FlameFest Observations

Got to watch a few of the 01 games this Saturday.

My thoughts based on what I saw:

Andromeda Red 02,
Sting Angel - These teams are really good.  LHD1 caliber.  These teams above the ones below clearly.

North Texas Spirit Red, Andromeda Blue, FC Dallas 01 Red - IMO these 3 teams are of similar talent. Solid Bottom-to-Mid level LHD2 quality team.  NTS looks like got a boost from a guest player (forward) of D1 talent.

FC Dallas Blue - Lopsided losses.

Didn't see the other teams, but believe can't really draw conclusions from results as guest players were used across the board...

The way they allocated the teams across the three brackets resembled a lottery.

The brackets made no sense whats so ever. All teams in Bracket "B" lost every game, yet still the best loser advanced to the Semi-finals. All teams in Bracket "C" won all games, and all were tied at 29 points. Bracket "A" had 4 teams which may have been the top 4 of 5 teams in the whole age bracket that signed up. Don't know how the tournament got away with such "seeding".

No Kidding!! In all my years of tournament involvement - this one is the winner for the most screwed up. Each team in bracket C had 29 points and not all advanced. Each team in Bracket B had 1 (or 0) points.

Someone needs to lay off the crack.

The seeding certainly didn't help the lower division teams in the bracket play, as they all played higher division teams.

However, the seeding did offer one lower division team a "wild card" chance to advance by winning the bracket.

I don't have a problem with this logic.

The rules were set before the tournament started and were clear.

The bracket C teams all had guest players (some even pulled D1 players) and still failed to outright win their bracket, against the lower division teams.

All in all - teams should win their games, win their bracket and the be the champion they want to be.. Not rely on wildcards and such...

The more I think about it, I am okay with it. Prove it on the field.

In their defense, the TD didn't have much to work with since there were 10 teams registered.  Can't really have two divisions with 10 teams.

But, in this case, the brackets should've separated FWFC Black, FCD-Pratt, and Sting North Angell from each other.

Really appeared that they were protecting a few teams.  Bracket B presented for evidence.

The original schedule had this tournament broken up like normal via seeding.  Somewhere it looks like the focus changed from a championship competition to that of a friendly.  FWFC Black and FCD 01 got moved into Bracket A insuring that the higher ranked teams would play each other.  In effect you had a LH D2 Bracket, PPL bracket, and LH D3 Bracket.  Bracket A enjoyed a series of competitive games while Bracket C showed Bracket B what QT will be like in July.  All the guest players were fit it for team building purposes and then the rain and lightning delivered the coup de grace.

Driver wrote:The original schedule had this tournament broken up like normal via seeding.  Somewhere it looks like the focus changed from a championship competition to that of a friendly.  FWFC Black and FCD 01 got moved into Bracket A insuring that the higher ranked teams would play each other.  In effect you had a LH D2 Bracket, PPL bracket, and LH D3 Bracket.  Bracket A enjoyed a series of competitive games while Bracket C showed Bracket B what QT will be like in July.  All the guest players were fit it for team building purposes and then the rain and lightning delivered the coup de grace.

Except for the fact that the Bracket C teams used D1 guest player help, and won't have that when QT comes around. Take away the D1 help, I didn't see much difference in some games.

Allhat, in the tournaments that I have ran/helped with you do two five team brackets with four bracket games/semis/finals or two five team divisions with four bracket games and top two for the finals.  The TD tried to do crossovers that didn't work that well...

allhatnocattle wrote:In their defense, the TD didn't have much to work with since there were 10 teams registered.  Can't really have two divisions with 10 teams.

But, in this case, the brackets should've separated FWFC Black, FCD-Pratt, and Sting North Angell from each other.

Really appeared that they were protecting a few teams.  Bracket B presented for evidence.

1more_dd_dad wrote:in the tournaments that I have ran/helped with you do two five team brackets with four bracket games/semis/finals or two five team divisions with four bracket games and top two for the finals.  The TD tried to do crossovers that didn't work that well...

Which tournaments did you run/help? Did you guarantee each team 3 games or 4?

In tournaments that promise 3 games, it is very rare to see all teams in an age group get 4 games in group play followed by semis and a final. 6 games in a weekend sounds brutal even if you play Friday night, worse if just playing Saturday and Sunday. And all of those extra games eat away at tournament profit, which why they are put on.

As for the Bracket C, Andromeda 02 girls are all D1 players just to clarify. Didn't all teams have guest players trying out for a new team? I agree that The brackets were not set up appropriately which is unfortunate. Good luck to all the teams next season!