San Diego ECNL Nationals

Any thoughts on this?

I can only talk about the U16 bracket.
Looks like FC Dallas has a decent chance at possibly winning their bracket. If they can win it, they have a chance to adv to Maryland.Solar has a very good chance to win their bracket. Unfortunately if they play on Tuesday it could be against the number one team in ECNL. Dallas Texans have a gauntlet of hell. I'm only expecting maybe one win in their three game showing. Glad to see three teams from north Texas in the champions league. Best of luck to all.

Makes me wonder if you even looked at the FCD bracket. I believe SoCal is reigning champion and Stars finished seventh in Champions League.

Texans, like FCD, were done no favors in the draw. Group of Death for for them both.

Solar should get out of bracket and Feet have good chance too.

Yes Sir. I looked right at the FC Dallas bracket. The only game I worry about is the first game vs the FC Stars of Massachusetts. They'll win vs the defending champion So Cal . I'm thinking worst case scenario is FC Dallas ties So Cal. Goal differential will be huge vs FC Stars and De Anza Dribble. FC Dallas may not score a lot of goals but they do not allow very many either. This tournament may be engineered for a team like them to advance. Lest you forget that the Texas division is one of the best in the United States.

Vikarius_lee wrote:Yes Sir. I looked right at the FC Dallas bracket. The only game I worry about is the first game vs the FC Stars of Massachusetts. They'll win vs the defending champion So Cal . I'm thinking worst case scenario is FC Dallas ties So Cal. Goal differential will be huge vs FC Stars and De Anza Dribble. FC Dallas may not score a lot of goals but they do not allow very many either. This tournament may be engineered for a team like them to advance. Lest you forget that the Texas division is one of the best in the United States.

Agreed... FC Dallas should roll through SoCal Blues in game 2.

Apparently not. Care to try again?

I'm going to look something up real quick to respond to your comment. Bear with me.

overall pretty disappointing turn out from texas. FCD Solar , Sting all fizzled out . Maybe 1 Solar or texans advancing. What gives? Seems dfw is hot soccer area but we choke against CA teams and some east coast teams.

Earlier I wrote a long response but it didn't take. However there were only two #1 upsets. Only three #2 upsets. Birmingham got hit twice.

Well you have to look at more than just the score. You have to look at the punches thrown to the face that the refs pretend to not see. You also have to look at the multiple tackles from behind that get ignored by the referee. North Texas players are taught to play through that kind of brutality. Maybe they should give as good as they receive. Then you'll see North Texas dominate because their foot skills would carry them through.

Choke implies that a team is favored to win or is winning with a big lead when they lose. Seems not the case for NTX. Only Solar u16 was at the top of their bracket and they haven't choked yet.

in addition to maybe the 1 Solar and 1 Texan team, maybe 1 Feet team that has a chance if they can beat Real So Cal today.

FCD u17 still in it.

I'm hoping someone from the Texas division advances . Heck, I'd love to see them win the whole thing. Good luck

Solar and D'Feeters '00s won their brackets to advance as the top 8 teams in the nation. But, both teams lost close games today and will not advance to the championship.

See final scores below:
http://www.eliteclubsnationalleague.com/schedules/84245677/84245770.html

The two U16 QF losses, did indeed end the NTX run. Final tallies for NTX teams:
22 won 14 tied 21 lost 92 GF 82 GA

D'Feeters 4 won 3 tied 3 lost 17 GF 17 GA
FC Dallas 5 won 2 tied 4 lost 17 GF 13 GA
Solar 5 won 4 tied 3 lost 24 GF 15 GA
Sting 5 won 2 tied 5 lost 16 GF 19 GA
Texans 3 won 3 tied 6 lost 18 GF 18 GA

Solar 00 and Feet 00 were the only 2 teams of 19 NTX teams to advance out of bracket play.

Texas Conference isn't as good as y'all think. It's great that we are proud but let's not get carried away. So Cal conference is WAY better!

Why can't we get more teams in to National Champioships we ask. My opinion is that we have too many clubs per age group and not event truly talented player that do more then just get by at that level.

Hopefully DA will fix that problem for us

Statman1921 wrote:The two U16 QF losses, did indeed end the NTX run.  Final tallies for NTX teams:
22 won 14 tied 21 lost   92 GF  82 GA

D'Feeters 4 won 3 tied 3 lost  17 GF  17 GA
FC Dallas 5 won 2 tied 4 lost  17 GF  13 GA
Solar       5 won 4 tied 3 lost  24 GF  15 GA
Sting       5 won 2 tied 5 lost  16 GF  19 GA
Texans    3 won 3 tied 6 lost  18 GF  18 GA

Solar 00 and Feet 00 were the only 2 teams of 19 NTX teams to advance out of bracket play.

check your stats again "statman"........................fcd 99s advanced in u17....................lost 0-1

ItsMeAgain wrote:

Statman1921 wrote:The two U16 QF losses, did indeed end the NTX run.  Final tallies for NTX teams:
22 won 14 tied 21 lost   92 GF  82 GA

D'Feeters 4 won 3 tied 3 lost  17 GF  17 GA
FC Dallas 5 won 2 tied 4 lost  17 GF  13 GA
Solar       5 won 4 tied 3 lost  24 GF  15 GA
Sting       5 won 2 tied 5 lost  16 GF  19 GA
Texans    3 won 3 tied 6 lost  18 GF  18 GA

Solar 00 and Feet 00 were the only 2 teams of 19 NTX teams to advance out of bracket play.

check your stats again "statman"........................fcd 99s advanced in u17....................lost 0-1

You are correct, somehow missed that one while on the red-eye. Mea Culpa.
So 3 of 19 teams advanced out of bracket.

Just an opinion, don't pounce, but it seems to me that the politics of NT soccer get in the way of success. Coaches making decisions to appease a parent, because a kid has a sister in the club that is a star player, and so on versus purely picking talent gets in the way. Look at some of these teams and you see some marginal players for the so called top tier league in NT. You watch Surf, Slammers, etc., you don't typically see the same thing.

um Amen, booyahhhhh, right on, agree, duh
Seriously it's a money sport and money talks. Coaches appeasing parents they feel has the most pull with majority of the parents. Some parents hanging onto the fact that their kid was good when she was 6 or 7 years old, coaches get in their heads early on who their "top players" will be and coddle these girls and hold others to different standard, rather than making best decisions for the team.

That happens on every team in every sport at every level.

Homeboy wrote:Texas Conference isn't as good as y'all think. It's great that we are proud but let's not get carried away. So Cal conference is WAY better!

Why can't we get more teams in to National Champioships we ask. My opinion is that we have too many clubs per age group and not event truly talented player that do more then just get by at that level.

Hopefully DA will fix that problem for us

DA is going to fix that how exactly? You are 100 percent correct that So Cal is dominate at every age level and they are pretty spread out as well with lots of teams. Slammers placed 3 of 5 age groups in the final four and that's just one club. NTX can't even place a single team in the final four at any age group.

DA isn't going to fix it. How can it if it's the same players that will move from ECNL to DA and not all will because some will choose to play HS? Alot of these same players went from LH to ECNL? Same players same result different jersey.

CA has about 40 million to Texas 25 million in population. San Diego is about 120 miles from LA and populated through out. I wouldn't say that's too spread out. There's a bigger gap from DFW to Austin/Houston and not much in between.

Within its own state, S CA for the most part has much better teams overall than N Ca....the gap from LA to SF. more kids in a smaller radius means more competition. Unlike DFW where you pay to play, there you must be able to play as well or adios muchachas. Texas has the AP approach...Appeasing Parents. <--I took that from another post.

I don't think there is all that big a gap. Two things I see:

1) NTX teams are lacking in sophistication compared to socal and some NE teams in the attacking third. Vast majority of NTX offensive production relies on speed or physical mismatches against less athletic defenders. 

2) NTX constantly sells itself and its parents on the idea that Texas ecnl conference is the toughest in the country. Believing such to be true, ntx doesnt step outside this bubble to get reality checks other than the few ecnl national events.  Socal and other areas do. This bubble allows ntx teams to put together rosters and lineups that can dominate texas ecnl conf standings year on year, but dont hold up as well facing the top level teams. 

The two are likely related...our teams are not forced to learn to defend sophisticated attacking combination play, and we're not forced to learn it because we dont need it to handle STX and OK.

Consider the fact that Sting 97s were the last team formed in usys era and prior to the full blown ecnl starting @u14....no ntx team since...starting with 98s on back, has won a national championship.  Pre-ecnl, ntx was a perennial player on national championship scene with at least one team per age group bringing a title back during their tenure in MOST years...91s...92s...93s...94s...95s...97s...from 2008 to 2011 3 of the 4 u16 national champions were NTX...but now we have complete shut out for NTX 98s on up?

How to fix? Probably starts with stopping this pretending that the TSC and Houston Rush of the world represent better competition than ntx had in the pre ecnl era, and challenging our top teams to seek out better comp and different styles of play. Consolidating talent at older ageds into 3 or 4 teams instead of 5 might help, but not sure that would matter if you rarely  face teams sending runners in from all sorts of angles and sharing the ball with precision in the attacking third...and defenses with great organization and just as much pace our fast fwds.

4-3-3 wrote:I don't think there is all that big a gap. Two things I see:

1) NTX teams are lacking in sophistication compared to socal and some NE teams in the attacking third. Vast majority of NTX offensive production relies on speed or physical mismatches against less athletic defenders. 

2) NTX constantly sells itself and its parents on the idea that Texas ecnl conference is the toughest in the country. Believing such to be true, ntx doesnt step outside this bubble to get reality checks other than the few ecnl national events.  Socal and other areas do. This bubble allows ntx teams to put together rosters and lineups that can dominate texas ecnl conf standings year on year, but dont hold up as well facing the top level teams. 

The two are likely related...our teams are not forced to learn to defend sophisticated attacking combination play, and we're not forced to learn it because we dont need it to handle STX and OK.

Consider the fact that Sting 97s were the last team formed in usys era and prior to the full blown ecnl starting @u14....no ntx team since...starting with 98s on back, has won a national championship.  Pre-ecnl, ntx was a perennial player on national championship scene with at least one team per age group bringing a title back during their tenure in MOST years...91s...92s...93s...94s...95s...97s...from 2008 to 2011 3 of the 4 u16 national champions were NTX...but now we have complete shut out for NTX 98s on up?

How to fix? Probably starts with stopping this pretending that the TSC and Houston Rush of the world represent better competition than ntx had in the pre ecnl era, and challenging our top teams to seek out better comp and different styles of play. Consolidating talent at older ageds into 3 or 4 teams instead of 5 might help, but not sure that would matter if you rarely  face teams sending runners in from all sorts of angles and sharing the ball with precision in the attacking third...and defenses with great organization and just as much pace our fast fwds.

um, there is a certain u15 team that will now be giving a National title a shot for the 3rd straight year.... and on home soil this year... third times a charm!