What I don't understand is why we all can't root for each other. If someone is happy at Blitz be happy for them and wish them well, If someone loves a coach at TSC support them. I probably watched 6-8 WSA games this year and cheered like I had a kid on the team. Seem's like most people had an issue with a coach or director, etc. and holds it against the whole club. It's the kids that make up the club. I would root for any Tulsa team not playing against 2013 GA. How many people have worn 2+ Jersey's in their youth career? I see games where TSC plays Blitz and the girls are hugging after the game but parents are talking crap. I posted a pic when we announced Scheels and intentionally had 4 kids who are all friends representing 3 different clubs (and ODP). because I believe it's bigger than the patch on the jersey. People can bash the other clubs or playing platforms but they all give kids an opportunity to play. It's really disgusting to be honest.
Youth soccer club
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What about people who feel they have been screwed over by an owner of a club? While those people are never justified holding that animosity against the kids in said club, I do understand having a negative feeling toward the club itself. Unfortunately, that list is quite long.
I personally hope 2013g GA win the GA championship next year. Great pub for Tulsa soccer. I also acknowledge that it will be almost impossible to have broad success in both GA and ECNL for the Tulsa area due to the lack of quality players.
I’m not sure one can take much from comparing team records in Texas league ECNL and GA. The competition level is just so different. I do believe looking at the results from WSA NL this year and comparing them to last season is a valid metric. Although probably not completely fair to WSA as those girls development (or lack thereof) came from TSC. If three years from now the WSA NL teams have comparable records to the historic records of the TSC NL teams we can agree it’s an overall talent issue and not a single club issue.
Please give us game and season reports. Most of us are cheering for your girls.
Like I told the person that text me with a screenshot of one of my posts here: I’m only talking about our experience with the club. I’m not bashing them or trying to be malicious. I’ve said good things about TSC and even individuals at TSC. I have friends who have kids on your team, on the GA 12s, etc. I’ve said here: I hope TSC finds the success they want in GA.
As far as I can tell, you and maybe one other person are the only posters here that continually bring up last season’s NL records and talking about which age group at which club is better. Win / loss ultimately matters, but there’s also a lot of context that’s missing when we talk about that stuff.
Again: I hope your daughter’s team and the 12s and whoever find all their success they want. But not going to stop talking about my experience with any club, whether it be TSC, WSA, whoever.
Talking about the 12's and the 08's record isn't talking bad about a club or a team. It's more about ECNL Texas. Just about any other division that's a different story completely. The mix of WSA 12'a and TSC's should really help. Maybe coaching will be better...... It's still ECNL Texas that gets the best players from Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Louisiana. etc. Girls more than boys want to win. ECNL and GA aren't the same level. But remember ECNL Boys only a few short years ago was the top level also..........
@ScheelSC I think your goal of building a stronger community spirit is a good one, and honestly, it seems like a lot of folks in the community want the same thing. That said, to @lawpoke87’s point, it’s not as simple as “can’t we all just get along?”
Expecting people to just unify, given the history, the club politics, and the constant change in the landscape, isn’t realistic in my opinion. But maybe the answer isn’t in hoping for unity, but in building it, intentionally, piece by piece.
What strikes me from reading through this thread is how much agreement there actually is around what needs to happen:
- More competitive teams that can represent the region well
- Better collaboration between clubs, not constant turf wars
- Referees and coaches who feel safe and supported
- Coaching systems and methods that aren’t all over the place
- Transparency around tryouts, team movement, and league structure
- Accountability for coaches, parents, or leaders who clearly aren’t aligned with core values
- And seriously addressing the pay-to-play dynamics that price kids out
I guess my point is this: going off of last years results to predict the future results after such a huge shake up doesn't make sense to me.
It wasn't that long ago that TSC was competitive in TX. We don't know what this new season looks like.
"Future telling" is a cognitive distortion that I think we all deal with at some point. It's important to remember that just because something was one way, doesn't mean it will always be that way.
The #1 objective imo to build competitive teams in Tulsa is keeping the best girls playing here and not in OKC, Dallas or KC. If we can solve that problem the quality of our area top teams will dramatically improve. Now solving that issue involves many of the points you brought up. The Tulsa area 09s, 10s and 11s would all field competitive teams if all those girls were still playing locally. Can WSA do a better job of keeping those top girls playing local? We’re about to find out
I don't know how people do rankings.
It can be a function of if you get stuff in gotsport. It is ridiculous measure since every game is not in there.
I only use it to look up results.
Download the soccer ball app and use those rankings. They’re not perfect but are fairly accurate especially once you get to the competitive level. Every game played on the ECNL and GA platforms are included as well as showcases and tournaments. They do occasionally miss games played at the academy level but imo are by far the best set of rankings out there.
Has had all of our games for last 2 years. The app doesn't know if you have injuries or players out etc. It just know's who you have played and the scores. The prediction part of the app can be crazy close a lot of times. App doesn't keep track of friendlies. Almost every tournament uses it for bracketing.
It also uses a weighted formula which gives more weight to recent games. It’s remarkably accurate on the whole.
One of my beefs with ECNL is they solely use your league record in determining seeding at nationals. Thus the teams in the Texas conference and west coast conferences are underrated due to the difficulty of those leagues.
Yes, this app has been very accurate in my experience, much better than anything else I've seen.
Are these GotSoccer rankings because if so, those are pretty terrible and arbitrary and record results that might not even be relevant to the ranking
They are not. To say GotSoccer rankings are terrible is being too kind. They are downright worthless. Download the soccer ball rankings app. Those are pretty legit
GotSoccer #1 2010 girls team is the Ocean Rebels. A rec plus club from the best I can tell. Just fyi
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Totally agree that keeping top players local is key to building competitive teams. But I’m not sure any one club--WSA or otherwise--can solve that alone. What we’re dealing with is a system-level issue: talent gets fragmented across clubs, age groups, and now even cities. Until we have some kind of regional collaboration or shared development model--maybe even community-driven governance or parent-led accountability--we’re always going to be out-recruited by bigger markets. The talent is here. We just need a better system to support it. 🤔
Those clubs aren’t making much off of DP or travel kids due to the club waiving or significantly reducing club fees for those players
It is about attracting players for second, third or fourth teams. Or in OEFC teams 14 teams
Do you think people are driving to Dallas or OKC from Tulsa to play on a second, third or fourth team?
NPL Cup regional this weekend at Mohawk. I have 2 games to ref on Saturday, 1 I get to do with my son, so a nice Father's Day "gift" for me to be able to do that. Weather looks like there could be some rain but otherwise hot. I expect we'll get some hydration breaks built in. Hopefully they do it like the national tournament last year where every game, regardless of the temp when it kicked took 2 hydration breaks per half, even the indoor games. I asked why and they reasoned so every team played roughly the same number of minutes on the field and that the potential for goal differential to be impacted by 2 teams taking a break and 2 not was minimized by that. Made sense to me and I'm gonna suggest it to the ref assignor to pass along to the tournament committee.
My son has a bunch of games this weekend. I'm getting fewer, but that's fine by me.
My son has a bunch of games this weekend. I'm getting fewer, but that's fine by me.
I’ve never seen two hydration breaks per half. Even down here in Texas where the heat is brutal in August. Interesting
The biggest issue is EGOs of parents. They think their kid is a top level player...club disagrees. They go from TSC 2nd team to Blitz top team. Blitz top team keeps her because they want her parents' $. TSC was notorious for taking kids from other clubs and promising them top team to get their $ in the mix although a good number of them weren't really top team talent. TSC rolled the dice that their 2nd and 3rd team players would just stay. I'm pretty sure it's the same at all the local clubs....merry go round of mommy and daddy's money going from club to club looking for a top team spot even if that means playing 10 minutes a game. Clubs scream about development but never actually lay that out as to what that actually looks like for lower team players. The goal of every club should be working to get those lower level players to be top level quality and if the kid (and the parents) are willing to commit the time and effort to that development, there should be path to the top team for those kids. But, and we probably have all experienced it, that is rarely the case. Those kids on the lower teams are forgotten about until they want to move clubs...then you've got club directors and coaches calling and asking why.
USYS Regionals in Plano, USYS Nationals in Wichita both had 2 per half last summer.
Beat the Heat in Edmond almost always ends up with 2 per half by the end of Saturday. But then again, the last 2 years the heat has won as they canceled finals and the tournaments were settled via PKs.
I’ve talked to parents of young players at length about this subject. Primarily because most people know my daughter started out as the last player on the bench on the third team at Blitz.
There are several things working against a kid moving up teams within a club. You pointed out the first one…..money. The club can increase revenue by bringing new kids into the fold. Often this requires playing them on a higher level team in order to get them to move clubs. Current players are often taken for granted.
The other thing working against moving up (especially as the kids get older) is the top team players are training and playing against a better caliber of kids. Top team kids also usually play and train more and often have superior coaching. This leads to the gap between say the NL and RL-Frontier conference kid growing every year. Without a lot of outside training or a kid who is just a plus athlete, the advantages the top team player has are often just too great to overcome. It’s an unfair system.
It does kind of suck. I guess it is "unfair." Iron kind of sharpens iron.
There is not perfect fix for this. They just have to improve through whatever way and move up. It is harder to move up as you get older.
From the really younger levels as I have seen , it goes back to desire to work, parents experience, attention span, ability, coordination, experience with soccer, and who they play with. The top kids at the younger ages are also just more agressive, more technical and understand the speed of play.
It is a lot of things. I see kids come from Metro and the YMCA who thought they were pretty good come and get an education and not really improve. Then I have seen them come and improve a lot.
But even inside of there. kids sometimes get discouraged because they are the best kid on the second team and the top is full or has a kid or two that needs to be moved down. The kid can get discouraged or jealous because they get pounded. Then the parents gets mad and starts talking endless noise because something didn't happen the exact right way immediately.
This is something Barry always promised parents and players on the 2nd, 3rd, and so forth teams. 1-2x per month, full age group trainings with the entire age group. Plan was for the ECNL coaches to lead those training sessions so they could see kids in the club, maybe correct some things, and then you see how those kids compete against the upper tier kids. Hell, the few times my son's team would go up against the RL team, they usually thumped the crap out of them. Those lower kids have something to prove. Anyway, those age group trainings never actually happened at least as intended because the ECNL players were told to stay home so you didn't have parents or lower coaches questioning why x was on that team when y,z, aa, bb, cc were all clearly better, more athletic, etc.
The girls side was handled a little different. A few of the top RL girls were given the option of a training a week with NL. These NL trainings typically didn’t last long as the NL girls typically weren’t very welcoming and when game prep started the RL girls were usually cast aside for obvious reasons.
I could see why issues would arise in the boys side having top team play the 2s or 2s play the 3s. The girls side doesn’t have the kind of depth where those games would be overly competitive unlike the boys
We have several academy age local teams competing in SuperCopa this week.
From today:
Joao’s Blitz 2015 girls tied 4-4
Waylon’s WSA 2014 girls won 3-1
Good luck to both these teams
From today:
Joao’s Blitz 2015 girls tied 4-4
Waylon’s WSA 2014 girls won 3-1
Good luck to both these teams
Just saw a post where a girls team (2011) was just disqualified for the ECNL playoffs for roster violations 2 weeks before the tournament begins.
Damn. You know what club? So ECNL start making calls trying to fill that spot?
Feel bad for those girls. Not their fault they have a corrupt win at all cost coach
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