SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP SC Challenge Cup

Daddy,
I did thunk as many others in the midlands also did thunk that when GFC & St. Giles merged, that it was not gonna be pretty, especially after already done been losing to GFC or St. Giles from 2000 to 2003. CESA will continue to sustain their early successes, but I wonder if Bridge will?

I gots a headache.....

Bridge U13 girls are pretty good.....in addition to the boys. Also U14 boys are good......U16 boys.

If you want to slide them from "Super' club to on par with CUFC or Mount Pleasant.....it doesn't change my point.

Which is, when compared to NC we have proportionally fewer great CLubs and very good clubs than they do.

Futbol.....gets you sum aspern

Bridge is not a Super Club - may actually collapse before next fall.

Whether the "alliance" structure that Bridge is built upon is stable in the long-term or not...and whether Bridge "collapses" before next fall or not...

I don't think that there's any doubt that CUFC has established a strong #2 position in the state, and moreover has done so in multiple dimensions. The club is the second largest in terms of players, it was the second largest in terms of fielded select teams, it was the second largest in terms of teams that made it into the state challenge tournament, and it had the second largest number of finalists in the challenge cup.

The things that CUFC is typically criticized for on this board are real, specifically that their "B" and "C" team average performance was abysmal (note: I hope that stating this fact does not cause anyone else to express the wish that they could run over Chico with their truck!). That's a compelling argument if you have a child in Columbia not in the top 15-20 players in the area that wants to play -- CRSA and LCSC seem to be tremendously more focused on that next 30-40 players.

However, that criticism shouldn't be confused with the fact that CUFC is fielding more teams across more age brackets and genders than any club in the state (with one exception) and is by far the second-most "complete" club in terms of its offerings.

For several years now that I've compiled data I've warned that it's more important to look at finalists than to look at state champions because of the size of the data set. Look at the finalists charts -- while CUFC hasn't broken away clearly from the pack, they have established a strong uptrend (with help from their constituent clubs) from their nadar in most of the decade and have approximately matched what their constituent clubs accomplished in 1999. More importantly, they did that in a much more competitive environment.

Now, did the results of the challenge cup meet most CUFC parents' expectations? No, not from what I'm getting via e-mail and verbally. But I think this is more of a problem of leadership setting the expectation that the club would achieve parity with CESA, or even match the finals performance of Bridge in its freshman year. The gulf between the CESA and the other clubs in the state is vast; and yet that shouldn't and doesn't mean that CUFC shouldn't be recognized for what they accomplished.

Will CUFC experience a sophomore slump? I don't know. Will Bridge rebound and continue to increase the completeness of their program? I don't know. But taking a snapshot right now at the aggregate club level, CUFC leads the pack when you exclude CESA.

Swimmer,

Is there something to back up your statement?

Flying Soccer: My fault for not being clear enough -- sorry about that!

Big Daddy: If you look at what CESA actually did, it was consolidate two very successful clubs into a single even more successful club. Is that difficult? Absolutely; as a merger it should probably be written up for the Harvard Business Review. But SGU and GFC were both individually dominating South Carolina soccer before CESA.

I'm not against having "super-clubs" in any area that would support them. But I think that trying to create a new club out of two or more mediocre clubs, while possibly allowing for synergy, even more allows for the perpetuation of mediocrity and begs for anarchy.

The best reason for organizations to merge is because they decide that despite their best efforts, they can meet their ambitions faster by merging than through organic growth. But of course the prerequisite is that the clubs have ambitions outstripping their current capabilities. While I see some wonderful teams out there, I don't see a lot of clubs with the ambition that might make a merger successful.

I personally (and I understand that it's very debatable) think that a simpler and more direct course is for at least one club in each area to gain that ambition and begin offering superior and unique services to recreation and select players. Until this happens, I don't see a merger doing anything for many areas beyond limiting the diversity of their "soccer ecosystem" and decreasing the odds that a local club will "catch" ambition.

Having been involved in the past with 3 different area clubs and obnoxiously ranting for a Cola area merger for 3 years, I am not one to criticize Cola. area soccer. I am only interested in seeing CUFC succeed in an outrageous manner. (So that we can one day dominate that Evil Red Machine from that cold northern region).
But how quickly assessments can change when you win a few games in the state cup in the course of a weekend...........

Chico <<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.>>

futbol << 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 >>

I still believe that we cannot truly even begin to say that CUFC is on the right track until the lower level Challenge and upper level Classic teams produce much better results than those listed below.
CUFC Division Rankings:
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

When CUFC leadership begins to address and focus on the success of the lower level teams (whose players pay about the same as the upper level teams), then CUFC can be used in the same sentence with that evil CESA club.

For someone to make such a bold statement about the Bridge collapsing, they would have to have some inside information that only the privileged few would have.
Anyway I think that the Bridge would continue to improve its completeness in the next season. As parents realized that each club by themselves cannot offer the kind of program that is required to compete with CUFC and CESA they would continue to seek out the Bridge Program.
Until Charleston clubs can come together, CESA and CUFC would dominate. The Charleston area clubs are doing a considerable disservice to the kids they are serving by not allowing the more talented kids to play together.