FBR09 Rankings October 4th, 2018

[quote="Eddyinmyyeti"]From my perspective, I don’t see the top teams using guest players just to move up in rankings. Sure they may borrow a player or two to fill out a bench or a weak position against a certain team but these teams all have a strong core that are never put on the back burner for guest players. [/quote]

I disagree with the top teams not using guest players to move up in the rankings. There are teams in the top 5-7 that consistently do this. I don't understand why the teams don't just combine b/c that is pretty much what it is. While the core of each may be strong, guest players make rank somewhat meaningless for some of these teams. Aside from ranking, the only people that benefit from guest players are the guest players.

It's academy and anyone can play where they want and with whomever they like as long as the coaches say its ok. Now is it right to sit your regular players to play guest players, probably not.

GUILTY! My DD and a few of her Solar besties did guest with SE in one tourney. They did well, and I must say they have a really solid squad. Our team wasn't playing that weekend and they are just transitioning to 9v9 (LIKE ALL OF US) so needed a few extras (they also had short roster and an injury). I'd like to think that 9 year old girls can play together for fun and not just to boost rankings

let me say this.... we are from over an hour away. NO INTENTION of moving teams, BUT if we lived closer, all of us would in a heartbeat. if you live in the prosper area.. check them out. they were the NICEST group of soccer parents that I have ever met. The other parents that guested with us said "this is the most fun we have ever had at a tourney".  Since we met them, we have been doing more as a team, going to dinner and trying to have more fun off the field. I would like to publicly thank Prosper Elite and their soccer family for being so awesome!

Prosper Elite’s coach posted on the forum asking for guest players to play in their first 9v9 tournament. Solar East took him up on the offer. There is no conspiracy here to manipulate the rankings... the kids had fun and meshed well together for a weekend. I have a good friend on the team and watched the girls play together that weekend. The whole thing was innocent and the Prosper team would have taken anyone that weekend... it just worked out that they got some good solid players. It’s all good.

ProphAC you are right on track!

there was also a sting player and another girl I cant remember where she was from. Our Solar East team played the Sting Player and her team in JCL last weekend and it was fun to have parents on the other team that you can chit chat with and say hello. Building these good relationships now is important because who knows where you will be when your daughter goes to another team or a team folds. You just never know ! us 09's have a LONG road ahead. I would rather my DD have friends on the field than enemies! that's just how we roll

I can tell you for fact, the team my daughter is on (in top 5) has NEVER used a guest player for any game or tournament...We believe in the 12 girls on our roster, plus that is how you build team chemistry.

JCL should have been a 10 team league, with the top 3 automatically qualifying. Too many lopsided games and wasted weekends to see just a couple of quality matchups during the season.

It seems like some people want to believe there is a ton of guest playing going on but there is not. And even if there is, who cares. My DD’s team wants to play the best there is even if the team is using unicorn guest players. We use the same 12 players week in and week out and are having a blast playing top 5 competition. We like wins but we learn just as much from losses. We could care less about our ranking as long as we take care of business in JCL. Nobody wants to play in the July heat!

[quote="bigballer07"]I can tell you for fact, the team my daughter is on (in top 5) has NEVER used a guest player for any game or tournament...We believe in the 12 girls on our roster, plus that is how you build team chemistry. [/quote]

That's awesome! I agree with you about building chemistry. I don't understand the whole guest player thing...it really only benefits the guest players in the long run.

(I do understand a guest goalie if the regular goalie is injured as this is a different skill set than field players.)

("JCL should have been a 10 team league, with the top 3 automatically qualifying. Too many lopsided games and wasted weekends to see just a couple of quality matchups during the season.") Grantize12   I agree, we were better off with Prime Time Gold top division last year.....some of these games are not even competitive for the top teams.....Guess just more quality top tournaments

I agree with Granitza12. I would have been ok with them doing the 3 divisions of 10 in the fall and then taking the top 3 teams from each division (with a 10th team as wildcard) and creating a new top division in the Spring to determine the 3 bye winners. At least then, all 30 had an equal chance. The thought of another league season against the same teams in the Spring is nauseating. They could tell the remaining teams that didn’t make the top division that the Spring season is for determining CL tournament seeding. But what do I know.

Maybe the top two from each division should automatically get the bye into the girls classic league. I guess u could do the top 3 and 1 wild card and there is your 1st division for GCL. Qualifying can be for 2nd division and 3rd division. No more lopsided wins for the 20 teams in 1st division. Just my two cents

There is strong validity to the idea of making a change for the spring season (JCL I hope you are reading these opinions) They have shown they are willing to change when they nixed the 3 teams per club initiative.

There needs to be a re-alignment for the spring. I personally don't really care about the automatic bid because, let's face it, at most there are about 7-8 teams that have a shot to earn it. The bigger issue is competitive games in the meantime and it simply does no good to have 8-0 games consistently... and that's with the better team throttling down, putting forwards in as goalies, etc.

Flight the teams in groups of 10s in the spring based on fall results. Whoever #11 is will have no shot at the auto bid anyway by virtue of their fall record. My DD's team will probably be towards the bottom of their division and probably lose the majority of games in the spring and I'm ok with that. Better than consistently playing teams that if we were matched up in a weekend tournament, the masses would be screaming bloody murder.

JCL, you regularly have GOLD teams playing BRONZE teams and this helps no one. It is literally a waste of time for both teams, coaches and parents. For an entire year. We have the best talent in the country, let's have similar teams play competitive games on a consistent basis so that our overall talent and skill can grow at all levels.

Let's say the league does this, what happens to the other two divisions. Do they just play for nothing? Maybe for lhgcl seeding?? I mean its actually not a bad idea, but maybe top 5 get in automatically. It will be a real strong division......If season ended today how would the Gold division look like??

If a team is placed in the other divisions, it is because they have accumulated enough losses to be placed there. Under the current scenario, these losses carry over to the spring and overall evaluation for auto bids. They have already lost their shot. What happens to the other two divisions is that they play competitive games each and every week in the spring that prepares them to hopefully elevate their game to go earn a spot in the summer... whether it be division 1,2 or 3... whatever their expectations and skill levels dictate.

As for what the Gold division looks like... let's let everybody play everybody... but for fun and personal opinion, I believe based on the results of the past year and a half there are teams that you can reasonably expect to be there, mostly mirroring the FBR: DK Voutier, Angelone, Colvin, Covey, South, Samba, DK Perette, TXSpirit. The other two spots would probably come from Cosmos, Willett, Xtreme, Salsa, East Gray.

If they reshuffled the deck and made a gold division, I would think that would make each game a knock out fight. Would be Very interesting. Gold would likely be DK(rush), Solar Angelone, Solar South, Solar Colvin, Texans Samba, DK SC, Solar Covey and them round out with Solar Gray, spirit and maybe lightning but they haven’t hit the meat of their schedule yet. Basically the old primetime gold division.

If they make a gold division how many teams should get a bye into lhgcl??? Who has solar grey played?? I know they are ranked up there.

If (and I think it’s a big if) they change the structure so we reseed after the fall, I think it is only fair that the top 3 from each division advance... that would make the fall season mean something. Then the Spring gold division would be 9 teams plus a wildcard spot for the top point earner across all 3 divisions that wasn’t in the 9. Then the top 3 teams in gold after the Spring get the bye.

Based upon how the qualifying tournament (QT) has worked in the past, I assume their will be 10 or more brackets in the QT... the 7 teams that play gold in the the Spring that don’t earn a bye will be a 1 seed in their own bracket. The remaining 20 teams that don’t make the top division will be reseeded in 2 equal divisions in the Spring. The top team in each Spring non gold division will earn a 1 seed in the QT. Then the top point earners that did not win the division across both divisions would get the final 1 seeds in QT until all 1 seeds in each bracket of 4 are full. If enough teams apply for LHCL QT then the one seeds will fill out accordingly based upon the Spring league results for the two non gold divisions.

In case you were wondering, the QT for ‘08s was 13 brackets with no byes. Each bracket winner won a spot in division 1. The remaining teams were reseeded into 9 brackets with the top 7 point earners across the 9 brackets in round two getting a spot in division 1. In our scenario, with 3 byes given to the top 3, the gold spring teams would know they got at least a 1 seed and the other 20 teams would get a shot at earning a 1 seed in their bracket in the QT. There would always be something valuable to play for across all teams in the Fall and the Spring AND the quality of the games would be better for everyone. This idea would also follow the spirit of the 2 rounds QT that LHCL has followed in the past. It would basically be a 2 round format but with league play instead of tournament play.

It would make sense for everyone.

So what about the middle teams that may have signed up for JCL in order to prepare them for the qualifier next summer and for actual classic league? I would be willing to bet most didn't sign up solely for a chance at the bye for next year, but rather to play better competition. While JCL is not just about the top 2-3 teams per division, there are plenty of leagues out there where all the "gold" teams can gather and play each other.

PS - I see wonky scores in every single age group of D1 Classic already this year, so that isn't going to magically just go away.

Fair point... like I said, they probably aren’t changing anything so this is all entertaining yet useless discussion. Hopefully the rain will stop long enough for us to play some games this fall... wonky scores and all.

I also hope JCL creates a gold division in the spring. It is not fun watching these 9-0 games! As for the teams that would be included, my guess would be: D’Feeters Voutier, Solar South, Solar Angelone, Solar Colvin, Texans Samba, D’Feeters Luna, Solar Covey and the other 3 spots could be taken by Cosmos Black, Texas Spirit Khoury, FCD Xtreme, Texans Salsa, Solar Gray or FCD Willet.

It looks like Solar Gray has mainly played silver teams. They did play a few gold teams such as Solar Covey, Spirit Khoury and FCD Xtreme and lost to all 3 of them. They also tied D’Feeters Luna. It could be a good team.

Why would LH not want 30 teams to pay their registration a year earlier instead of putting money in primetime or U90C or Pit, Arlington, etc. If they took it down to 10 "best" teams, they lose 20 teams registration fees. This also feeds the frenzy ahead of King Tut and the QT.

Just thought it was unfair. I would understand if their core group was out there and they had fillers for 1 or 2 spots. The Solar Girls (5) were playing key minutes. It doesn't really matter in the long run. I just thought it was funny that a team that has consistently been in 40-50's get 2 wins in this tournament and then they shoot up. I guess my really issue is with a ranking system. As each kid matures and gets better, I don't really think 9 year old stats will matter much.

If you take out the R in FBR add an I in the middle that what you get.

Midwest AKA Jeff. You were asked to leave this team 6 months ago and clearly are not over it. You won’t stop emailing the coach making fun of 9 year old girls and now you want to hide behind a screen name on the forum. Let me introduce you to a couple things on the forum:

1. If you come on here talking about how something is “not fair” then you’ll last about 10 seconds. I’m sure some of the guys that have been around a while would love to teach you about CPP.
2. No matter how much you think your invisible behind a made up screen name people will always find out who you are. Foxysoccermom is the queen of this.
3. Everyone on this forum can go back and look through years of posts about Prosper Elite and any of their teams and find exactly zero drama surrounding them. You just sound like a bitter parent who’s jealous they can’t be on said team.
4. And lastly, the established group of girls played over 90% of each game through the tournament you’re referencing. The fact that you tried to spend more time tracking time of “guest players” on this team instead of watching your own daughter play at the same time speaks volumes to you as a person.

Your agenda is unknown and it’s probably time to move on with your life.