SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP www.SC-Soccer.com: SC Club Comparison

Discoveries U-16 Boys draw a little attention as well. Granted these boys are only sophomores but they are on the radar screen of college coaches in the Carolinas.

I know I risk being called defensive, but I think it is a little iffy to compare a club with only 2 teams in the Challenge League to one with 18 teams. The comparison of these clubs would be better done on a team basis such as "The CRSA U16 boys team is not as successful as the CUFC Elite team in the same division." or "The CRSA U13 Girls Gold is much more successful than the CUFC team in the same division."

As far as comparing clubs, I think the comparisons between CESA and CUFC in the Challenge League are more meaningful since both clubs have more than 15 teams. Obviously, CESA has had much more success in the Challenge League this season.

It seems that a lot of the discussion regarding CUFC’s low winning percentages this season points to the aggressive placement of teams in divisions where they are not successful in terms of winning percentage. If winning percentage is the primary goal, maybe CUFC should have had only one team in each age group per gender and played all of those teams in the Classic League with no teams entered in R3PL or Challenge. I feel confidence in saying that the winning percentage would have been superb using this philosophy. I feel equally confident that few would agree with that philosophy as a goal of a would-be successful youth soccer club.

Obviously, the above suggestion is extreme. I actually believe the proper position is to set a goal of playing teams at the highest level at which you believe they can have “reasonable success”. Of course, the definition of “reasonable success” will very from club to club. Is 50% reasonable success? 75%? It should depend on the other factors of the goals of the club and even the individual teams within the club.

I believe I can confidently say that those within CUFC will certainly be evaluating team placement for the future seasons. I believe this will include trying to make a more accurate assessment on an individual team basis as to what league will provide the team a “reasonable” chance of success while also providing the highest level of competition at which that level of success can be reached.

Coach P ....FYI

The top CUFC rep for each age group in the challenge league (does not include the R3P teams) have a combined record of
37W 40L 19T for a 43% winning ratio with 12 teams. about the same as DSC with 3 teams

If you want to limit the numbers to clubs with more than 5 teams in the challenge league, these are
CESA (17), Bridge(9), LCSC(8) & CUFC (18 but for this exercise 12)

The winning % as of 10/30

Bridge - 65%
CESA - 62% (includes various age groups where teams are playing up)
LCSC - 49%
CUFC - 43%

Looks pretty much the same to me. I would have expected higher numbers. On the other hand you have to play CESA and Bridge and LCSC therefore unless you go undefeated there is no way to get to 70 plus range. My guess is that the better clubs will range in the 50 to 65%.

As I have posted elsewhere, I agree with other posters that promotion/relegation should be used in SCYSA leagues. I favor a 2 up, 2 down format. If that were the policy now, based on current standings, 10 of the 11 CUFC Challenge teams playing in the Challenge league would be relegated to Classic next season. I guess that is one way to look at placing these teams for next season.

[Preface: Long post, but Coach P raises some great points.]

>>[Coach P] I know I risk being called defensive,<<

Actually, you're one of the least defensive people I know when it comes to talking, and in particular, reasoning, stuff like this out.

>> but I think it is a little iffy to compare a club with only 2 teams in the Challenge League to one with 18 teams. The comparison of these clubs would be better done on a team basis such as "The CRSA U16 boys team is not as successful as the CUFC Elite team in the same division." or "The CRSA U13 Girls Gold is much more successful than the CUFC team in the same division."<<

First of all, I think that you do have a point concerning comparing large clubs and small clubs. For example, it would seem to me that CUFC would get credit for offering teams across multiple levels of age groups, genders, and in some cases competitive levels. Of course, smaller clubs typically have higher coach-to-player ratios and get credit for that. So in order to do club-level evaluation correctly, it would seem you have to do some type of multi-variate analysis. Then again, it's human nature to try to encapsulate all of that into a single rating.

It's clearly not fair to take the winning percentage and then translate that into "club A's team Z is better than club B's team Y." After all, CUFC is the only club in Columbia that has teams competing in RIIIPL-East -- this means that four teams that would positively help CUFC's results in the challenge league are instead competing at a higher level. At the same time, an even higher percentage and number of teams from other bigger clubs also have this excuse and are fielding much more competitive challenge teams.

>>As far as comparing clubs, I think the comparisons between CESA and CUFC in the Challenge League are more meaningful since both clubs have more than 15 teams. Obviously, CESA has had much more success in the Challenge League this season.<<

Here's the concern: CUFC is not just having much less success than CESA, but CUFC is having much less success than anyone could have reasonably predicted based on the first year performance of Bridge and CESA. CUFC is the third "super-club" formed through merger/alliance, but it's the first to exhibit these types of poor results.

The outstanding questions is "What's going wrong and how can it get fixed?" If I had to pick one thing I'd change, it would be to lower the average team size by several players. I understand the desire to please as many people as possible by putting players on the most competitive teams, but the grumbling that is starting to be heard from CUFC parents concerning (a) playing time and (b) competitiveness shows that you have to make a choice with respect to short-term versus long-term happiness.

I personally believe the results to date are more a function of the average team size than any other factor -- however, I would love to be disagreed with and shown that some other factor or factors are the root cause.

>>[Coach P] It seems that a lot of the discussion regarding CUFC’s low winning percentages this season points to the aggressive placement of teams in divisions where they are not successful in terms of winning percentage.<<

I actually disagree with this. CUFC is the second largest club in the state of South Carolina and was created, to quote the marketing material, from the "2 best clubs in Columbia." CUFC should be able to field four RIIIPL-East teams and still have a 50%+ winning percentage in challenge league. The question is why can't they. That goes back to trying to theorize what's wrong -- and my only theory at this point is team size -- in other words, the robbing of players from Challenge and Classic teams to play on Elite teams.

>>If winning percentage is the primary goal, maybe CUFC should have had only one team in each age group per gender and played all of those teams in the Classic League with no teams entered in R3PL or Challenge. I feel confidence in saying that the winning percentage would have been superb using this philosophy. I feel equally confident that few would agree with that philosophy as a goal of a would-be successful youth soccer club.<<

CUFC aspires to be regionally competitive, which means that they need to put their teams in RIIIPL-East where possible. CUFC aspires to be a top South Carolina club, which means that they need to put their teams in challenge when they don't qualify for RIIIPL-East. The marketing of CUFC has consistently been that it's the best option for midland players. CUFC absolutely can't maintain its marketing and branding by trying to only compete at the lowest possible level of competition.

Winning percentage isn't a primary goal, instead, winning percentage is an intermediate indicator of the success of a club. At this point, looking at the winning percentage of Bridge and CESA in their first years first CUFC raises alarm for those of us who want Columbia to offer competitive soccer. Doesn't it?

>>Obviously, the above suggestion is extreme. I actually believe the proper position is to set a goal of playing teams at the highest level at which you believe they can have “reasonable success”. Of course, the definition of “reasonable success” will very from club to club. Is 50% reasonable success? 75%? It should depend on the other factors of the goals of the club and even the individual teams within the club.<<

Bridge and CESA have maintained 60% win rates in the South Carolina challenge league and have maintained 30%-40% win rates in and competitive goal differential averages in RIIIPL-East since their inceptions. CUFC hasn't. Is that because Columbia kids aren't as inherently good at soccer as Greenville or Charleston kids? I don't think so -- I think you have to look at choices and decisions made at the club level.

>>I believe I can confidently say that those within CUFC will certainly be evaluating team placement for the future seasons. I believe this will include trying to make a more accurate assessment on an individual team basis as to what league will provide the team a “reasonable” chance of success while also providing the highest level of competition at which that level of success can be reached.<<

But Coach P, the answer can't be that CUFC chooses to place more teams in challenge -- it needs to be that CUFC chooses to place more teams in RIIIPL-East and Challenge and improves the performance of those teams. That's where the disconnect in this conversation seems to be to me -- I don't believe the problem should be stated as "CUFC needs to do a better job of evaluating its teams and placing them in more appropriate competitive situations."

Bottom line: I think the problem has to be stated as "CUFC needs to do a better job of creating teams, training/coaching teams, and enabling those teams to win in the highest possible competitive situation."

Amen Brother Chico!
The numbers can be analyzed and decoded and retro-coded and front-end rated and back-end rated and kicked around all day long...........but the old adage still applies -'Numbers don't lie.'
Something is definitely wrong at CUFC. And it cannot be said that schedules or respective team placement are part of the problem.
I ranted and raved for a merger for 3+ years cause I wanted to see Cola. knock the socks off of the 'Evil Red Empire' from up north, and then Bridge jumps in and is outrageously successful in its first 2 years, just like the evil red machine. I did not think CUFC would be that successful, but with the level of coaching and facilities and good, not great talent, I was ready to watch the triumvirate slug it out. That may yet happen, but CUFC has gotten off to a miserable start.
Can anyone within the organization delineate the real problems?

Coach P and Chico got me thinking.. so I went back and was able to extract fall 2005 and fall 2004 data for comparison. Please note that I was only able to get U15 and up and used the same calculation.

2005
Bridge 63%
CESA 57%
LCSC 54%
CSC 50%
NECSA 49%

2004
MPSC 69%
CESA 55%
CSC 52%
NECSA 39%
LCSC 39%

So what does it tell me
MPSC/Bridge (yes many MPSC teams became bridge) is essentially steady
CESA - a slight increase.
LCSC - on the increase
CUFC (CSC/NECSA) - somewhat steady when compared to the top CUFC teams in Challenge league.

So maybe the largest clubs with the most teams can float in the 50% to 65% and be considered succesful.

While I don't really disagree with the statement made several times on this board that CUFC's performance in it's first year has been worse than CESA's and Bridge's in their first year, I was curious to see exactly how much worse and at what levels. Toward that end, I researched the results for those first seasons and broke them down by "A" and "B" teams in the Premier and Challenge leagues. Here is what I found for U15-18 teams:

R3 Premier League:
CESA Premier 2004 (6 teams): 34%
Bridge Gold 2005 (1): 25%
CUFC Elite 2006 (4): 16%
CESA Challenge 2004 (1): 00%

SC State Challenge League:
CESA Premier 2004 (1): 86%
Bridge Gold 2005 (3): 65%
CUFC Elite 2006 (4): 74%
CESA Challenge 2004 (7): 50%
Bridge Red 2005 (2): 65%
CUFC Challenge 2006 (7): 11%

NOTE: The 2006 results are for the partial season through Oct 29. I also was unable to find 2004 Fall Premier league results for the U18 Boys division. So the CESA 2004 Premier percentage does not include the U18 boys.

It seems that CUFC Elite teams have faired well in the Challenge league when compared with the other "Super Clubs" during the first year. This indicates that CUFC's 'A' teams are quite competitive within South Carolina.

The CUFC Elite teams have not faired as well in the R3 Premier League. While Bridge had 26% compared to CUFC's 16%, they only had one team in the R3PL. CUFC has 2 teams whose results are above the 26% and 2 that are much lower. This is definitely an area for improvement and needs to be addressed if CUFC seeks to be a regionally competitive club.

The largest deficit, however, appears to be with the Challenge teams. 11% is quite disappointing when compared with 50% for Bridge's Red teams and 65% for CESA's Challenge teams during their first year.

As I have posted before, I am not extremely surprised with the Challenge results given the fact that the CUFC talent pool has come primarily from the merger of two clubs that had only moderate success at certain age groups. The top players from CSC and NECSA made the Elite teams. Those that did not were assigned to the Challenge teams. Since CSC and NECSA did not each have wildly successful teams in each age group, the talent pool is limited.

I think the choice to field "B" teams and place them in the Challenge league was an aggressive one. Note that only 3 clubs in SC have "B" teams in the Challenge League: Bridge, CESA, and CUFC. Bridge only has two. So, CESA, is really the only club in the state to have "B" teams performing competitively in the Challenge league across the board.

I think that a contributing factor to this is that the talent in the Columbia area has not been consolidated into one club as it has in Greenville with CESA. Lexington, and to a lesser degree CRSA, have retained a significant portion of the "Challenge level" talent in the Columbia area. I don't think that is the case in Greenville. Until this talent pool is consolidated below the "A" team level, I'm not sure we can expect the "B" teams to be more successful.

[Preface: What a great post -- bringing light into a discussion where the tendency of many is to go semi-comatose into a state of denial and reject the reality smacking into one's forehead. I'm going to break this down into several parts to make sure each gets the reciprocol attention it deserves.]

>>[Coach P] I think that a contributing factor to this is that the talent in the Columbia area has not been consolidated into one club as it has in Greenville with CESA. Lexington, and to a lesser degree CRSA, have retained a significant portion of the "Challenge level" talent in the Columbia area. I don't think that is the case in Greenville. Until this talent pool is consolidated below the "A" team level, I'm not sure we can expect the "B" teams to be more successful.<<

While no doubt a contributing factor, it doesn't have the impact most Columbia-oriented people think. Columbia people tend to think of "Columbia" as "the midlands area" which includes Irmo, West Columbia, Lexington, etc. If you want to hold this constant across the state, you have to consider Greenville as "the Greenville, Spartanburg, Anderson area" -- this is where the metropolitan statistical area idea comes from. There is less consolidation in the GSA MSA than there is the Columbia MSA.

Beyond this, however, is this consideration. CUFC, in a quite muscular fashion, has marketed itself as Columbia's elite club. Politically, CUFC has been incredibly aggressive at trying to exclude choice in youth soccer in Columbia.

Now...if the theory at CUFC is "We've done a great job, we just need to do more of the same and get these other clubs to join us." -- well, you've got a tough row to hoe. The loser in Columbia soccer in 2006 so far has been CSC -- they gave up a club that seemed to be making progress, had tangible assets, and credible leadership and they got in return membership in CUFC. How are you going to convince CRSA or LCSC that they'd get more from a merger than they'd lose? How do you get the leadership of CRSA or LCSC to buy into offering less choice and that somehow promotes the interest of their players, parents, and coaches?

The traditional theory would be that CRSA and/or LCSC would want entry into CUFC because they'd gain superior services for their players. But CUFC isn't offering superior services to its players arguably beyond the "Elite" level -- and even there you have these wonderful one-off teams like the LCSC U17B. And since CUFC has already drawn many of the better players in the area to its elite teams, in many cases the players remaining are those that are going to populate the challenge and classic teams.

And therein lies the rub. Before CUFC can bring more clubs into its empire, it has to show success. However, if the theory at CUFC is that it needs other clubs to show success, then CUFC faces an intractable dilemna.

I personally don't think that CUFC needs more clubs, or more talented players, or whatever -- I think CUFC needs to look at its operating philosophy across the board -- particularly with respect to challenge and classic teams.