This is madness.

Anonymous wrote:Do the rankings take into account players from an older team playing down at the end of the year, cuz Richmond does that a ton.

Technically that would work with the ranking app. But leagues and tournaments wont allow older teams to play down against younger teams. (or shouldn't allow it)

More likely whats going on is players are playing down on a lower age team. (Which shouldn't be allowed by the league or tournamant) in this case the results of the lower age team would be factored into their ranking.

But the results of one or two games wont change the overall ranking that much. Unless your team is terrible and you beat a superteam by a bunch of goals.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Richmond averages just over 2 goals a game this entire season. Teams below them have much better averages vs better opponents. If you have the app you can take a look for yourself.

You're just saying the same thing a different way. We get that for whatever reason you dont agree with their current ranking. The rules of how rankings are defined have been posted and explained to you. Theres no magic going on.

There are dozens of us! (bad Arrested Development reference). I especially like the there's no magic - the algorithm is the algorithm. It tends to produce helpful results.

Do the rankings take into account players from an older team playing down at the end of the year, cuz Richmond does that a ton.

Yeah, so you are obviously not interested in actually looking at their results and then measuring them according to the other teams and also against the rules for rankings that you provided. TTFN

Anonymous wrote:Richmond averages just over 2 goals a game this entire season. Teams below them have much better averages vs better opponents. If you have the app you can take a look for yourself.

You're just saying the same thing a different way. We get that for whatever reason you dont agree with their current ranking. The rules of how rankings are defined have been posted and explained to you. Theres no magic going on.

Richmond averages just over 2 goals a game this entire season. Teams below them have much better averages vs better opponents. If you have the app you can take a look for yourself.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a look at the 2010 Richmond United team. The team did not even qualify for ECNL playoffs (finished >7 in mid Atlantic). They are currently ranked higher than several Virginia Teams that they have never beaten and lost to several times.

The team has no “green” results the entire 2025 season. Their current ranking is inexplicable.

2010 Richmond likely scores exactly as many goals as expected. Which maintains the current ranking

The teams with lower rankings score less goals than expected. Which lowers their ranking.

Wins and losses have no bearing on ranking. Believe it or not but you can lose and still go up in ranking if you score more goals than expected.

I bet 2010 Richmond has good forwards that score goals. This maintains the ranking. And a terrible defense which allows goals to be scored on them. This explains the league losses.

It's not just based on goals scored and there are too many factors to reduce it down to this interpretation. The ranking of the team you play matters. If one of the teams you played 8 months ago recruited some new players and has been on a tear this season, your game from 8 months ago will look really good and help boost your rank. As that team's rank goes up so will yours based on that old game. Every new game adds to the equation, even if it's not your team or a team you've played. This isn't rocket science. Ranking systems like this are well known.

Yes i am dumbing it down. But this to make it easier to understand. Here's how it works from the ranking apps site...

"We look at the goal difference in the last 20 game played in the last 12 months, including games against older teams. There is a line below the last result that counts towards your ranking. More recent games and games against a similar team are given higher weight. To improve your rating, you have to do better than predicted. Your rating will go down if you do worse than predicted."

I dont agree with giving weight to playing teams with similar ratings. If youre a top team in a crappy regional league you get penalized. But I'm sure this was added to address superteams hunting for 12-0 blowouts.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a look at the 2010 Richmond United team. The team did not even qualify for ECNL playoffs (finished >7 in mid Atlantic). They are currently ranked higher than several Virginia Teams that they have never beaten and lost to several times.

The team has no “green” results the entire 2025 season. Their current ranking is inexplicable.

2010 Richmond likely scores exactly as many goals as expected. Which maintains the current ranking

The teams with lower rankings score less goals than expected. Which lowers their ranking.

Wins and losses have no bearing on ranking. Believe it or not but you can lose and still go up in ranking if you score more goals than expected.

I bet 2010 Richmond has good forwards that score goals. This maintains the ranking. And a terrible defense which allows goals to be scored on them. This explains the league losses.

It's not just based on goals scored and there are too many factors to reduce it down to this interpretation. The ranking of the team you play matters. If one of the teams you played 8 months ago recruited some new players and has been on a tear this season, your game from 8 months ago will look really good and help boost your rank. As that team's rank goes up so will yours based on that old game. Every new game adds to the equation, even if it's not your team or a team you've played. This isn't rocket science. Ranking systems like this are well known.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Take a look at the 2010 Richmond United team. The team did not even qualify for ECNL playoffs (finished >7 in mid Atlantic). They are currently ranked higher than several Virginia Teams that they have never beaten and lost to several times.

The team has no “green” results the entire 2025 season. Their current ranking is inexplicable.

2010 Richmond likely scores exactly as many goals as expected. Which maintains the current ranking

The teams with lower rankings score less goals than expected. Which lowers their ranking.

Wins and losses have no bearing on ranking. Believe it or not but you can lose and still go up in ranking if you score more goals than expected.

I bet 2010 Richmond has good forwards that score goals. This maintains the ranking. And a terrible defense which allows goals to be scored on them. This explains the league losses.

Anonymous wrote:Take a look at the 2010 Richmond United team. The team did not even qualify for ECNL playoffs (finished >7 in mid Atlantic). They are currently ranked higher than several Virginia Teams that they have never beaten and lost to several times.

The team has no “green” results the entire 2025 season. Their current ranking is inexplicable.

2010 Richmond likely scores exactly as many goals as expected. Which maintains the current ranking

The teams with lower rankings score less goals than expected. Which lowers their ranking.

Wins and losses have no bearing on ranking. Believe it or not but you can lose and still go up in ranking if you score more goals than expected.

Well TBH, when you are driving several hours to and from games the rankings app does give you something to talk about.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For league and tournament organizers, its the most reliable tool available to create competitive divisions and avoid blowouts. For coaches and players it allows them to gauge competition, especially those teams who dont play in the same league to better set expectations for the match.

What does your kid do differently based on the competition's ranking?

When the opposing team is higher ranked my kid wears his super socks which gives him extra turbo speed. Zoom zoom! Just kidding. No, my 13 year old does not engage in advance scouting. He shows up for the game, plays soccer, and then goes home and does normal 13 year old kid things. Soccer parents are completely overboard with this stuff.

Anonymous wrote:For league and tournament organizers, its the most reliable tool available to create competitive divisions and avoid blowouts. For coaches and players it allows them to gauge competition, especially those teams who dont play in the same league to better set expectations for the match.

What does your kid do differently based on the competition's ranking?

Take a look at the 2010 Richmond United team. The team did not even qualify for ECNL playoffs (finished >7 in mid Atlantic). They are currently ranked higher than several Virginia Teams that they have never beaten and lost to several times.

The team has no “green” results the entire 2025 season. Their current ranking is inexplicable.