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

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=RantingSoccerDad][quote=Anonymous]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. [/quote]

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.

[quote]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.[/quote]

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.

[quote]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. [/quote]

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.

[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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