'03 FBR Rankings - 9-27-12

How far back are these games and when do the old fall off? Thanks for publishing.

... was looking for the "head scratching" emoticon but had to settle for this.

Something still seems to be off. Take a look at Irving Elite. 0-5 and playing in PAL Silver. Were all their games 1-goal losses versus SRSA? Also, PTCL seems to be benefitting from from serious SOS values while TGPL Silver seems to be taking a beating.

Regardless, thanks for posting this.

BW,

I think that you and scoop really need to review how you list certain teams on your rankings. Some folks like to argue that the rankings don't mean very much, and for the most part they are "just for fun", but historically the LHGCL seeding follows VERY close to the rankings that you guys create here. That being said I want to explain the dilemma. There are some teams in your rankings that are coached by the same coach, and who share a good number of players from their "A" with their "B" team. Looking at the current FBR I notice two right away, SRSA and FC Dallas Diaz. There might be more, but these are the two that are currently in the top 20. Now I'm fine with the fact that these teams do this, as it's within the rules of their leagues, but where I think the problem lays is when they show up twice in your rankings. The reason being when LHGCL qualifying rolls around and LHGCL seeds the tournament, they will look at the rankings and see SRSA A, SRSA B, FC Dallas Premier Diaz, and FC Dallas Frisco Diaz (Diaz only shows up once on scoop's ranking btw). These teams are all currently in the top 20, and should get a descent seed for the LHGCL tournament. The "B" teams that have borrowed players all year will either have to take players from lesser ranked teams (Solar or FCD), or recruit players to fill their empty roster spots, since all the "A" team players wont be shared anymore. By doing this they will be fielding a lesser team they played with all year, but still getting the higher seed spot that was "earned" primarily due to the fact they had help from the "A" team players.

As always thanks for your work on the rankings, but this year they do need to be 100% accurate, and sharing players needs to be considered along with game records. It's my opinion if a coach is sharing players in the fashion that these teams are, then they should only be listed once in FBR.

JewelsBMF wrote:BW,

I think that you and scoop really need to review how you list certain teams on your rankings. Some folks like to argue that the rankings don't mean very much, and for the most part they are "just for fun", but historically the LHGCL seeding follows VERY close to the rankings that you guys create here. That being said I want to explain the dilemma. There are some teams in your rankings that are coached by the same coach, and who share a good number of players from their "A" with their "B" team. Looking at the current FBR I notice two right away, SRSA and FC Dallas Diaz. There might be more, but these are the two that are currently in the top 20. Now I'm fine with the fact that these teams do this, as it's within the rules of their leagues, but where I think the problem lays is when they show up twice in your rankings. The reason being when LHGCL qualifying rolls around and LHGCL seeds the tournament, they will look at the rankings and see SRSA A, SRSA B, FC Dallas Premier Diaz, and FC Dallas Frisco Diaz (Diaz only shows up once on scoop's ranking btw). These teams are all currently in the top 20, and should get a descent seed for the LHGCL tournament. The "B" teams that have borrowed players all year will either have to take players from lesser ranked teams (Solar or FCD), or recruit players to fill their empty roster spots, since all the "A" team players wont be shared anymore. By doing this they will be fielding a lesser team they played with all year, but still getting the higher seed spot that was "earned" primarily due to the fact they had help from the "A" team players.

As always thanks for your work on the rankings, but this year they do need to be 100% accurate, and sharing players needs to be considered along with game records. It's my opinion if a coach is sharing players in the fashion that these teams are, then they should only be listed once in FBR.

You're making the assumption that LHGCL looks at these rankings for QT seeding. I don't think that's the case at all.

JeweslBMF, you bring up some good points. We all know that SRSA A&B and FC Dallas Diaz & Frisco are virtually the same team. They have too many kids for one team and not enough for two. Odds are the coach will select his best players next year and the second team will dissolve.

inthenet wrote:You're making the assumption that LHGCL looks at these rankings for QT seeding. I don't think that's the case at all.

I can't speak on how LHGCL does the seeding, but take a look at the simularities from last year '02 FBR vs. QT seeding, and although the teams aren't in the EXACT same order the top 20 is very close to being the same between both lists.

http://www.txsoccer.net/t12675-02-girls-pre-lhgcl-qt-fbr-rankings

vs.

http://www.txsoccer.net/t12700-qt-brackets-are-up (scroll down to gophers post)

LHGCL has to get their seeding data from somewhere, maybe you can fill us in exactly where they get it from?

DDx3 wrote:JeweslBMF, you bring up some good points. We all know that SRSA A&B and FC Dallas Diaz & Frisco are virtually the same team. They have too many kids for one team and not enough for two. Odds are the coach will select his best players next year and the second team will dissolve.

Both teams listed are from BIG clubs, I think it would be easy for a coach to grab players from another team within the club or use the fact they have a good QT seed to recruit from another club. I'm sure a coach would rather do this then just let his 2nd team dissolve.

I agree that:
FCD Premier and FCD Frisco
SRSA A and SRSA B....
For ranking purposes should be ranked as the same team(s)
I've already done that with FCD and I've been waiting for verification before doing the same with SRSA. I expect the next APR to have only one SRSA.
Btw, gophers, you're killing me by publishing this each week...I can't keep up!

JewelsBMF wrote:

inthenet wrote:You're making the assumption that LHGCL looks at these rankings for QT seeding. I don't think that's the case at all.

I can't speak on how LHGCL does the seeding, but take a look at the simularities from last year '02 FBR vs. QT seeding, and although the teams aren't in the EXACT same order the top 20 is very close to being the same between both lists.

http://www.txsoccer.net/t12675-02-girls-pre-lhgcl-qt-fbr-rankings

vs.

http://www.txsoccer.net/t12700-qt-brackets-are-up (scroll down to gophers post)

LHGCL has to get their seeding data from somewhere, maybe you can fill us in exactly where they get it from?

I have an acquaintance on the seeding committee, and I asked her specifically if they used any of these rankings for seeding, and was told that they don't even look at them, that they have their own process.

They've been pretty successful at seeding before these rankings existed, and I have no reason not to believe her.

thanks for the rankings!

Till-I-Collapse wrote:How far back are these games and when do the old fall off? Thanks for publishing.

My bad... had a typo on the date in my note above the header. This weeks rankings reflect game results from June 8, 2012 -> forward.

scoop99 wrote:I agree that:
FCD Premier and FCD Frisco
SRSA A and SRSA B....
For ranking purposes should be ranked as the same team(s)
I've already done that with FCD and I've been waiting for verification before doing the same with SRSA. I expect the next APR to have only one SRSA.
Btw, gophers, you're killing me by publishing this each week...I can't keep up!

DDx3 wrote:JeweslBMF, you bring up some good points. We all know that SRSA A&B and FC Dallas Diaz & Frisco are virtually the same team. They have too many kids for one team and not enough for two. Odds are the coach will select his best players next year and the second team will dissolve.

On Thursday's I'm a glass half full guy so.....

The second team dissolving isn't necessarily a bad thing. I can't speak with any knowledge on the FCD Diaz coach as I don't know his work but those girls from SRSA "B" team that have been trained by Missimo that will be looking for a new home come select may make some Tier 2 (or even Tier1) team deeper/better when the time comes. They would have spent a year or so working with quality girls and a quality coach which can only be a good thing for some lucky team. Which is a good thing for those teams so everyone should be happy right?!?.

Now for the glass half empty part since the day is half over...

The history of sharing players from the "A" team to help build up the "B" is not very good.

Case 1: Take Sting '02 Searls from a year ago. That team participated in both TGPL Gold and Silver and shared players. Once select came around there was an attempt to have those girls handed over the Rezaie and Hanks for two independent teams. Alas only one team has survived and to no surprise that is the "A" team in the form of Sting '02 Rezaie.

Case 2: SRSA '00 from several years ago. There was SRSA Missimo and SRSA Tsapos. Obviously Missimo was the "A" team and shared players on the "B" team (Tsapos). Alas SRSA Tsapos did not survive but those girls were lucky in that weeks before signing day another team (formerly DT Davis) collapsed and the coached moved what girls he could to Solar and picked up some of the disenfranchised SRSA Tsapos girls to become Solar White '00. They are now in LHGCL Division III and still going.

scoop99 wrote:I agree that:
FCD Premier and FCD Frisco
SRSA A and SRSA B....
For ranking purposes should be ranked as the same team(s)
I've already done that with FCD and I've been waiting for verification before doing the same with SRSA. I expect the next APR to have only one SRSA.
Btw, gophers, you're killing me by publishing this each week...I can't keep up!

FCD Premier and FCD Frisco aren't an apples to apples comparison. Could have all FCD Premier players one week and very few the next week.

JewelsBMF wrote:BW,

I think that you and scoop really need to review how you list certain teams on your rankings. Some folks like to argue that the rankings don't mean very much, and for the most part they are "just for fun", but historically the LHGCL seeding follows VERY close to the rankings that you guys create here. That being said I want to explain the dilemma. There are some teams in your rankings that are coached by the same coach, and who share a good number of players from their "A" with their "B" team. Looking at the current FBR I notice two right away, SRSA and FC Dallas Diaz. There might be more, but these are the two that are currently in the top 20. Now I'm fine with the fact that these teams do this, as it's within the rules of their leagues, but where I think the problem lays is when they show up twice in your rankings. The reason being when LHGCL qualifying rolls around and LHGCL seeds the tournament, they will look at the rankings and see SRSA A, SRSA B, FC Dallas Premier Diaz, and FC Dallas Frisco Diaz (Diaz only shows up once on scoop's ranking btw). These teams are all currently in the top 20, and should get a descent seed for the LHGCL tournament. The "B" teams that have borrowed players all year will either have to take players from lesser ranked teams (Solar or FCD), or recruit players to fill their empty roster spots, since all the "A" team players wont be shared anymore. By doing this they will be fielding a lesser team they played with all year, but still getting the higher seed spot that was "earned" primarily due to the fact they had help from the "A" team players.

As always thanks for your work on the rankings, but this year they do need to be 100% accurate, and sharing players needs to be considered along with game records. It's my opinion if a coach is sharing players in the fashion that these teams are, then they should only be listed once in FBR.

Jewels,

1) Go back and look at some of the threads in the '01's and '02's that compare LHGCL QT seeding to final FBR ranking, and I think you will see that it's very obvious that FBR does not have much influence on the QT seeding process.

2) There have been plenty of similar situations to what you are describing in the past. They will all start to flush themselves out by the time Spring tourney season rolls around, and then especially by signing day and subsequent QT tune-up tournaments. FBR will take all of this into account and will adjust itself accordingly. Maybe not perfectly, but history shows it will do pretty well 90+% of the time.

3) I don't have any hard and fast rules for how I handle these situations. I do my best to try and get a feel based on information I can get through the forum grapevine as to how different the rosters are between these teams. To the best of my knowledge, right now, there is enough of a difference between the two SRSA and two FCD teams that they should be treated as separate entities and ranked as such.

4) Stating that the "B" versions of these teams will not exist come signing day next year is frankly pure speculation right now. If you want to believe that, then all you simply need to do is eliminate those teams in your own mind when you look at the rankings, and move your favorite team up a spot or two if they are behind one or both of them. By the way, history has also proven that there are at least 1 or 2 "top 20" teams that everyone currently thinks are totally solid and absolute locks to be around on July 1st, 2013, that are going to go "POOF" sometime in the next few months.

5) I can pretty much guarantee that FBR will have absolutely ZERO influence on whether or not any of the "B" teams make, or any top 20 teams implode between now and signing day. I appreciate the props, but you give me W-A-A-A-A-Y too much credit.

bwgophers wrote:

JewelsBMF wrote:BW,

I think that you and scoop really need to review how you list certain teams on your rankings. Some folks like to argue that the rankings don't mean very much, and for the most part they are "just for fun", but historically the LHGCL seeding follows VERY close to the rankings that you guys create here. That being said I want to explain the dilemma. There are some teams in your rankings that are coached by the same coach, and who share a good number of players from their "A" with their "B" team. Looking at the current FBR I notice two right away, SRSA and FC Dallas Diaz. There might be more, but these are the two that are currently in the top 20. Now I'm fine with the fact that these teams do this, as it's within the rules of their leagues, but where I think the problem lays is when they show up twice in your rankings. The reason being when LHGCL qualifying rolls around and LHGCL seeds the tournament, they will look at the rankings and see SRSA A, SRSA B, FC Dallas Premier Diaz, and FC Dallas Frisco Diaz (Diaz only shows up once on scoop's ranking btw). These teams are all currently in the top 20, and should get a descent seed for the LHGCL tournament. The "B" teams that have borrowed players all year will either have to take players from lesser ranked teams (Solar or FCD), or recruit players to fill their empty roster spots, since all the "A" team players wont be shared anymore. By doing this they will be fielding a lesser team they played with all year, but still getting the higher seed spot that was "earned" primarily due to the fact they had help from the "A" team players.

As always thanks for your work on the rankings, but this year they do need to be 100% accurate, and sharing players needs to be considered along with game records. It's my opinion if a coach is sharing players in the fashion that these teams are, then they should only be listed once in FBR.

Jewels,

1) Go back and look at some of the threads in the '01's and '02's that compare LHGCL QT seeding to final FBR ranking, and I think you will see that it's very obvious that FBR does not have much influence on the QT seeding process.

2) There have been plenty of similar situations to what you are describing in the past. They will all start to flush themselves out by the time Spring tourney season rolls around, and then especially by signing day and subsequent QT tune-up tournaments. FBR will take all of this into account and will adjust itself accordingly. Maybe not perfectly, but history shows it will do pretty well 90+% of the time.

3) I don't have any hard and fast rules for how I handle these situations. I do my best to try and get a feel based on information I can get through the forum grapevine as to how different the rosters are between these teams. To the best of my knowledge, right now, there is enough of a difference between the two SRSA and two FCD teams that they should be treated as separate entities and ranked as such.

4) Stating that the "B" versions of these teams will not exist come signing day next year is frankly pure speculation right now. If you want to believe that, then all you simply need to do is eliminate those teams in your own mind when you look at the rankings, and move your favorite team up a spot or two if they are behind one or both of them. By the way, history has also proven that there are at least 1 or 2 "top 20" teams that everyone currently thinks are totally solid and absolute locks to be around on July 1st, 2013, that are going to go "POOF" sometime in the next few months.

5) I can pretty much guarantee that FBR will have absolutely ZERO influence on whether or not any of the "B" teams make, or any top 20 teams implode between now and signing day. I appreciate the props, but you give me W-A-A-A-A-Y too much credit.

H-E-L-L-O Mr. Gopher Man - The Mayan calendar ends on 12-21-2012!!!!!!!!!! Your ranking of our cutie patooties will like totally live in history because none of us will be here for QT! So its like, give yourself some credit because you like totally have the last word in the world on who has the best 10yr old cutie patootie ranked soccer teams in DFW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO Gophers!!!!!
xxxooo

MaskedWriter wrote: ... was looking for the "head scratching" emoticon but had to settle for this.

Something still seems to be off. Take a look at Irving Elite. 0-5 and playing in PAL Silver. Were all their games 1-goal losses versus SRSA? Also, PTCL seems to be benefitting from from serious SOS values while TGPL Silver seems to be taking a beating.

Regardless, thanks for posting this.

Agreed. Irving Elite is almost certainly ranked too high right now.

I looked pretty closely at that situation in particular before I posted the rankings this week.

Just so happens that they currently have the #1 SoS due to only playing 5 games so far, with 3 of those against top 8 teams (DT South, LP Dalglish, and FCD East), plus two other league games against teams with good W-L records.

FBR is good, but it isn't perfect. I will get situations like this from time-to-time, especially when a team has a relatively small number of games. I've looked into many situations like this in the past, and the changes I would have to make to put a team like Irving Elite in a position that I could justify better based on their results, would end up changing the order of a bunch of other teams in a way that I couldn't justify based on looking at the actual game results.

As Irving Elite continues to play weaker competition in PAL and their performance in those games is consistent with their past performance, FBR will self-correct itself and you will likely see them continue to drop over the next few weeks.

As for PTCL vs. TGPL Silver, the weighting factors in FBR are completely independent on league assignment, and are based on actual results. It does rely on "crossover" play from teams playing in multiple leagues, or teams from different leagues playing each other in tournaments to properly "calibrate" the relative strength of the teams, but I do not assign any kind of default "strength" to a league.

If you look specifically at PTCL and TGPL Silver, what you see is that PTCL is a bit of a "Jekyll and Hyde" league. PTCL has 4-5 very strong teams at the top, and then some very weak teams at the bottom. With the exception of SRSA, TGPL Silver appears to be a more "balanced" league in terms of strength, but doesn't have as many "top" teams as PTCL. So what you see is a few PTCL teams ranked above the top TGPL S teams, but then mostly TGPL S team in the middle of the rakings, and then a few PTCL ranked below even the lowest TGPL S team.

Everyone knows LHGCL does not even think about seeding until they take a look at the BW FBR reports. Everyone should turn a roster into BW and then BW should attend every game to verify that there is no roster funny business going on.

Vipers should have cracked the top 3
Daisylicious is #12.5 IMHO
No mention of the DumDum girls what a sham!

TheDudeAbides wrote:Vipers should have cracked the top 3
Daisylicious is #12.5 IMHO
No mention of the DumDum girls what a sham!

Tell the Vipers to play against other U10 girls teams instead of playing up against U16 Boys and I'll include them in the rankings, even if the inevitable 53-0, 62-0, and 101-1 scores would totally skew the MoV calculation...

bwgophers wrote:

TheDudeAbides wrote:Vipers should have cracked the top 3
Daisylicious is #12.5 IMHO
No mention of the DumDum girls what a sham!

Tell the Vipers to play against other U10 girls teams instead of playing up against U16 Boys and I'll include them in the rankings, even if the inevitable 53-0, 62-0, and 101-1 scores would totally skew the MoV calculation...

No worry The Vipers squad is required to wear 15 pound ankle weights and they have to pass no less than 240 times before going to goal...
It is only fair!