Week 1 in D1

Week 1 is done and not all the scores are in which is weird. Teams are still getting used to their new kids. Winners of last years 07 group: Dallas Rebels came back strong and looking to defend their league championship. Upset of the week has to be the one of the new teams advancing to D1 FC Legends beating the FC Dallas Youth Premier. Anyone have any insight to this game? FC Legends are a athletic team from last year, but did FCD load up the DA and not D1. We'll see how next weeks game goes.

I honestly was expecting the Texans to lose by more than 1. I say that as an amazingly loving father.

SoccerToneloc wrote:Upset of the week has to be the one of the new teams advancing to D1 FC Legends beating the FC Dallas Youth Premier. Anyone have any insight to this game? FC Legends are a athletic team from last year, but did FCD load up the DA and not D1. We'll see how next weeks game goes.

Time will tell if this is truly an upset. Legends was and is a very solid team. But for a fluke of the qualifying tournament, they would have been in D1 last season (Kennington took it easy in their last game against an FCD team, a 0-0 tie, after already securing their D1 bye and that resulted in Legends landing in D2 and that FCD team ending up in D1 - of note, that FCD team was relegated to D2 for this season). Couple that with an FCDP team that likely hasn't developed a ton of chemistry yet given the massive turnover in those squads (pretty sure the FCDP team in CL is an amalgamation of Suarez's team from last season, some Che kids, some pick-up's from outside, and any Academy kids that didn't go DA if there were any, I'd imagine it takes them some time to start to fire on all cylinders). Even so, Legends is a very solid team and exceedingly physical, they'll give almost everyone a tough game if they stay healthy.

Biggest shock I see from the scores posted was Rush only winning by 1 (Red Card may have impacted them) and the Rebels blowout over Martinez.

dragonstryker wrote:

SoccerToneloc wrote:Upset of the week has to be the one of the new teams advancing to D1 FC Legends beating the FC Dallas Youth Premier. Anyone have any insight to this game? FC Legends are a athletic team from last year, but did FCD load up the DA and not D1. We'll see how next weeks game goes.

Time will tell if this is truly an upset.  Legends was and is a very solid team.  But for a fluke of the qualifying tournament, they would have been in D1 last season (Kennington took it easy in their last game against an FCD team, a 0-0 tie, after already securing their D1 bye and that resulted in Legends landing in D2 and that FCD team ending up in D1 - of note, that FCD team was relegated to D2 for this season).  Couple that with an FCDP team that likely hasn't developed a ton of chemistry yet given the massive turnover in those squads (pretty sure the FCDP team in CL is an amalgamation of Suarez's team from last season, some Che kids, some pick-up's from outside, and any Academy kids that didn't go DA if there were any, I'd imagine it takes them some time to start to fire on all cylinders).  Even so, Legends is a very solid team and exceedingly physical, they'll give almost everyone a tough game if they stay healthy.

I agree. FC Legends is a quality D1 team. They play a direct style that suites their athleticism and speed, which is very hard to defend at this age. I'm not personally surprised by the result. I think that FCDP should improve as they continue to build the chemistry. Your guess on the makeup of the roster is spot on.

Agree Rush only winning by 1 is a shocker also. I heard they lost 2 players to DA but don't know if that's correct.

SoccerToneloc wrote:Agree Rush only winning by 1 is a shocker also. I heard they lost 2 players to DA but don't know if that's correct.

Yes Rush is a surprise. They did lose 2 players to Solar DA. However, I think the bigger shocker here is Texans Dallas (Connell). I, like most here, basically wrote them off with the assumed mass exodus to DA. Perhaps, nothing is wrong with how Rush played, maybe Texans are just that good.. I'm sure that time will reveal the truth there.

I think only like 3 of the 8 kids that moved on Connell went to DA between Texans and Solar. Some went to another 07 Texans team. The 8 new boys with the 8 that we’re already there don’t seem to be horrible. I’m curious how they’ll do in Plano this weekend.

CATX wrote:Biggest shock I see from the scores posted was Rush only winning by 1 (Red Card may have impacted them) and the Rebels blowout over Martinez.

Agree that Rush was the biggest shock. I thought they were going to win by 4 or 5. Clearly the 2 DA players they lost are a big loss. Add a red card to the equation and we might have a reasonable reason for the result.

The Rebels blowout was also surprising. This is the same Martinez team (with a new GK) that beat the old LP Owen (Now Solar DA) team back in May.

The red card happened like midway through the second.

Martinez also lost a couple to DA (I hear) so they maybe in same boat as Rush. Of course Rebels and the match up maybe that good. Time will tell.

OldSoccerSouthD wrote:

CATX wrote:Biggest shock I see from the scores posted was Rush only winning by 1 (Red Card may have impacted them) and the Rebels blowout over Martinez.

Agree that Rush was the biggest shock. I thought they were going to win by 4 or 5. Clearly the 2 DA players they lost are a big loss. Add a red card to the equation and we might have a reasonable reason for the result.

The Rebels blowout was also surprising. This is the same Martinez team (with a new GK) that beat the old LP Owen (Now Solar DA) team back in May.

Congrats to those LP Owen boys going on to play DA, more power to them.

I heard LP Owen (Now Solar DA) got worked by Stars and Stripes at a Solar DA round robin this past weekend.

I think the biggest surprise was Rebels 9-0 victory over Martinez. From what I had heard leading up to Classic, Rebels had lost a significant amount of boys and were nowhere near what they were last year.

The game on the 8th should be revealing on how good they are when they play Solar Mckinney.

CATX wrote:The game on the 8th should be revealing on how good they are when they play Solar Mckinney.

Unless they Rebels lost boys to FCD South, I'm not sure where they went (unless they headed back to the 05 age group, I kid of course).  I'm guessing they just had a depleted roster over the summer and didn't look like themselves, or had younger boys "playing up". The intel thats been provided on the DA thread isn't accurate about where a bunch of them ended up.

Rumors were that Rebels boys ended up going Texans South DA (majority of their starters). However, with the result against Martinez, there is just no way this is the same group that struggled through the tournaments over the summer. We should know more in a few weeks.

I think the LP Owen comment is going to be true of a lot of the second team DA teams. I don’t believe there is enough talent going from 78 kids across FCD, Texans and Solar to now 156 kids in U12 DA. I would bet top 2-3 LP Owen kids are playing with top team and rest of Kennington, Volkan, McKinney and Rush kids leaving the second team with some time to figure it out. I would guess that several D1 teams could beat the second teams of DA.

Dwight wrote:I heard LP Owen (Now Solar DA) got worked by Stars and Stripes at a Solar DA round robin this past weekend.

This is true according to one of the parents of the StarsStripes kids.

BoKnows wrote:

Dwight wrote:I heard LP Owen (Now Solar DA) got worked by Stars and Stripes at a Solar DA round robin this past weekend.

This is true according to one of the parents of the StarsStripes kids.

Yeah. Buddy of mine has his kid on that team, said they lost to Solar's Top DA 3-1. Not a bad result for their team. They are a fun team to watch.

I still believe its Allegiance's league to lose

Stars and Stripes is an intense team. They could compete in post-DA D1 if they wanted to. They are one of those teams that can give many top teams a run for their money on a good day.

Solar Martinez lost some critical players including their primary goal scorer (easily best player), but still 9-0 is pretty crazy. Just when we were all ready to hand the league to Allegiance..

As far as DA goes, just remember that the whole point of DA isn’t to win games. Especially at this age. It’s about getting better and expanding your comfort zone as a player. A lot of the kids, especially on the second teams are playing very unfamiliar roles in an unfamiliar system. They will be better players for it. Even if they return to Classic after 1 year. The vast majority of the players in DA played mid (probably center mid) for their previous teams. It will take some time to figure out positioning and responsibilities at game speed.
The game is simpler on the brain when your a box to box midfielder and you have the most skill on the pitch most games. Move to DA and now you have to actually think a lot more!

And again, LP Owen is not one of the Solar DA teams. The top 2-3 players are playing with the top team from last i heard (as they should), and the rest are bodies on the second team.

DoubleDown wrote:

Solar Martinez lost some critical players including their primary goal scorer (easily best player), but still 9-0 is pretty crazy. Just when we were all ready to hand the league to Allegiance..

I still think Allegiance is the team to beat with the Rebels and McKinney a close 2nd. Allegiance has been playing a bunch of U13/U14 tournaments, so it is tough to gauge them against U12 opponents over the Summer. I believe the only tournament they played at U12 was a tournament they played in Barcelona....but I think that was 7 v 7.

I was told Martinez lost 2 players...one to DA and another one to another Solar D1 team. But that they got kids from Fever and Allegiance as replacements....so that 9-0 is still pretty crazy.

Yeah- Stars and Stripes could easily be in top 10 or 5 of D1. Also heard from guy on their team they beat Rush easily in a scrimmage a couple of weeks ago. So they must be pretty good when coupled with only losing 3-1 to top Solar team in 30 mins of soccer, he did mention Solar hit the post three more times but it was a good match. Did he say how they did against Solar West? Just curious as I have haven’t heard much out of them and wonder what they look like.

07 boys soccer wrote:Yeah- Stars and Stripes could easily be in top 10 or 5 of D1.  Also heard from guy on their team they beat Rush easily in a scrimmage a couple of weeks ago.  So they must be pretty good when coupled with only losing 3-1 to top Solar team in 30 mins of soccer, he did mention Solar hit the post three more times but it was a good match.  Did he say how they did against Solar West?  Just curious as I have haven’t heard much out of them and wonder what they look like.

Stars and Stripes are a good team... but I think it's a stretch to say Top 10 or 5 in D1. They did beat the 2nd group of Solar U12 (East) 5-2. However, both of Solar's U12 DA's top groups handled them very easily. East won 3-1, and West won 4-1. Let's also keep in mind that these were round robin scrimmages, with no officiating. It's not hard to imagine that several calls were not enforced. Again, Stars and Stripes are a good team, and they would do well in classic, but I don't believe they are top 10 D1 at all based on what I saw. They're work against the 2nd group just goes to show the gap between the top/bottom groups, which is likely true at every club at the moment.