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For those of you who like club comparisons and data analysis you might be interested in the following: http://www.SC-Soccer.com

Congratulations to Bridge, CESA, CASC, FSCG, MPSC, CRSA, CFC, and NACSC for all performing above average to date in the South Carolina Challenge League.

This (SC-Soccer.com) is an incredibly early attempt to get some data out there in a more permanent fashion that can be referred to on this message board. In the next few months when I get the time I'll automate the data collection and some of the display and add a lot more data (and navigation); however, at this time it's just static pictures on a single page that illustrate some of the threads that have been under discussion here for the last few weeks.

There is no message board software on this site; in fact, I link back to SCSoccer.com at least once. I'm not trying to do yet another message board -- I think that SCSoccer.com performs its function very well and I don't think that another message board will help youth soccer in the state in any way. I just got tired of doing data analysis and it disappearing on threads after a while. Thus, I see this as being a (minor) supplement to the SCSoccer.com web site.

If you have ideas and other things you'd like to see, please let me know. New things might not get added quickly; but I'm hoping over time to be able to build up enough data so that administrators, coaches, parents, and players can evaluate the job that their club is doing. Of course, as others have noted, win/loss records and state finalists are certainly not a complete picture of how a club does -- but I think it's a start and I think that over time we can begin adding more information to give a fairly objective overview of how these clubs are doing. Over time, I'd like to add a subjective component as well by having people be able to rate their club with respect to various aspects of the services that the club provides.

One request: if you find it at all valuable, please support it by supporting the advertisers and advertisements -- in particular, I find the Google photo and other software pretty useful. It would be great to actually have some money come in over and above the operating costs of the web site; if so I plan on donating money to efforts to make South Carolina youth soccer better.

As usual, great work Chico. You have done a lot of work collecting statistics over the years that are buried under many threads on this message board. This is an excellent way to be able to refer to and update the work that you have done. Thanks!

Chico,

This is a great idea and will serve as a handy reference tool. Thanks for the effort and willingness to share this with all of us.

One suggestion: I think a column indicating the number of teams represented in the stats for each club would be good. There's a big difference between a good win-loss-record for one team and the aggregate records of 9 teams.

Coach P, based on my count... sorry I cannot provide a pretty table. I'll send chico the data.

Note: U13 and up and includes younger teams playing up in the challenge league.

Club............# of teams
Bridge............9
CESA..............17
FSCG..............1
CRSA..............2
MPSC..............5
CASC..............2
NACSC.............1
CFC...............4
LCSC..............8
DSC...............3
SAA...............1
CSC...............5
CUSC..............1
CUFC..............18
Tega Cay..........4
Aiken.............3
TrCSC.............1

futbol(soccer): Thanks for the data. You're doing all the hard work; I'm just "prettifying" some stuff -- thanks for this and I'll try to have something up in the next day.

Hopefully, once I get through with a time-crunch I'm currently in, we can get the software to automatically parse the various results!

futbol(soccer): Thanks.

SC-Soccer.com is updated with futbol(soccer)'s 10/22 challenge league results (including the number of teams). Of particular note in the last week: LCSC moved above average and CRSA moved higher.

I don't do the RIIIPL-East results until late in the week because the scores are typically posted later on HotStat.

Some striking stats, but I do not have a clue as to how to provide an analysis. After all the talk for 3 years about a merger in Cola.- a merger of two relatively good clubs, I would have expected more. I am quite surprised to see these respective rankings for all CUFC teams, to date:

Classic Girls-
U15 12th of 12 teams
U16 4 of 5
Challenge Girls
U13 5 of 5
U14 3 of 9
U15 5 of 6
U16 6 of 6
U17 2 of 7 B team 7 of 7
U18 5 of 7
Classic Boys-
U13 14 of 14
U15 10 of 13
U16 6 of 11
Challenge
U13 5 of 7
U14 2 of 10 B Team 9 of 10
U15 6 of 6
U16 4 of 8
U17 1 of 7 B Team 6 of 7
U18 2 of 8 B Team 8 of 8
Premier League
Girls
U18 9 of 10
U16 11 of 12
U15 10 of 10
Boys
U15 7 of 10

04...

In a weird sort of way it is not...

If I was politically astute, I would keep my mouth shut.
Therefore, since I wrote it I will pmail you instead.

This reminds me of Iraq. Regardless of whether you think it was a good idea or a bad idea to go to war, the fact is that we are in a war now and so the questions have to center around how do we win. The only other viable option is to give up and quit.

Okay...getting past the fact that there seems to be a disaster here in Columbia beyond the worse expectations of anyone...Columbia now has a "merged super-club" that is performing not only worse than CESA and Bridge did in their first year but is performing worse than LCSC and CRSA. I can't imagine anyone thinks that CUFC should split up; so the question is how does the club radically change its direction such that its results radically change.

What has gone so wrong here? How can it be fixed so that the youth of the Columbia area have better options in the near-term future?

It seems to me that the first step is admitting that there is a problem, and the second step is deciding what the root causes of the problem are. Anyone got any opinions on what's occurring here?

If you gave out a letter grade based on performance on the latest data (supplied to chico for inclusion)

clubs with min 30 games played

Bridge - A
CESA - A
MPSC - B
LCSC - C
CSC - F
CUFC - F

based on distance from the average.

After being away for a while it seems nothing has changed. Chico has way to much time on his hands and is developing stats that mean nothing.

Whenever the leagues in Italy England or anywhere else start using winning% as a marker for how good a team is or even a club then is charts will be meaningful. Until then remember youth soccer is about development.

Gamecock .... Doesn't points determine how good a team is?
See Striker04 data of ranking within the division

For comparison of performance between dissimilar number of datapoints I believe the W% is the correct value.

Otherwise in your logic, CUFC with 43 wins and 23 ties in challenge league will have a grand total of 195 points

Compared to CRSA with only 7 wins for a total 28 points.

Here you ignore the fact that CUFC lost 89 games and CRSA lost 4. Therefore it would be correct to state that for every 10 games played CRSA wins 6 of them and CUFC wins 3. This is all that is being said.

The number of teams participating will have an effect. In the case of CRSA one loss is about 4% drop in ranking in the case of CUFC one loss is only 0.2% drop.

Therefore the data states that there is very little that will change for CUFC (or Bridge or CESA) unless they go in a tear in one direction or the other. Whereas CRSA will have a greater impact to their standing based on every game played.

Thus a comparison can be made.

So Futbol

CRSA is a better club than CUFC? is that what you are saying?

Lets stay impartial. From realistic non- biased view if you picked the best teams in each age group at the highest level. The best teams would come from CESA BRidge and CUFC not CSRA or any other some clubs. That is Im sure what you will find at the state cups. winning % is great for people with lots of time and little real life soccer experience. Go ask college coaches which clubs they will be looking for players from and i imagine it will be the 3 above. I am just eing honest here and do not wish this to denounce smaller clubs- but lets keep it real.

gamecock44: It may well be that I have too much time on my hands -- that's absolutely a debatable point. It would seem to me that whether I have too much time on my hands is not particularly germaine to the discussion...but be that as it may...I understand why you raise it as a point.

In reading your exchanges above it seems to me that you are asserting two things: (1) that winning percentage doesn't matter in youth soccer and is completely disconnected from "development" and (2) that the "best teams" come from Bridge, CESA, and CUFC and not from smaller clubs.

Help me/us out here. How is it that winning is disconnected from development? I mean, we're not talking about academy here, are we?

And what does "best team" mean to you? How can you tell?

>>[gamecock44] Lets stay impartial. From realistic non- biased view if you picked the best teams in each age group at the highest level. The best teams would come from CESA BRidge and CUFC not CSRA or any other some clubs. That is Im sure what you will find at the state cups. winning % is great for people with lots of time and little real life soccer experience. Go ask college coaches which clubs they will be looking for players from and i imagine it will be the 3 above. <<

Actually, the only way I know to stay "impartial" is to look at statistics. You lumped together "the best" teams as coming from three clubs with wildly different results in RIIIPL-East and Challenge league. Why did you do that? How is that being impartial?

Do you really believe that the LCSC U17B team is receiving less college recruiting attention than the CUFC U17B team?

Look...it may be hard to believe...but I want CUFC to succeed. I think CUFC has some good coaches and some good teams (for example, the CUFC U18G Elite team is a good team that is competitive in RIIIPL-East). But to try to paper over what is occurring at the "whole club" level would seem to me to be living in a state of denial.

Rather than ignore what is going on, perhaps a discussion of why it is going on would be more healthy -- and in the end, more constructive.

Gamecock... The point is that CUFC fielded a variety (18) teams in the challenge league with the idea of competing at a high level (see Coach P's discussions). Point is that CUFC's B teams cannot perform as well as CESA or Bridge's B teams
The list below taken from 04 striker with additional comments only looks at the top CUFC team in the division. If you want development then someone better be looking at the u13 and U14, it just isn't happening.

Challenge Girls
U13 CUFC elite 5 of 5 (last) CRSA - first
U14 CUFC Elite 3 of 9 with a U13 CESA team in first
U15 5 of 6 - (represents challenge team as Elite is playing Premier)
U16 6 of 6 - (represents challenge team as Elite is playing Premier)
U17 2 of 7 - Good Team
U18 5 of 7 - (represents challenge team as Elite is playing Premier)

Challenge Boys
U13 4 of 7 (this group does not include the Bridge or CESA teams playing up in U14)
U14 2 of 10 lots of ties including young Bridge team
U15 6 of 6 - (represents challenge team as Elite is playing Premier)
U16 4 of 8 - Behind CESA B and Bridge B teams.
U17 1 of 7 - Good team
U18 2 of 8 - Good Team

As far as your statement regarding college coaches... Bollocks!!!... college coaches will go to the teams that have the talent...period. The only thing a club gives you is the capability to be put in front of the coach because of previous performances. With your logic noone will see anybody from CUFC because it did not exist last year. And lets not forget how much promotion the club is doing for the players it has. I know first hand that CESA/Bridge/CRSA and even LCSC do promotions of their players. I have yet to see one from CUFC. CSC did some work, NECSA not much. Heck last year a NECSA player got more mileage guest playing for another team at CASL than the whole state championship season at U18.

Let's not delude ourselves with two things: (1) The senseless pursuit of impartiality (no such thing), and (2) the misconception that numbers are somehow "impartial."

Now, data in the form of numbers are rich and valuable, but that type of data is made more rich and more revealing if it comes in a variety of analyses and if you have other forms of data—such as WORDS. In all respects, however, data of the kind we are tossing about are simply DESCRIPTIVE. And from that description we must draw conclusions.

And that is what we are doing here. Chico's time is well spent and valuable. I wish we had more data, and a variety of data for that matter. Chico is making a huge contribution to the consideration with the data.

As a researcher myself, I would say that all this data tends to provoke QUESTIONS, and that is the best thing that comes from data. My two (2) cents.

Amen

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.

>>[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.