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coach
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coach
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>>[Coach P] I'm beginning to get the impression that some of you are saying teams don't get better by playing better competition.<<
If that's what you perceived I was saying, then I apologize for not being clearer. Teams can get better by playing better teams. I don't think teams get better by playing other teams that are tremendously better than them.
To put this another way, Nadal probably gets better playing against Federer but I probably wouldn't get any better playing against Federer.
The gulf in the last ten years between SC's second-seeded RIIIPL-East team and the rest of RIIIPL-East has been so wide that SC didn't show improvement through decreased goal differential over time. In the last few years, SC has become more competitive with its first-seeded teams and now its second-seeded teams are doing better. My point was that this competitiveness arose out of structural changes and not simply hurling grossly overmatched teams against RIIIPL-East.
But let's get back to the SC challenge league. The first post in this thread noted that CUFC had won about 30% of its challenge league matches -- and yet CUFC has no "Classic" teams playing in challenge and is the second largest club in SC. Surely you see the issue here, right? Of the largest clubs in the state in terms of select players, CUFC is winning 30% of their matches while even LCSC, who has had some of their most ambitious players move to CUFC, is winning 40% and MPSC, Bridge, and CESA are all winning 60%+. This despite the fact that only four teams from CUFC are playing RIIIPL-East and thus CUFC is fielding multiple "Elite" and "Challenge" teams in the SC challenge league.
The fundamental question is why is CUFC as a whole is not yet able to more effectively compete in SC challenge league.
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hat-trick
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hat-trick
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Quote:
The fundamental question is why is CUFC as a whole is not yet able to more effectively compete in SC challenge league.
I don�t have complete answers to the questions that have been posed in this thread and I am perplexed by the facts as well. However, here is one idea that may partially explain why Columbia United�s current Challenge League/Division performance is not what many of us expected.
Maybe we are overestimating the impact of simply merging 2 clubs. With the exception of a couple of teams, CUFC�s players have by-and-large come from CSC and NECSA. So, what should be the expected outcome of simply combining two sets of players/teams?
Let's assume the tryout process placed the best players from the merged teams on the Elite team and the next best players on the Challenge team. Given an age group where NECSA and CSC each had 1 team playing in the Challenge Division last year, wouldn�t you expect the Elite team to do better in the Challenge Division than either of the former NECSA and CSC teams while the Challenge team should not do as well as either?
As example, here is a comparison in the age group I am most familiar with, the current U14 girls. Last spring the NECSA and CSC U14 girls had the following results in the Challenge League:
CSC Burn 92 Navy: 4-7-1, 36%, 5th place out of 7.
NECSA Blazers: 1-10-1, 11%, 7th of 7
So far this season the two Columbia United teams have the following results:
U14 Elite: 4-1-1, 71%, 3rd place out of 9
U14 Challenge: 0-5-1, 4%, 9th of 9
The only other age group I could identify where both teams played Challenge last season and this season is the current U17 girls:
CSC Burn 89 Navy: 2-2-2, 44%, 6th of 8
NECSA Gunners: 0-4-2, 11%, 8th of 8
U17 Elite: 6-0-2, 81%, 2nd of 7
U17 Challenge: 0-9-0, 7th of 7
In both of these examples the Elite teams' results to date are significantly better than either of the CSC/NECSA teams� last season while the Challenge teams' results are below that of either of last year�s teams. Isn�t this what we would expect?
Last edited by Coach P; 10/18/06 01:15 AM.
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Joined: May 2006
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throw in
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throw in
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Coach P;
Lets say each NECSA and CSC each had 2 teams at an age group and that these teams were called Elilte and Challenge. Each Team with 15 Players. This would give you a total pool of 60 girls to choose from. If you took 1/2 of each former elite team to create an elite squad that should still give you at a minimum the same number of elite players to create a challenge team. This challenge team made up of formerly Elite players should be stronger than the previous Challenge teams from either club.
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Joined: Apr 2002
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hat-trick
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hat-trick
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 1,509 |
Quote:
Lets say each NECSA and CSC each had 2 teams at an age group and that these teams were called Elilte and Challenge. Each Team with 15 Players. This would give you a total pool of 60 girls to choose from. If you took 1/2 of each former elite team to create an elite squad that should still give you at a minimum the same number of elite players to create a challenge team. This challenge team made up of formerly Elite players should be stronger than the previous Challenge teams from either club.
At no age group did NECSA and CSC each have 2 teams playing at the Challenge or higher level. But they did have age groups where each had one team playing Challenge or higher as I described in my post.
What you described would be great. I wish it had happened, but it did not.
Last edited by Coach P; 10/18/06 01:11 AM.
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Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 5,659
world cup
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world cup
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 5,659 |
Coach P, teams certainly get better by playing better competition.
Chico, teams get dramatically better by combining forces with other competitive teams.
Futbol, under Chico's scenario the net result would be more quality teams, but less number of teams.....meaning a third division (level) would be a stretch, especially at the older age groups when the real consolidation takes effect.
I still like promotion/relegation though....even with just two divisions.
Kids play sports because they find it fun. Eliminate the fun and soon you eliminate the kid.
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coach
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coach
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Coach P: Great examples illustrating a very plausible scenario. I knew that NECSA's select program had been heading downhill -- I think what we're seeing is the result of the merger of an "up-and-coming" select club (CSC) with an increasingly "down-and-out" select club (NECSA). It's appearing to be an increasingly brilliant move by NECSA to have merged with CSC.
There's another factor someone privately e-mailed me about that I offer for your consideration. I was told that the typical CUFC team, particularly the Elite teams, were much larger in terms of roster size than either the typical CSC or NECSA team. So if you take the scenario that you've got 18+ players on an elite team at CUFC where you had 15 or so players on a team at CSC, then denying the Challenge team those "bottom" 3 players would probably hurt the Challenge team a lot.
If CUFC succeeds in putting more of its Elite teams into RIIIPL, all of this doesn't bode well for CUFC with respect to its competitiveness with regard to its Challenge teams. To put it another way, it appears that if these trends continue that CRSA and LCSC (someone mentioned CESA-Columbia, but I don't even think they have a team playing challenge -- so that's a long ways off) are increasingly more attractive as alternatives for players not playing on CUFC Elite teams. Or am I missing something?
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hat-trick
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hat-trick
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Quote:
If CUFC succeeds in putting more of its Elite teams into RIIIPL, all of this doesn't bode well for CUFC with respect to its competitiveness with regard to its Challenge teams. To put it another way, it appears that if these trends continue that CRSA and LCSC (someone mentioned CESA-Columbia, but I don't even think they have a team playing challenge -- so that's a long ways off) are increasingly more attractive as alternatives for players not playing on CUFC Elite teams. Or am I missing something?
As a Challenge coach, these thoughts have definitely crossed my mind. But I believe that training is an important part of the product the players and parents are looking for. I think we need to work hard to achieve or maintain a competitive advantage when it comes to training and player development. Hopefully, this will attract and retain the Challenge level players.
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hat-trick
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hat-trick
Joined: Apr 2002
Posts: 1,509 |
Quote:
There's another factor someone privately e-mailed me about that I offer for your consideration. I was told that the typical CUFC team, particularly the Elite teams, were much larger in terms of roster size than either the typical CSC or NECSA team. So if you take the scenario that you've got 18+ players on an elite team at CUFC where you had 15 or so players on a team at CSC, then denying the Challenge team those "bottom" 3 players would probably hurt the Challenge team a lot.
As far as I can tell, the U18 Girls Elite is the only team that has taken advantage of the SCYSA rule that allows more than 18 on the roster. I don't have the official numbers, but, aside from U18G, my observation is that the average roster size is just on the low side of 17. So I would say this is about 2 more than the average NECSA & CSC team. I don't call that being "much larger" but 2 players can make a difference.
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coach
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coach
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>>[Coach P] As a Challenge coach, these thoughts have definitely crossed my mind. But I believe that training is an important part of the product the players and parents are looking for. I think we need to work hard to achieve or maintain a competitive advantage when it comes to training and player development. Hopefully, this will attract and retain the Challenge level players.<<
What do you perceive are the competitive advantages that CUFC has over CRSA and LCSC in terms of training and player development at the challenge level?
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coach
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coach
Joined: Apr 2003
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>>[Coach P] So I would say this is about 2 more than the average NECSA & CSC team. I don't call that being "much larger" but 2 players can make a difference.<<I should have said "13.3% to 20% larger" (2-3 players out of 15) instead of "much larger"! 
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