Whatever happened to the proposed idea of a website or app that was going to rate soccer clubs? I remember reading about it either on here or on twitter... does anybody know what happened to it? Is it still in the works? Is it dead in the water?
It's brilliant soccer something. It has very little content and will likely never be objective enough to provide solid data because people can sign up and post whatever they want. There is also Got Soccer and YouthSoccerRankings However some clubs are not reporting data anylonger as part of a USSF initiative to get away from rankings from u15 down. Even so - the accuracy is god auwful on both sites. If I were to guess - maybe 10% accuracy
Yeah the biggest issue is differentiating between clubs and teams in ratings as well. You could try and separate coach and team reviews from the club as a whole but particularly in an age of teams moving between clubs, that's hard to do. The more interesting question would be how do the clubs themselves compare rather than the individual teams.
It really depends on why you are looking for this information. The aproach could vary in terms of what is a good club - in fact it that may not even matter depending on what you are looking for.
Got Soccer rankings can be directionally accurate relative to one team, but not a club. #10 is going to be better than #100 most times. It takes some time to get used to the scoring formula and the length of time points stay on board. So, a national champion from one year that loses 8 players to DA academies can be highly ranked for almost a year. One way to look at it would be that most really good teams that have been around for a year are highly ranked but not all highly ranked teams are really good. If you have the time to look at recency of points, who they have beaten etc. you can tell the pretenders from the contenders with reasonable accuracy. Warning: Actual results may vary.
Got Soccer relies on tournament and not as much league play.(See IWSL) So that team that travel to every tournament is going to be ranked higher than a team that plays 1 tournament a season.
Yeah, Got Soccer’s rankings have to be taken with a huge grain of salt…my son’s team has be consistently in the top 10 for Illinois at his age group for the last couple of years…but we are primarily a tournament team; and one “good” tournament win a year can keep you toward the top…it’s nice only in the sense that it helps get you into better tournaments and/or high brackets…wash, rinse, repeat… But ain’t no way in hell we’re really the #3 or #7 or whatever best team in the state….Lot a teams out of Chicago and St. Louis that would whip us 8 ways to Sunday….
FWIW, I did find the youthsoccerrankings website accurate last year. I thought it had gone away, I'm glad it's back. If you haven't been there, it's not so much rankings as it is a number comparison site. Using whatever algorithm, each team is assigned a number. Compare the number between two teams and you have what should be the goal difference in a match between the teams.
At first glance, I like it….far more reflective and responsive of reality, at least as far as my son’s team, than Got Soccer… I really like the National Rank chart…nice to see the trend/direction the team is taking…