'04 Girls FBR Rankings - 02-20-14

Who goes to Solar? Well, it has to be RASE...whether with LW's blessing or not. LP is desperately lobbying for an ECNL bid, but nobody is going to give one up. Sure, Solar does not have a viable 04 team, but time is on their side. FC Dallas is covered, Texans are a mainstay, Sting is the mighty Sting, and JK has aligned LFS with da feet. That leaves LP on the outside looking in, and Solar without at team. Without some sort of agreement between the two parties, all Solar has to do is name one of their top coaches as the ECNL team coach and get hold of a RASE player contact list, and its a done deal.

10sDad wrote:Who goes to Solar?  Well, it has to be RASE...whether with LW's blessing or not.  LP is desperately lobbying for an ECNL bid, but nobody is going to give one up.  Sure, Solar does not have a viable 04 team, but time is on their side.  FC Dallas is covered, Texans are a mainstay, Sting is the mighty Sting, and JK has aligned LFS with da feet.  That leaves LP on the outside looking in, and Solar without at team.  Without some sort of agreement between the two parties, all Solar has to do is name one of their top coaches as the ECNL team coach and get hold of a RASE player contact list, and its a done deal.

Already done buts it's not RASE.

I'm going to throw is one out there. According to some water cooler talk I overheard, the 04 team possibly going to Solar is LP Barnes. Does anyone care to confirm or deny.

10sDad wrote:Who goes to Solar?  Well, it has to be RASE...whether with LW's blessing or not.  LP is desperately lobbying for an ECNL bid, but nobody is going to give one up.  Sure, Solar does not have a viable 04 team, but time is on their side.  FC Dallas is covered, Texans are a mainstay, Sting is the mighty Sting, and JK has aligned LFS with da feet.  That leaves LP on the outside looking in, and Solar without at team.  Without some sort of agreement between the two parties, all Solar has to do is name one of their top coaches as the ECNL team coach and get hold of a RASE player contact list, and its a done deal.

For the 04's ECNL is so far away. I would guess 35%+ of 04's wont be playing anywhere by the time ECNL gets here. Why move a team to Solar this early because of ECNL. That seems very premature.

jsullivan81 wrote:

10sDad wrote:Who goes to Solar?  Well, it has to be RASE...whether with LW's blessing or not.  LP is desperately lobbying for an ECNL bid, but nobody is going to give one up.  Sure, Solar does not have a viable 04 team, but time is on their side.  FC Dallas is covered, Texans are a mainstay, Sting is the mighty Sting, and JK has aligned LFS with da feet.  That leaves LP on the outside looking in, and Solar without at team.  Without some sort of agreement between the two parties, all Solar has to do is name one of their top coaches as the ECNL team coach and get hold of a RASE player contact list, and its a done deal.

For the 04's ECNL is so far away. I would guess 35%+ of 04's wont be playing anywhere by the time ECNL gets here. Why move a team to Solar this early because of ECNL. That seems very premature.

Why not? They can go into qualifying with a whole club behind them as the top team, rather than being 3rd best on an ECNL farm system club. I say go for it, but not for ECNL, but just because laundry is laundry, and might as well put on some that regards you higher at that particular point in time.

jsullivan81 wrote:

10sDad wrote:Who goes to Solar?  Well, it has to be RASE...whether with LW's blessing or not.  LP is desperately lobbying for an ECNL bid, but nobody is going to give one up.  Sure, Solar does not have a viable 04 team, but time is on their side.  FC Dallas is covered, Texans are a mainstay, Sting is the mighty Sting, and JK has aligned LFS with da feet.  That leaves LP on the outside looking in, and Solar without at team.  Without some sort of agreement between the two parties, all Solar has to do is name one of their top coaches as the ECNL team coach and get hold of a RASE player contact list, and its a done deal.

For the 04's ECNL is so far away. I would guess 35%+ of 04's wont be playing anywhere by the time ECNL gets here. Why move a team to Solar this early because of ECNL. That seems very premature.

First, while 35% of the '04's in general may not be playing come ECNL (although the actual numbers show that stat is definitely incorrect... just go count how many total teams there playing in LHGCL+PPL+APL+ECNL at each age group from U11-U15 and you'll see that the rapid drop off doesn't occur until the girls hit HS age at U15 and above), when you are talking about a top 10 team, I guarantee you that the # of girls on that team playing select today that aren't playing select somewhere at U14 will be far less than 35%. More like 10-15%.

Second, it's not just about ECNL... Speaking from direct experience, there's a HUGE difference when your team is #3 or #4 in the age group pecking order at your own club, AND, because of geography, your team trains at a "satellite" location for your club, vs. the main location for your club... as opposed to being the #1 or #2 team in your age group at a similar caliber club PLUS your team now trains at the central location for the club where you suddenly have all of the top coaches at the club milling around the facility. The difference in visibility, coaching exposure, and training opportunity (ease of getting scrimmages against other top teams within your club, other top coaches coming in to help out with a practice, opportunities offer to guest play with other teams within your club, even possibly with an older age group...). All of these things are HUGE and can not be underestimated. THEN, throw in the additional carrot of being the flag bearer team for a club that has ECNL to offer 3 years down the road... again, it's a no brainer from a parent standpoint.

Sounds all good, but does that make you a better team if you jump ship? Wouldn't it be same story, same song but with a different scenery??

Nicely put BW. Wonder how many RASE parents are looking at Solar after that post?

I bet zero to none.. If RASE is having that already, like Go mentioned before, what is there to offer at this age?

ECNL is 3 years away and I'm sure much will change nearing that time.

LP barnes to solar will happen, however wolfy will not be the alpha dog for an 04 ECNL team, when the time comes. That spot will be held for Adrian, Nick, Tsapos and the like

ECNL aside, what happens to the younger teams in the wolfpack? Doesn't he have 4 or 5?

Don't know what happens to the little teams, but if he has a webmaster in his pack he should bring them for sure...   

Nicely put BW but the problem is solar has none of that. It doesn't matter if you are the 1st or the 5th the don't have facilities. The only reason to jump now would be the miguided idea that if I am in the club now I will get an ECNL spot. When ECNL comes around the CL teams don't go away. They move some players into the ECNL and they will take the best they can find regardless of where they come from. So if you want to be ECNL at this point seems the idea is to make sure you are good enough to be one of those chosen. Or I guess it's get there early so the parents can get an early start on polishing the right A$%

4DaLuvofTheGM wrote:Sounds all good, but does that make you a better team if you jump ship? Wouldn't it be same story, same song but with a different scenery??

That's the big question, and that will all depend on how they are treated over time (or at least how the parents perceive they are being treated) by the new club vs. the old club. Different parents that are currently on the team will probably end up with different perspectives on the move over time as well.

Notice that in all of my posts, I've never said if I thought this was a good move or a bad move, or whether or not this move will end up working out well for the team/players/coach over the long haul.

I merely said that based on my experience watching the NTX academy/select scene over the past few years, that I predicted last Spring that this exact move was going to happen before the '04's got to QT, because it was a no-brainer based on all of the reasons that I've posted.

Bottom line is that Solar gets what it needed, which is the core of a likely D1 team that they can build around over the next 3 years and eventually turn into their ECNL team, and the parents/players currently on the team at a minimum get opportunity that they probably didn't feel that had with their previous club. Whether or not that opportunity turns into anything valuable down the road...     

From what I understand though, this coach has a pretty poor record when it comes to transitioning teams to select from Academy. How will it be different this time? More domesticated now? Or is this one of those examples where some coaches are good Academy coaches / poor select coaches or vice versa?

go99 wrote:Nicely put BW but the problem is solar has none of that.  It doesn't matter if you are the 1st or the 5th  the don't have facilities.  The only reason to jump now would be the miguided idea that if I am in the club now I will get an ECNL spot.  When ECNL comes around the CL teams don't go away.  They move some players into the ECNL and they will take the best they can find regardless of where they come from.  So if you want to be ECNL at this point seems the idea is to make sure you are good enough to be one of those chosen.  Or I guess it's get there early so the parents can get an early start on polishing the right A$%

Admittedly, I don't know how it at all works at Solar, but I've got to imagine that even if Solar doesn't own it's own facility, that a large number of the Solar Red teams practice at the same location.  Last time I checked, Solar Red has top 5 teams with quality coaches in the '01-'03 age groups.  If the new '04 team gets to train at a location where these teams and coaches will also be, whether or not Solar actually owns the location, the '04 team reaps some benefit.

Maybe this isn't true, and if so, would weaken some of the advantage that I spoke of.  I would still be surprised if this team doesn't get more TLC (real or perceived) than what they were getting as the #3 team at LP, 20 miles from the Colony and 30 miles from Allen.

What training facilities does Solar have on the west side?

With Barnes at Solar, does LP have a 04 team in Tarrant county?

I suspect that the TEAM will get nothing but probably the coach got some sort of deal for bringing a team over. They will get a different color jersey and things will go on as they always have. If they like their coach then the right thing to do was to go with him because that matters more than jersey color. Now of course the new club will tell you all about the gold at the end of the ECNL rainbow. You will feel like you are getting in on the ground floor of the ECNL But the reality is adrian and nick need players not payers for the ECNL. That being said it was a good move for solar and should give them a D1 spot.

Soccerboy wrote:With Barnes at Solar, does LP have a 04 team in Tarrant county?  

They have 5 other Tarrant County 04 teams.

elom99 wrote:

Soccerboy wrote:With Barnes at Solar, does LP have a 04 team in Tarrant county?  

They have 5 other Tarrant County 04 teams.

The next strongest team in Tarrant County is LP 04 Owen, Finger for LP.

soccerdad1969 wrote:What training facilities does Solar have on the west side?

Solar has some fields in McKinney

McKinney would be a perfect location for practice!

That would be a lovely commute 2-3 times per week plus LH.

Soccerboy wrote:McKinney would be a perfect location for practice!

Only if you live in McKinney.

Eliza466 wrote:

soccerdad1969 wrote:What training facilities does Solar have on the west side?

Solar has some fields in McKinney

Which is exactly why you don't see a bunch of Solar Chelsea Gold teams floating around the D1 ranks of LHGCL...

If you tell someone that the fields are North of 121 and East of 75, you might as well be telling them that the fields are in Oklahoma...