SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Girls Varsity Soccer Effect of ECNL on Viking Cup

Can we ask for a CESA list of players that participated in the ECNL event and what schools were directly affected by them not attending the Viking Cup?

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"directly affected by them not attending the Viking Cup"?

Aren't we getting a little dramatic for a preseason high school tournament? In a month from now, are we really going to even care who won a preseason tournament?

It's time for March Madness. Does anyone remember (without looking it up) who won the preseason NIT? What about the Maui Invitational?

You're right we are getting a little dramatic. Who's going to remember who were the "B" bracket winners this past weekend in San Antonio in a few months. I can tell you the state champ in High school 4a last year was Wando and 3a was Riverside. But for the life of me I don't know what place my daughter finished in R3 Premier League the past 4 years.

W&L is also very strong in finance and marketing graduates. I have 2 cousins that played for what was Charlotte Blue then for the W&L women's team, and both went straight to 6 figure jobs after graduation. Fairly expensive school that, of course, offers NO athletic scholarships. Kind of like the Ivy League schools including... Yale.

Perspective, folks. Wow, this has gone on and on. My high school coach hates me now? I've let my team down? I have to make a life-changing choice? Just a little dose of perspective.

Let me start by saying that it's spring season, so I'm wearing my high school coach hat. (Actually, I'm wearing my NSCAA hat; picked it up at the convention in Baltimore and it's a nice blend of classic style and comfort--the basic black blends well with both high school and club colors, and it's hard to find a good, easily-shaped cotton material cap these days--but that's beside the point.)

The Viking Cup--the premier SC girls' tournament...great competition, good season preview, better than decent exposure.

And it's a preseason tournament. Period. The world did not end because any player or group of players decided to pursue a single opportunity to do something different for themselves on a somewhat bigger stage.

Perspective. The Viking Cup, while packed with prestige, will have little or no effect on any team's run for the playoffs or for a championship. A preseason tournament win or loss will only count on a team's record in case of a tie for region seeding--and, depending on the region's tiebreaking methods, is probably well down the list of tiebreaking opportunities. A typical region seeding method would be something like:

1. Overall region record.
2. If region records are identical, head to head competition between the tied teams.
3. If the teams split in head to head competition, then overall winning percentage EXCLUDING tournaments.
4. If records are STILL identical, overall record INCLUDING tournaments.

That's pretty far down on the depth chart.

"But it's THE VIKING CUP!"

Perspective. Fact is, a win or loss in the little tournament we used to attend in Goose Creek had the exact same effect on our record and playoff seeding as your win or loss at THE VIKING CUP.

Perspective. A win or loss in that random non-region game you scheduled with that school in the next town that you picked up on a whim because you needed to fill out your schedule, or because your buddy is coaching there, or your AD is friends with their AD, or they're in your school district so it's considered protocol to play them, will have MORE of an effect on your record for playoff seeding than your win or loss at THE VIKING CUP. Would there be all this hullaballoo if a couple of players went off to an
ECNL event on that night?

Perspective. How many teams have gone into a region match--with FAR more effect on region and playoff standings than any win or loss in THE VIKING CUP--missing key players for one reason or another? Would you make as much of an issue over a player missing a single region match as has been made over missing THE VIKING CUP?

Perspective. There's been a lot of bantering back and forth about exposure to college coaches--who's available at ECNL, who at VC. If that was really the issue--getting exposure for the players--wouldn't it be more of a player's choice issue? Why would a coach punish a player for getting exposure in one venue rather than getting exposure in another if that was the main focus?

Perspective. THE VIKING CUP is a prestigious event...but take a good hard look and make sure that the desire for prestige isn't blurring the focus on what's best, and reasonable, and healthy, and fair, and enjoyable, and beneficial for the players in the game--the ones who have to make the choices and live with them, the ones who have multiple obligations and sometimes have to choose among them--but also the ones who, if they think they let you down in one place in order to do something they found important, will come back and play their hearts out for you to make it up when it counts most--IF you don't break them down and hold a grudge against them for bruising your ego.

Perspective. Take a step back.

Coach, I agree. A little perspective would have been nice. I'm going to talk about one school in particular without mentioning any names, and look for the opportunities to use a little perspective.

The preseason tournament comes around and a usually strong hs team is missing a handful of premier players. The coach has a roster of 20 players, including some older players that have been on JV for a couple of years. Does the coach:

A) See the opportunity to get the older players that he himself has developed over the last few years some valuable playing time? (development does happen in hs right?)

B) Realize he won't have his strongest team available and use the weekend as a scouting venture while playing other good teams and watching a coastal rival that will have almost all of their better players?

C) Enjoy the weekend with the kids that are there after setting the tone in the weeks prior that this will be a memory for some of those kids that were going to sit on the bench for 90% of the season anyway.

D) None of the above, and instead give people the impression that the preseason trophy that is at stake is the biggest deal in the world and punish kids with unnecessary fitness in a season that will have them playing 25+ games in less than 3 months. By the way, on this note, I almost didn't mention that if this group had all their players they probably would have played 5 games in 3 days this past weekend (do your own research on what a good idea that is) and then scheduled a game for Monday night! It was a real competitive game that was great for player development, by the way, that was won 8-0. To my knowledge, not even the team that was 'forced' to play in 3 leagues at the same time ever came close to playing 6 games in 4 days. Yet somehow it's now perfectly fine to do that?

Or do the players/parents who have committed to the said high school (and agreed to it's rules) team choose to go to San Antonio and play as said in this forum, against the best competition, then come home and rejoin the said high school team and are and should be expected to play and train according to it's schedule?

When in fact if the Club had chosen the first 3 ECNL events to play in (which they could have), none of this thread would even exist.

But that will not happen because-
a) Club does not care at all about accommodating anyone other than itself and probably enjoyed causing all of this.
b) Parents like yourself would never question Club, because of your fear of them, even though you are their customer.

I liked this thread better when some illiterate soccer dad thought he could big time the master and then ended up looking like a tool.

Look, bottom line the ECNL had an effect on the Viking Cup. Another fact is that there are, obviously, people out there who could care less about the results of HS soccer and care only for the promotion of their daughter or son. PFFF, like that's anything new.

I just wish they didn't have to blog on the internet about how they think that is OK without regard for even the name of the forum they're posting in.