GU11 Rankings

http://youthsoccerrankings.us/

Interesting...GotSoccer has four Texas teams in their top ten. This one has only one.

Cleansheets wrote:http://youthsoccerrankings.us/

Interesting...GotSoccer has four Texas teams in their top ten. This one has only one.

Of all the national rankings I've seen.. this one looks the most accurate by far. Gotsoccer rewards teams that play their own age group in gotsoccer tournaments...not even close to accurate...especially for some areas that have learned how to mine gotsoccer points (cough...cough...northeast).

Topdrawer is very subjective and erratic...but it's probably the next best. Their movement of teams doesnt make much sense but you wont typically see any suspect teams highly ranked in topdrawer. Sites like nationalsoccerrank are a complete joke and im surprised clubs tout their nsr ranking on their corporate websites.

Lets hope our NTX teams have a good showing against the SoCal teams.

this ranking system is not even close it gives academy and pre academy teams a ton on favoritism, all the ranking systems have flaws just use them as sort of a guide or at least that's what I do. lol

How can any of these rankings be accurate anyway when not all teams are playing the same game? I've been told by someone that works for the youth soccer organization in another state that only NTX, SoCal & North Carolina play 11v11 at the U11 age group. Every one else still plays 8v8 or 9v9, even at the U12 age group.

Valid point kick. Just from reading on some other states boards, Long Island Eastern New York for example, they don't start playing 11v11 until age 14. So it would kinda be like comparing apples to oranges wouldn't it?

And we all know that 8v8 and 11v11 are two completely different games. It's soccer but 3 extra players per side makes a huge difference. Not to mention smaller fields and shorter games. So yeah, I guess it is apples and oranges.

Take it from me it's a totally different game. Coming from NTX soccer 11v11 to Michigan 9v9 on a small field. I miss NTX soccer.

Which would tend to make the older age group rankings more accurate, not enough history yet for U-11. Have also heard some teams in other parts are good at racking up the GotSoccer points via tourneys, but I guess what are they supposed to do in areas of country where the # of high quality teams is not what it is here in NTX and Cali, etc.?

I guess it only matters if you are one of those people who really cares about your 11-yr old daughters soccer team ranking so you can tell all your friends "my daughters soccer team is ranked in the top 100 in the country!"

purplefrog wrote:I guess it only matters if you are one of those people who really cares about your 11-yr old daughters soccer team ranking so you can tell all your friends "my daughters soccer team is ranked in the top 100 in the country!"  

Always a Debbie downer in the crowd. Can't you people just let us live vicariously through our kids and not call it out. C'mon man!

KnKsDad wrote:Which would tend to make the older age group rankings more accurate, not enough history yet for U-11. Have also heard some teams in other parts are good at racking up the GotSoccer points via tourneys, but I guess what are they supposed to do in areas of country where the # of high quality teams is not what it is here in NTX and Cali, etc.?  

When GotSoccer awards more points for a 12th place finish in PPL D1, than a 13th place finish in LHGCL D1, it immediately loses most of its credibility.

Throw in the points that can be earned by PPL teams playing in the the Silver Division in multiple tournaments - sometimes earning more points than Gold Division teams in the same tournament (look at the NTFC tournament - Gold Division winner earned 2152 points, Silver Division winner "earned" 2266 points).

soccerjack wrote:

purplefrog wrote:I guess it only matters if you are one of those people who really cares about your 11-yr old daughters soccer team ranking so you can tell all your friends "my daughters soccer team is ranked in the top 100 in the country!"  

Always a Debbie downer in the crowd. Can't you people just let us live vicariously through our kids and not call it out. C'mon man!  

Ummm...wait...isn't that why you guys had kids?

soccer chuck wrote:

KnKsDad wrote:Which would tend to make the older age group rankings more accurate, not enough history yet for U-11. Have also heard some teams in other parts are good at racking up the GotSoccer points via tourneys, but I guess what are they supposed to do in areas of country where the # of high quality teams is not what it is here in NTX and Cali, etc.?  

When GotSoccer awards more points for a 12th place finish in PPL D1, than a 13th place finish in LHGCL D1, it immediately loses most of its credibility.  

Throw in the points that can be earned by PPL teams playing in the the Silver Division in multiple tournaments - sometimes earning more points than Gold Division teams in the same tournament (look at the NTFC tournament - Gold Division winner earned 2152 points, Silver Division winner "earned" 2266 points).

Agree with both of your comments. Makes no damn sense at all.

Funny how people turn their nose away from gotsoccer rankings and say it has no legitimacy, but yet it's pretty much the same top 6 NTX teams in the top 25 nationally that dominated FBR for a few years. There must be some truth to gotsoccer rankings, you think??? Saw it with U12. Same teams that faired well in FBR faired well in gotsoccer ranking and out of state tournaments.

4DaLuvofTheGM wrote:Funny how people turn their nose away from gotsoccer rankings and say it has no legitimacy, but yet it's pretty much the same top 6 NTX teams in the top 25 nationally that dominated FBR for a few years. There must be some truth to gotsoccer rankings, you think??? Saw it with U12. Same teams that faired well in FBR faired well in gotsoccer ranking and out of state tournaments.

Have you looked at the top 25 teams? Doesn't look like, outside the top 5, it's very legitimate at all... I mean the FC Dallas White PPL team is listed at number 8 regionally and locally - seriously? That's legitimate to you? Come on now, lets be real - it's a points based system, the more you play and place at ANY level, the more points you accumulate and many coaches know how to skirt the system to gain points. Join less popular tournaments that hold a high points ranking for a win. Then join it, and squeak out a win and "bingo" you jump in ranking - has nothing to do with strength of play or anything. It's points accumulation. I still call BS on the GotSoccer rankings outside the top 5.

4DaLuvofTheGM wrote:Funny how people turn their nose away from gotsoccer rankings and say it has no legitimacy, but yet it's pretty much the same top 6 NTX teams in the top 25 nationally that dominated FBR for a few years. There must be some truth to gotsoccer rankings, you think??? Saw it with U12. Same teams that faired well in FBR faired well in gotsoccer ranking and out of state tournaments.

Agreed on the point how lower ranked teams can accumulate points but like 4DaLuv says, there is some truth.  At some point you must give credit where credit is due.
Recognize these top teams are not on a lucky streak and somehow keep winning.  
They've actually worked very hard.

For a 04 forum Spark, I'll bite.

We all know its a point base system and we all know whose who locally.  You can play in all the lower tournaments and win, "skirt" the system and what will that get you, more points? Gotsoccer works on the tier system.  The more points you get the higher tier your team becomes.  What drive tournament points are the teams that enter the tournaments. So playing against lower ranked tier teams in lower ranked tournaments, points will be minimal.

For out of town tournaments, TD's use Gotsoccer tier levels to fill pools (brackets, flights, etc) for this is solely what they can rely on. In the long run, coaches are setting their team up for failure. They will find themselves in a bracket with teams that are above their tier level because they decided to "skirt" the system.

So please Coaches, continue to "skirt" your points for the sake of getting your team heads beat in... It will all fan out.

Son_ofa_Pitch wrote:For a 04 forum Spark, I'll bite.

We all know its a point base system and we all know whose who locally.  You can play in all the lower tournaments and win, "skirt" the system and what will that get you, more points? Gotsoccer works on the tier system.  The more points you get the higher tier your team becomes.  What drive tournament points are the teams that enter the tournaments. So playing against lower ranked tier teams in lower ranked tournaments, points will be minimal.

For out of town tournaments, TD's use Gotsoccer tier levels to fill pools (brackets, flights, etc) for this is solely what they can rely on. In the long run, coaches are setting their team up for failure. They will find themselves in a bracket with teams that are above their tier level because they decided to "skirt" the system.

So please Coaches, continue to "skirt" your points for the sake of getting your team heads beat in... It will all fan out.

That doesn't exactly explain the NTFC tournament -

Gold Division winner DT Scott earned 2152 points, after beating LH D1 Mustangs, LH D1 Kicks, LH D1 Tx Spirit North, and FCD WTX.

Silver Division winner FC Premier "earned" 2266 points, after beating 4 Plano D1 teams - Andromeda West, FC Dallas Black, FC Dallas White, and Gunners, and tying Cosmos.

Competition was not comparable, but silver division winner was awarded more points than gold division winner.

And your theory on getting their heads beat in only applies if they travel to out-of-state tournaments.  If the goal is to pad your win-loss record and boost your GotSoccer bragging ranking, then I would guess those teams are actually being successful. Maybe local GotSoccer tournaments should start using GotSoccer rankings.

Son_ofa_Pitch wrote:For a 04 forum Spark, I'll bite.

We all know its a point base system and we all know whose who locally.  You can play in all the lower tournaments and win, "skirt" the system and what will that get you, more points? Gotsoccer works on the tier system.  The more points you get the higher tier your team becomes.  What drive tournament points are the teams that enter the tournaments. So playing against lower ranked tier teams in lower ranked tournaments, points will be minimal.

For out of town tournaments, TD's use Gotsoccer tier levels to fill pools (brackets, flights, etc) for this is solely what they can rely on. In the long run, coaches are setting their team up for failure. They will find themselves in a bracket with teams that are above their tier level because they decided to "skirt" the system.

So please Coaches, continue to "skirt" your points for the sake of getting your team heads beat in... It will all fan out.

I agree with SOP, most kids and parents kind of know where their team "really" stands, if someone is really trying to manipulate the points, it will catch them sooner or later and they will probably fall pretty quickly.  I would assume if your rank is so high that just about everyone you play is below you, then it will drop you pretty quick when you lose.

The reality is your dds team rank is only important around people that don't know anything about it.  When I'm at the water cooler, I ask if anyone has kids that play soccer....if not, I then tell them that my dd is the number one player on the number one team in the country...what the hell do they know anyway.  If they ask what team, I say FC Sting Texans(Blue).  Then I walk away with a smug smile on my face.  Mission accomplished...my kid is better than theirs.

My daughters team is ranked pretty decently on gotsoccer. Therefore, now Im looking for something in the mail....
A scholarship offer, a coupon to Main Event or D&B's, a T-shirt, lanyard, bumper sticker, and or a mini ball made of poor quality with the Gotsoccer logo on it. If you have one of those items or all....I am jealous. But if all you have are bragging rights to those who are clueless to the system, then we are in the same clique and should a social club and discuss like interests on a forum...we could call it txsoccer.net.

Cleansheets wrote:

soccerjack wrote:

purplefrog wrote:I guess it only matters if you are one of those people who really cares about your 11-yr old daughters soccer team ranking so you can tell all your friends "my daughters soccer team is ranked in the top 100 in the country!"  

Always a Debbie downer in the crowd. Can't you people just let us live vicariously through our kids and not call it out. C'mon man!  

Ummm...wait...isn't that why you guys had kids?

Exactly right! If I'm gonna spend a bunch of money and time on this...then I'm keeping all the trophies or in the case of ntx soccer the cheap medallions with a printed champion label on back.

As with anything there are flaws but the U11s just started so until they have played enough teams it doesn't shake out completely but as they get older the scores more accurately reflect where each team sits. Well except when they implode but are able to keep their points but the better players are gone, still shakes out quickly when they get spanked though.

Suppose you have 15 teams, all in the same geographic region...let's just say new england and surrounding areas. 5 of those teams are stellar, 5 are pretty good, 5 are about average.

Starting at u11, or whenever gotsoccer starts maintaining points, those teams REGULARLY play each other in local/regional gotsoccer tournaments, sometimes twice per month or more. They RARELY leave the region to play other tournaments, and win/lose or draw - they keep playing each other.

Before long, every one  of those 15 teams will have a very high gotsoccer points rating, and eventually, nearly every local tournament this group enters now receives MAX flight values for their gotsoccer points. Because they kept playing each other locally, it keeps feeding itself.

This is how teams can end up with a top 10 gotsoccer ranking, but their W/L record shows they only win about half their games. I've seen mid-level east coast tournaments where BOTH the top flight and the B flight had 10,000 pt flight values (which is the max), both of which were higher than even surf cup. The competition in one of these events we attended wasn't comparable to surf, and in fact the champion of that tournament's top flight was at the time the #1 gotsoccer team in the nation, but they didn't get out of bracket at surf a few months later.  Not that they weren't a quality team, they were...but their parents were under the impression they were the #1 team in the country because gotsoccer said so.    They would've been about a top 6 or so in D1 Lake Highlands, but would have had real problems with the NTX top 3.

Gotsoccer does get more accurate towards U13, when some of those top tier teams do start hitting the national tourneys to see where they stack up...but it goes to pot again at u14 because ECNL events do not use gotsoccer.

The terrific thing about gotsoccer is keeps the record of most team's body of work. If you see a team with 80% win rate, and see in their history they're playing tough comp, be assured that team is the real deal. If you see a team with a 60% win rate, hardly any gotsoccer points, but  notice they're only losing when playing boys or playing up, and when they do play same gender at age they have great results, that team is ALSO likely to be very strong...regardless what their gotsoccer ranking says.

Last year, having seen quality teams from all over the country in 2014, IMO the top team at U13 ('01s), by a wide margin, was Michigan Hawks. They lost the national championship final in PKs to San Diego surf, but they were clearly the stronger team. Surf was and is still a great team, but hawks were in another class and were a bit unlucky in the final. So you have Michigan hawks - arguably the BEST team in the nation, and they weren't ranked in the top 100 by gotsoccer.

There are great teams with great gotsoccer rankings, but there are also gotsoccer paper tigers as well as some great teams w/o many gotsoccer points at all.

A few of our NTX teams got first hand experience with some of those lowly ranked gotsoccer teams.