Only a guess - but I wouldn't think this would make a big difference for many teams. It sounds like they came up with a tweak that better predicts results for girls teams that primarily play against boys teams than they had in the past, giving more accurate results when rating those teams. Might make a significant difference for those teams that do fit into that category, but it's not very many teams in each state that would fall into that group.
At least last year a few clubs offered cup teams. I think - Inter, KCA and a couple others had Cup teams in the Midwest, but I don’t recall all of them. I agree that the concept may become largely out dated with the age change and players leaning towards high school. Granted clubs may still have players that simply don’t want to play high school for whatever reason.
Definitely didn't affect what I was looking at. I was at the u19 Chicago Fire MLS Next HD game against Minnesota Saturday morning and looking at rankings and score predictions. At that time it had the Fire team as the 3rd best team in Illinois and something like 60th in the USA, way way off from reality. Funny this game was the first one I've seen the score prediction being way off. Predicted 3-1 Fire, ended up being 10-0!!! It was clearly an anomaly though based on total body of work for both. Not sure what was going on, but it was a complete drubbing.
Ok, so this is why it is hard to trust these rankings. I am going with the 2010 girls group. Galaxy who has also been known as the one of best teams in the country is GA, they have never had any real competition. This year, one of the lower end ECNL teams, Midwest United got moved to the GA, not only did they beat Galaxy twice, they are first in the division. So it would be interesting to see how Galaxy would do in the ECNL. I think Midwest United had 2 wins last year in the ECNL. Also ‘rumor’ this is a ‘rumor’ on the street is they will not scrimmage Eclipse or Chicago Inter’s 2010 team. So I am surprised they are ranked so high in the rankings. They just came down to #14, but they were just in the top 10 for a while. So the rankings still has issues figuring out how to rank cross different groups.
People generally don't understand what the rankings represent. They both give them too much credit (in some cases), and too little credit (in some cases), and in cases where they don't match up with how they feel they should work - they think the ratings are "wrong" and need to be "fixed". First - the two teams being described here are both objectively good teams. One is #1 in their state, the other is #2 in their state. In their recent game performance, they are about a goal apart. One would be expected to win if they competed - but they only have a 60% chance of a win, and a 25% chance of a loss. In this case - they lost twice, 1-0. Good on the underdogs to pull through. But it's not a mathematical impossibility. It is instead telling us that it will happen 1 out of 4 times. If you want to inherently validate the rating of a team, one simple eye-test for it is to look at the game history. Are there green games (where it overperformed compared to its current rating), red games (where it underperformed compared to its current rating), or are they kept black (performed in line with its current rating). Here's what the two teams look like: A couple things stand out. For Midwest - just look at their game history. 3 greens - 2 reds - and the vast majority of games are dark. 2 of those 3 greens were for the matchup we're discussing. This means that the team has performed pretty much at their current rating for a few months now. That alone means that the numerical rating isn't "wrong", it fairly represents the team's performance. For Galaxy - look at their game history. They also have plenty of dark ratings, showing that they performed as expected, with only 1 game in the past several months where they overperformed. But perhaps more interestingly, they have underperformed for their last 3 games in a row. So yes - their current rating represents their performance, just as it does for all teams. But it also seems that the team might be having issues maintaining that level, and if they continue to underperform, their rating will inevitably drop. Midwest wasn't a strong team in ECNL, and is now showing as a strong team in GA. Over time, if their current rating is in fact too low - it will continue to adjust to their current performance. We can certainly make inferences about what this means when comparing the two conferences.
Galaxy lost two of their best players and two of the better 2010s in the Midwest to Chicago Inter this fall, so that obviously that hurts their team. As for Midwest United, they also had partnership agreement with MI Rangers so they are now able to have the top players from Midwest United, Rangers and Midwest United Scor - so basically combination of almost three teams into one. That obviously helps them.
Galaxy 2010 Tied the MI Hawks in a friendly and beat Nationals 4-1. It may be more of a matchup issue and they are dealing with
Midwest United 12s won the ECNL Midwest division last year and have been good in GA but not running away with the division as of yet so there are point and counter point arguments. I do wish GA and ECNL played in more open tournaments. Seems fewer and fewer teams from the Midwest playing Jeff Cup, Dallas Cup or Surf Cup. Maybe they get enough games just through league play and showcases. At the end of the day people should look at the success of putting players in college vs rankings as that is all that really matters. I think certain teams develop and certain teams play to win. Both can work but it does impact rankings to a high degree.
This isn't necessarily incorrect, but it's not really feasible for most people in most places. It only works in smaller markets where a small handful of clubs provide any recruits at all to D1, and if you're realistic about your chances, you are playing for one of those 2 or 3 clubs. Which also happen to be the same clubs with top teams that are leading the rankings. If there was an app that had a current database to show how many college recruits by team/club, it might be data that would be more useful to more people - but there isn't. In the meantime, ranking teams by how likely they are to beat other teams, is a pretty good shorthand to judge the quality of the club's teams. And for the 95% of players that aren't even thinking about college recruiting - it's going to be much more useful than comparing #'s of D1 or other recruits in the last graduating class anyway.
Most clubs balance playing time fairly evenly in friendlies. Add to that, lesser known clubs always take those games more seriously than the more well known clubs. Those results even if true, mean little. Especially considering they couldn’t beat Midwest United 2010 who was struggling mightily in the ECNL in that age group last year.
i didn't say 4, but reading it again i see how that looks like i meant four. i know they lost two for sure. Genthner and Patel played at Galaxy for years and are really good and would obviously hurt Galaxy losing that type of talent.
This is absolutely something the app isn't capable of necessarily handling. Things like: Injuries Unfavorable positional matchups in-game tactical decisions coaches make to exploit or counter something the other team is doing Sendings off Bad luck (shots off the post, conceded pens, etc) Just aren't predictable and will result in outliers. It tends to end up shaking out in the long run, but the nature of the game makes these tend to be more impactful than in many other sports. We've found the app to be very reliable, but you're always going to have that 3-0 game where the app predicted 2-1 or the MLS academy team that picked up 5 new kids over the summer. The MLS academy teams are also inherently more unpredictable because IIRC those teams have two years worth of players on them in a lot of cases so every year half of the players rotate.
It is taking into account all of those factors (or none of those factors) depending on how the question is framed. As each and every one of them can certainly factor in to the results of an individual game. But instead, all it is ever doing is looking at the final results of prior games to predict the final results of future games. Its measured predictivity (# of games won predicted properly) includes all of the above. If the model could take into account the 5 listed above, as well as weather, field conditions, and any other additional factors - it likely would only improve its predictivity from where it stands right now. But youth soccer is so predictable that it is already picking 5 out of 6 winners across the board with nothing but prior scores. Looking at the game history for several of the older MLS N teams in the region, they appear no more unpredictable than any other group of teams. There are 2 or 3 outliers in the past season for pretty much every one of them.
I spoke with several Eclipse 2013 2012 girl parents and it looks like there's a "Hide Your Wife" situation going on over there, not good!
What does that mean? I’m not trying to be all snooty feminist, but I don’t really get it. Is there something criminal happening to mothers of players? If there’s some sort of consensual affair then any “wives” who might be interested probably don’t want to be hidden.
This might be my favorite comment of all time on this forum. Thank you for being truthful. That always cracks me up when the coach gets all the blame. Are the a scumbag for being with a married woman? Absolutely but let’s stop pretending like she is not a tramp.
Let's just say one of the dads over there is trying to show some of the mom(s) more than just pics of soccer balls. Sucks for the kid of that dad, how embarassing! As far as tramps go, I can't speak to that LOL
Okay, I see why players' mothers might be taking action to stay away. "Hide your wife" still sounds pretty odd - like it's primarily an issue for their husbands. Some people are weird and gross. But this doesn't sound like it has anything to do with the club. SoccerParent_WI, I think you should consider editing out the name of the club from your post.
It definitely does have something to do with those two age groups at that squad since a lot of parents are very unhappy and creeped out and parents at those two age groups were affected. Can't believe it'll be another grimy scandal, maybe not so public this time, that potentially upends some talented squads at that club. Anyway, yuck!
If this is even true, which I have doubts, easy solution for the impacted parents. ECNL code of conduct is binding even on parents at the club. Therefore if it’s truly serious, they just need to report the conduct.