SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP South Carolina club soccer is decadent and depraved....

Good question, and I'm not sure.

The intent of the thread isn't Academy is better or worse. Its about looking at whats left, after Academy.....and saying, is it healthy for the state to have one club winning every, or virtually every, state cup?

CASL dominates NC, but they don't win every state cup. A lot of them...many of them. But there is always at least one team and usually 2-3...that will give them a legit battle.

But in SC.....you can pretty much set in stone now that CESA will win every state cup. They won them all this year. Pretty certain they won most if not all last year and the year before.

I can't shake the feeling that we've lost something over the last 2 years. Academy is draining off 2 of the metro areas best and leaving GSP and the rest of the state. The CESA kids don't get to compete against the best of the best, meaning they aren't challenged like they should be. Yet when they play the rest of the state....they are simply at a higher caliber. Game might be close.....maybe becasue CESA plays down, maybe because the other team plays conservatively. But to me the more telling stat is CESA's regional record. Outside of 1 or 2 age groups the results are fairly average.

There are differences between NC and SC. Fusion are mentioned....but the pool of kids they're pooling from is like pooling Greenville and Spartanburg. You can't really talk about pooling Charleston and Greenville....or pooling Greenville and Columbia area.....and compare that to Fusion. Columbia-G'ville would be more like pooling Greensboro and Raleigh. Or Charlotte and Greensboro.

Pooling has its limits. You can't realistically train 3-4 times per week and pool kids from 2 hours away.

To me....the issue is that CESA has been left alone at the highest level in this state. IMO its in their best interests for their Premier level kids...to go Academy so they have the compettion they need. The void they leave behind would create interesting State cup matchups for the teams/clubs left behind. If that doesn't happen......then I think the clubs that are losing kids to CESA need to go back to the drawing board and figure out what they aren't doing, that CESA is. So they can hold onto their talent and perhaps compete a little better.

Academy explains the boys........it does not for the girls.

Coach, point that im making is that better players that train together develope better due to the competition at practice.

I'll go back to this.......

This isn't about development or competing regionally or Academy.

We have rivalries in high school. Where are they in club? Why do they not transfer?

The 2 best boys high school teams by far have been Northwestern and Irmo. Where are SCYS state cups for those areas? And N'western has won a state championship since the Discoveries team aged out......so it wasn't just that team. Wando girls have been beasts for years.....where does that translate to club?

Or does everyone think things are fine, as is?

Correct......particularly if its multiple times per week. 3-4x per week over 6-8 months min. IMO, once a week for 3-4 months won't get it done.

"The CESA kids don't get to compete against the best of the best"

Boy are you a CESA hater. Lets see, this year the CESA boys are playing R3PL, the Atlantic Soccer League and National League. Get the chip off your shoulder.

No chips on sholders, not CESA hating on my part.

But this is where Academy comes into play on the boys end of things.

There are parts of the country where Academy isn't fully in play. But the southeast isn't one of them. The best teams in Virgina, NC, SC, GA, AL, and FL are playing Academy.....except for a couple of teams. CESA is missing. Maybe a club like Cobb is missing. Depending on age there will usually be a high quality Florida team out there in R3. But thats about it.

Earlier I used the u17 boys as an example. Does CESA Premier fit better with South Carolina United Academy? Or SCU Palmetto? CASL Chelsea? Or Cobb Gold? Concorde Fire Academy? Or Charlotte United? IMG Academy? Or Jacksonville Fury?

If I were a CESA hater I wouldn't be linking CESA with Academy teams. Thats' their competition.....but sorry, that ain't who they're playing.

There were 2-3 very good R3 teams that I saw this past fall. And a bunch of very average teams.

Lets take it another way GSD.....so, Clemson has USC. CESA has......

Who is your natural competitor? Who do you benchmark yourself to and compete against? Instate...out of state?

Boys......

Perhaps I could have better explained that. Althought I think its obvious if you read the posts.

CESA girls compete against the best of the best.

I say to CESA!