SC Soccer Forums SCSoccer.com Forums Club Soccer & ODP Region 3 Premier league Fall 07

to the best of my knowledge here a are the automatic qualifers for the fall 2007 region 3 premier league.

u15 boys CESA/CUFC
girls CESA92/CESA93

u16 boys CESA/MP
girls CESA/CUFC

u17 boys CESA/DSC
girls CUFC/CESA

u18 boys LEX/CUFC
girls CESA/CESA

Including the U13B/U13G teams that will be playing at U14 next season, here what I think the quantitative breakdown of RIIIPL-East automatic qualifiers is:

CESA: 10
CUFC: 4
Bridge: 2
CRSA: 1
LCSC: 1
DSC: 1
MPSC: 1

Observations:

• Wow...the Bridge is falling. Seriously, the "sophomore slump" continues. However, you'd hope that the U17B Bridge team might get an extended bid into RIIIPL-East given their past record.
  
• CUFC is consolidating its stance as the second-most competitive club in South Carolina. Their results are absolutely impressive for a first-year club; however, only having 1 finalist in the critical U13-U14 age groups is a bit of a concern (note: the older but much smaller midlands club CRSA also had 1 finalist in this age group.)
  
• In the critical U13-U14 age groups, CESA has 4 finalists -- this is very good news for CESA in terms of the developmental pipeline of the club. In addition, their controversial decision to play two premier teams in the U14G classification seems to have really paid off.
  
• Congratulations to all of the teams for qualifying.
  

Is the Bridge FA falling behind? In Charleston, absolutely not as evidenced by tryouts for next year. But against the rate of the rest of the State? Of course. It's the sensibility of consolidation and professionalism just strengthening in Columbia and Greenville.

Can players and parents from Charleston area clubs really walk around State Cup and not pick up on how that professional, first class aura just exudes from CESA? Oh, and did I mention dominance?

Thumbs up to CESA and thumbs down to the DOCs, individual players and parents from Charleston United and MPSC who could add the little extra to Bridge FA teams and make the talk of State Cups and Region III bids more even but, more importantly, help good young players get better. They will definitely go the Bridge FA, they always do. Just a few seasons or years too late.

Example: the U13 Bridge FA men are a great young team to watch and, I'm sure for a young boy, fun to play with. Is there any rational answer, besides lack of commitment, why a few good MPSC players, who lost comfortably to Bridge FA in the semifinal, should not be playing with Bridge FA?

As far as the Region III bids? Bridge FA has a good chance to get a few at-large, or"extended," bids before the Fall begins. Time will tell.

Beezer,

I could be very wrong, and if I am, I apologize...I am admittedly relatively new to the club soccer scene. From reading your post (and some others), though, it seems like your comments are more centered around "dominance" and championships than on overall player development. Granted, if everyone in a given area sends their most talented players to one club so that a team can be picked from the combined best, naturally that team and that club will have a better chance of being "dominant." However, does getting an edge through a larger talent pool necessarily mean that there is better player development going on? I question that. Seriously, what are our core values? Are we about winning championships with the handpicked elite? Or are we about developing the many to the best of our ability?

If you're going to say thumbs down to DOCs, individual players and parents from Charleston United and MPSC who could "add the little extra to Bridge FA teams," then you're going to have to say thumbs down to people who don't take dominance as an absolute measure of overall development. You're going to have to say thumbs down to those who realize that sometimes a small team of "underdogs" can actually progress farther in a season because they are required and encouraged to step up and compete. You'll be saying thumbs down to those who believe they can achieve more by learning to compete with the giants than by simply joining the ranks--that the way to become the best is by finding a way to beat the best, whether through team championships or just in individual effort on the field. You'll be saying thumbs down to the players and parents who have developed a loyalty through experience to their clubs and coaches, who recognize the effort they've put into their development, and realize that they still have more to teach. You're also saying thumbs down to the players who choose to remain leaders on their teams, who help their teammates become successful and to believe in success, rather than leaving them behind discouraged without their best players because they have been marked as "elite" while their teammates have not. You'll be giving a thumbs down to anyone who doesn't think adding that "little extra" to Bridge outweighs all of the other intangibles that can come from their other clubs and teams. And you'll be giving a thumbs down to anyone who thinks that someone who believes their show is the only worthwhile one in town, and championships are the biggest thing that matter, might just be a little too self-centered to provide the best kind of values and character development that our young people can carry off the field as well as on it.

Just one man's opinions...bring on the torches and pitchforks. I'm at your mercy.

Coach - You're right on the money. It is clear that some people are only concerned with creating a soccer leviathan that swallows all of the best players in the state. It matters not whether that would be good for youth soccer in general. They care much more about club "glory" than anything else. My guess is that most of them are living vicariously through their children because they were mediocre athletes themselves. They are funny and pathetic all at once. They're the ones who have a hard time remembering that they watched the game and didn't play in it.

Coach Chass and HappyDaddy: Several notes:

• I apologize if you perceive that I was arguing for some result with respect to mergers or non-mergers. My post was intended solely as a discussion regarding the subject of this thread, to wit "Region 3 Premier league Fall 07."
  
• I've grown tired of trying to make the argument to Beezer and others that the best mechanism for Bridge to attract players from other clubs is to offer increasingly better and more comprehensive services to players. However, my ennui with respect to the subject doesn't mean I don't continue to believe it -- I find the continued complaining with respect to "why don't these other clubs come join us" to be insanely tedious and non-productive.
  
• I think that it's possible to evaluate Beezer's and other's position that they want a club to offer higher-level services without accusing them of living vicariously through their (or other) children and/or caring only about the glory of a club. If you focus on the thought of offering the best possible services to the widest range of children, then you end up with the result of more competitive clubs in an area. You can do that theoretically through mergers, through organic growth (i.e., offering more competitive services), through alliances (e.g., Bridge), and so on.
  
• However, I will make a point here that I see more focus from CESA and CUFC in terms of recreation and academy soccer than I do from most clubs. I believe this has to do with scale and with the fact that despite the common perception, select programs tend to financially underwrite recreation programs (at least in those cases in which you can't get the entire taxpayer base to do so.)
  

Chico,

Your post is a fine example of the old adage, "It's not so much what you say, as how you say it." The stance of "we're obviously better because we win" isn't nearly so persuasive as "we can win, because these are the things we do to make our players better." Perhaps people would be more willing to accept the idea of cooperation if it was presented in the spirit of combining strengths rather than deferring to a "superior" program. I'm in total agreement with providing the best possible services to the widest range of young people...that's just not the emphasis I heard coming across at the time.

As I said in my last post, if I misjudged anyone's intentions, I do apologize. For most of us, the only things we have to measure each other by are the words we place on these pages and the ways those words are interpreted. I know sometimes I need to choose my own words more carefully so that my intentions are not misunderstood, and for that, I apologize.

Well said Coach Chass!

As a lowcountry parent, I think our performance is dismall. Bridge concept is excellent, but in practice has degraded the level of play in the entire lowcountry.

The Bridge and Cesa were equally represented this weekend and both came away with the same success. 2 state championships. I wouldn't call that dismall.