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

>>[Coach P] 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.<<

Two notes. First, I understand your continuing and consistent position that you have to compare "A" teams to "A" teams. I disagree with this contention from the first level of a top-down view, but regardless I find it to be a logical position that has merit and probably worthwhile to do once you look at a club's performance on an overall basis.

Secondly, what you might find interesting is to look at goal differential in these years -- it's not a pretty picture in terms of club comparisons.

>>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 major problem with this analysis is that once you get into this "A team versus A team" comparison, you have to take into account the "promotion" of teams into more competitive leagues. For example, Bridge had 33% of its top teams removed from challenge competition due to their promotion to RIIIPL-East, CESA had 50% of its top teams removed for that same reason, while CUFC had just under 27%. Thus, CUFC had the least impact due to promotion of any of these first-year clubs.

In order to get an "apples-to-apples" comparison, you have to try to understand how you hold the effect of promotion constant. The best model for that is that these promoted teams playing in RIIIPL-East would be dominant; which would tend to increase the competitive results disproportionately to the number of promoted teams.

>>[Coach P] 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.<<

From the CUFC mission: We will organize and train youth travel teams who seek the highest level of team competition and achievement at the local, state, regional, and national levels.

So there's little doubt concerning what CUFC seeks, or for that matter what CUFC has aggressively marketed itself as. Look...CUFC still might pull out a few wins at the state challenge cup and attempt to salvage this season...and given the very nature of youth soccer, it's not that hard to envision it occurring. But that's very different than stating you're going to organize and train youth soccer teams to compete regionally and nationally.

The fact that CUFC has been more aggressive in both marketing and politically than in training and results hurts it in two ways: first, because CUFC has marketed and extensively advertised that it's the best choice in Columbia, and secondly because CUFC has quite aggressively worked to keep others out of what it perceives as "its territory" (i.e., Columbia) -- and appears to have been successful in that as well.

>>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.<<

Another way to put this -- CUFC is the only club that markets and advertises itself as providing all levels of youth soccer and offers teams "across the board" that on average loses to smaller, less capable, clubs.

I realize that this sounds harsh: but to me it's even harsher to consider what is being done here. Ignore the elite teams and RIIIPL-East -- being regionally competitive is tough. It's not the elite players that are getting hurt here -- it's the other players who are paying more to be put into less competitive training and match situations than they were twelve months ago.