose to non-DA teams. No matter what is published in the rules.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I've seen DA teams play in regular tournaments. So I think it happens, but it is rare.

I've also seen DA teams scrimmage outside of the club against non-DA teams.

+1

DA is not some magical thing and not every great player chooses that path whatever DA parents want to believe. There are plenty high caliber players outside of DA, some more so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

FPYCparent wrote:RE: VA vs. MD …

Anyone else think that the leagues that these clubs choose to play in matter?

I'm seeing nearly 60 2008/U12 girls teams playing EDP, and all but four of them (3 VA, 1, WV) hail from Maryland. I think there are less than ten or so MD-based teams in this age group that play in a league other than EDP. (Why even bother with any other league? Yes, I'm looking at you, MSI.)

There is a similar number of total teams in northern Virginia, but we're all split by ECNL RL (VPL), CCL, NCSL, ODSL. If the Virginia clubs could come together under a similar model (or simply join EDP), perhaps the overall competitiveness of the VA teams would rise as there would be more matches among equally-capable teams.

Admittedly, I haven't looked at other age groups … and I understand that there are more boys' teams from VA in EDP, but the contrast here is almost damning. Aside from DA and ECNL at U13 and older, there seems to be no logical reason to be so splintered.

This makes a lot of sense, but I don't see domination by Maryland teams in the older age groups. The OBGC tournament, which is one of the bigger Maryland tournaments, just ended. Here are the winners and runners up in the top bracket for boys:

u19 Virginia Rush (VA) and Loudoun 02/01 ECNL (VA)
u18 Washington Capital United (VA) and Leesburg FC EDP (VA)
u17 BRYC ECNL (VA) and McLean ECNL (VA)
u16 McLean ECNL (VA) and Arlington (VA)
u15 SYC Lions (VA) and SAC (MD)
u14 SYC Lions (VA) and Total Futbol (MD)

When you look at the top brackets for U14-U19, Virginia teams won every age group and only two teams from Maryland made it to the finals. Another trend is that ECNL teams did really well in these age groups (2 winners and 2 finalists). I am not sure if things are different on the girls side or in the younger age groups, but boys results for older age groups show that Virginia teams more than held their own on Maryland's own turf.

For most of those age groups, do the better MD teams even participate in these Fall tournaments, since most, if not all, of their players are in their high school seasons?

High school season is a good observation, but Virginia teams face similar disadvantage in the Spring. Top brackets of Potomac Memorial tournament last year had the same number of finalists (2) from VA and Md in the older age groups, which suggests that top VA teams were able to overcome high school season disadvantage better than Maryland clubs did. The rest of the finalists came from NY, NJ, MA, etc.

I think it is hard to compare MD and VA teams by their tournament results for age groups in high school. Our son’s MD team is not playing any Fall games until after the HS season ends. They will play some games in late Nov and Dec, but that will be the first time they will have played together since early June. I appreciate the reverse is true for the VA teams with their HS season in the Spring.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s surprising that a few posters are saying that MD teams are better than BA teams. If you only include the DC Metro Area (no Baltimore, Pipelines, etc), is MD still better than VA teams?

All of the teams my kids play in EDP in MD are from Ellicott City, Baltimore, Crofton, Eastern Shore---and yes---most are stronger than the inside the beltway VA teams we play. It seems the majority of different Clubs in are division are in the Baltimore/Ellicott area. No Potomac teams.

LOL.

EDP is either a supplemental league or just a Wild Wild West league for some clubs who do not have enough quality teams to even enter into NCSL. For VA EDP serves as a option for smaller clubs and the level of teams from VA playing in EDP are mostly mid quality teams at best.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s surprising that a few posters are saying that MD teams are better than BA teams. If you only include the DC Metro Area (no Baltimore, Pipelines, etc), is MD still better than VA teams?

All of the teams my kids play in EDP in MD are from Ellicott City, Baltimore, Crofton, Eastern Shore---and yes---most are stronger than the inside the beltway VA teams we play. It seems the majority of different Clubs in are division are in the Baltimore/Ellicott area. No Potomac teams.

LOL.

EDP is either a supplemental league or just a Wild Wild West league for some clubs who do not have enough quality teams to even enter into NCSL. For VA EDP serves as a option for smaller clubs and the level of teams from VA playing in EDP are mostly mid quality teams at best.

I think the discussion is principally about younger teams, and a lot of the points vary by gender. Here's is a U12 boys bracket for EDP this fall:



Team MP W D L GF GA Pts

N/A: ARLINGTON SA 2008 B DA
N/A: BETHESDA SC ACADEMY II 08
N/A: LOUDOUN SOCCER 08B PRE-ECNLBLUE
N/A: PA CLASSICS ACADEMY '08
N/A: RICHMOND UNITED U12 BLUE
N/A: SAC/BA PRE-ACADEMY BLUE

White


Team MP W D L GF GA Pts

N/A: ARLINGTON SA 2008B DA2
N/A: BETHESDA SC ACADEMY I 08
N/A: LOUDOUN SOCCER 08B PRE-ECNLWHITE
N/A: RICHMOND UNITED U12 WHITE
N/A: SAC/BA PRE-ACADEMY WHITE

The only top area boys team missing is Alexandria Red 08s

[Anonymous]

So is NCSL as bad as everyone says then?

So is EDP also as bad?

Comparing to DA/ECNL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So is NCSL as bad as everyone says then?

So is EDP also as bad?

Comparing to DA/ECNL.

Pre-U14 parents don't care about DA/ECNL. Most boys parents don't care about ECNL. At all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So is NCSL as bad as everyone says then?

So is EDP also as bad?

Comparing to DA/ECNL.

Top EDP brackets are good but as a promotion relegation league the rest is a crapshoot and the league isn’t any more special than NCSL when you get past the top bracket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So is NCSL as bad as everyone says then?

So is EDP also as bad?

Comparing to DA/ECNL.

NCSL has some very good teams in the top division, especially as they get older but generally it is below EDP and ECNL for boys. EDP top division is very strong and generally 1 level below DA as is boys ECNL.

ECNL for girls is equivalent to boys DA as the top league. I don't know anything about girls DA. Not sure if that is a thing or not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So is NCSL as bad as everyone says then?

So is EDP also as bad?

Comparing to DA/ECNL.

NCSL has some very good teams in the top division, especially as they get older but generally it is below EDP and ECNL for boys. EDP top division is very strong and generally 1 level below DA as is boys ECNL.

ECNL for girls is equivalent to boys DA as the top league. I don't know anything about girls DA. Not sure if that is a thing or not.

I think some ECNL boys teams are at least on par with non-MLS DA teams. Arlington and Loudoun u17 teams, which used to play in DA not too long ago, lost to BRYC ECNL and McLean ECNL.

[Anonymous]

https://www.soccerwire.com/news/expanded-bethesda-premier-cup-could-revamp-college-showcase-format-for-2019-event/

[Anonymous]

Looks like they are really working the PR spin after last years debacle....