Classic QT

Can anyone explain how the qualifying tournament works? I know there will be 40 teams, and 2 rounds. So after the first round, do the top 20 make it to Division 1, and the rest go to Division 2? Why is there 2 rounds? Any info will be much appreciated.

Round 1, all teams will be seeded into 10 brackets.  The top 2 finishers in each bracket form D1 (20 teams).  The 3rd place finisher in each bracket form the 1st 10 in D2.  All of those teams are done at that point.

Round 2, the remaining teams (last year it was 18) have a 2nd round robin and the winner of each bracket forms the remaining 10 teams in D2.  I don't remember if there is any shuffling of brackets/re-seeding for round 2.  

Needless to say, the seeding of the QT is a huge deal.  Typically your locked in 1 seeds won't be very active during tourney season, I'm guessing FCD-Red, Texans-Red, etc.. are only playing Super Copa.  For those teams that are trying to improve their seeding, they'll be much more active.  The King Tut tourney is a seeding Tourney for QT (Not sure if that's official or unofficial).  And is the last impression for the seeding committee.

Socceropath wrote:Round 1, all teams will be seeded into 10 brackets.  The top 2 finishers in each bracket form D1 (20 teams).  The 3rd place finisher in each bracket form the 1st 10 in D2.  All of those teams are done at that point.

Round 2, the remaining teams (last year it was 18) have a 2nd round robin and the winner of each bracket forms the remaining 10 teams in D2.  I don't remember if there is any shuffling of brackets/re-seeding for round 2.  

Needless to say, the seeding of the QT is a huge deal.  Typically your locked in 1 seeds won't be very active during tourney season, I'm guessing FCD-Red, Texans-Red, etc.. are only playing Super Copa.  For those teams that are trying to improve their seeding, they'll be much more active.  The King Tut tourney is a seeding Tourney for QT (Not sure if that's official or unofficial).  And is the last impression for the seeding committee.

Yes, this is how it was last year. I believe it was the bracket winner plus 2 wild cards. Our team went in unranked and it was TOUGH. We played against 3 killer Solar teams. I would do whatever you can to participate in the seeding tournaments...that seemed to give teams a huge advantage with the brackets/seeding.

Seeding is crucial. You want to be a "1" seed in a bracket if possible. I have seen teams not doing well, but playing Gold division tournaments seeded higher than teams smoking the Silver division. Act like a Gold level team if you want to be seeded like a Gold level team.

Historically, seeding is done in a snake method

A 1 20 21 40
B 2 19 22 39
C 3 18 23 38
D 4 17 24 37
E 5 16 25 36
F 6 15 26 35
G 7 14 27 34
H 8 13 28 33
I 9 12 29 32
J 10 11 30 31

Average ranking of every bracket is equal but the average of the teams after the top seed in every bracket get higher as you go down the brackets. So the #1 seed plays teams ranked at an average of 27 while the #10 seed plays teams ranked at an average of 24.

As TayJ6 noted, rankings are crucial going into the QT if your goal is to get into D1.

Socceropath wrote:Round 1, all teams will be seeded into 10 brackets.  The top 2 finishers in each bracket form D1 (20 teams).  The 3rd place finisher in each bracket form the 1st 10 in D2.  All of those teams are done at that point.

If they will seed the teams into 10 brackets and assuming at least 50-60 teams will be trying to qualify, that will be 5-6 teams per bracket? A lot of games in round 1.

I wonder if they are going to use YSR as seeding source or playing/opponents history? 
 
Besides FCD Red, Texans Red, Solar McKinney, who else for sure has a #1 seed locked

Dybala21 wrote:

Socceropath wrote:Round 1, all teams will be seeded into 10 brackets.  The top 2 finishers in each bracket form D1 (20 teams).  The 3rd place finisher in each bracket form the 1st 10 in D2.  All of those teams are done at that point.

If they will seed the teams into 10 brackets and assuming at least 50-60 teams will be trying to qualify, that will be 5-6 teams per bracket? A lot of games in round 1.

I wonder if they are going to use YSR as seeding source or playing/opponents history? 
 
Besides FCD Red, Texans Red, Solar McKinney, who else for sure has a #1 seed locked

YSR may be used though typically the coaches are consulted and Classic League does the seeding themselves.

The biggest problem with YSR is that it's effectively a moving average, it measures performance over the past year (potentially more) and while it likely gives more weight to more recent games, it moves rankings far more slowly than might otherwise be the case. Classic League will give far more weight to recent performance based on how they've ranked teams in the past.

[quote="Dybala21 
Besides FCD Red, Texans Red, Solar McKinney, who else for sure has a #1 seed locked[/quote]

And this brings us back to the "Top 10" discussion. Yes this is 9/10yr old soccer and rankings are an inexact science at best but the reality is whoever the QT seeding committee decides is the "Top 10" get a distinct advantage. I think we can safely put 7 teams in that group today.

in no order:
FCD
Texans-Red
Texans-Gold (PST)
Rush
Solar McKinney
Elite
LP Owen

All of these teams have demonstrated a level of excellence over a substantial period of time.

I think you can list another 6-8 teams that are in the discussion for the final 3 spots, the next 6 weeks of tourney play can/will have a significant impact on the committee:

Dallas Rebels
Solar Kennington
Solar Volkan
Allegiance
Ayses
ETX Wildcatters
Texans White
FCD Blue

Any others I'm missing here??

I largely agree with this approach....my only change would be that I think I'd put Owen in the 2nd tier of teams needing to "earn" a #1 seed. A few fringe teams in group 2 as well - although last 6 weeks and some roster reshuffling could definitely lead to some shake up.

Here is a thought...Which club will have the most teams in D1 this Fall? The obvious candidates are Texans, Solar, maybe FCD. FCD could have more teams in D1 if all their talent wasn't so concentrated. But they way it sits now, all 3 have 4 fairly solid candidates for D1...

FCD - Premier Red, Premier Blue, Che, ETX
Solar - McKinney, Volkan, Kennington, Oglesby
Texans - Red, Salazar, White, South

I'm not a believer in the revamped Texans South yet, but other than that I'd agree with your list.

I don't see any outside the big 3 placing more than 1 team. But at any rate placing at least 8 independents in D1 seems pretty high to me. Wonder how that stacks up historically? Its even more notable since the AP split seemed to favor the bigger clubs. By comparison, the '06s had 7 teams from only 6 independent clubs (Celtic had 2).

Texans South's future depends on their star forward who is splitting time with Solar McKinney. They played in the Dallas Open in the Silver Division without him and got absolutely crushed.

Other than them, I would also agree with TayJ6's list.

I must be really bored at work today lol
Hypothetical speaking, based from YSR and assuming it'll be 50 teams trying to qualify, this is how brackets would look like today 
(Some of the teams might not even try to qualify but this is how it's ranked at the moment)

A- FCD Red / FCD Che / FC Fast / FCD Predator / Dallas Kicks 

B- Texans Salazar/ Celtic Shirley / Leon FC Red / Liverpool Heigway / NTX United 

C- Texans Red / FCD ETX / Fever United / FCD Ekeme / Liverpool Rush 

D- Solar McKinney/ Solar Oglesby / DI Stars FC / Rayos Martinez / Juventud Academy

E- Dallas Rush / Allegiance Black / Tigres Gold / Jacksonville FC / Stars and Stripes

F- Elite United / AYSES / Texans South / Liverpool St John / Texas Lightning 

G- Rebels / FC Legends / Dallas TNT / Solar McKinneyCarey /Hurts United Red  

H- Liverpool Owen / FCD Blue / FCD Vincent / Liverpool Carragher / León FC Chapito

I- ETX Wildcatters / Texans White / Frisco Pirates /Hurts United / FCD ETX Garcia

J- Solar Volkan / Solar Kennington / Fort Worth FC / Tigres Salcedo / NTX Rayados

Here's a list of teams not in the top 50 yet but that might try to make it based on some of the coaches having 06B teams in Classic 

- FCD Adrian
- Solar Juliao
- Celtic Minnis
- Elite United White 
- Athletico Epanol 

Mentions 
-Colleyview Evolution 
- FCD Mbemba
- Dallas Rush White
- Solar Kennedy 
- LBK FC Patton

Nicely done Dybala!

Next question is for a team on the bubble (18-22)teams...would you rather sneak in to D1 or drop to D2?

Likely D1 scenario: 2017/2018 record 2-14-3, 19th place, relegation to D2.

Likely D2 scenario: 2017/2018 record 15-2-2, 1st place, promotion to D1.

I think you would rather be D2, and promote to D1 next year as the top teams and players are exiting for DA. That way, you might be able to make a splash in D1.
Having said that, in reality, logic probably goes out the window in favor of being able to say your team made D1.

the bottom 10 teams in D1 spend the fall getting clobbered by the top teams. the fate of the bottom 3 or 4 teams could be determined by goal differentials, whether they lost 5 - 0 as opposed to 8 - 0 to the top teams.

If you are a tip 10 team and have done a good job of playing many games and tourneys in spring and summer, does it make since to just skip the King Tut?

If you are happy with your teams resume from the summer, then sure. No one has to play it, it has just become the last big tournament before QT...and the first big tournament after signing day, which cuts down on a lot of the open guest playing.

You would rather sneak into D1.  That way, even if you finish in last, you are still playing Classic League the next year.   If you are in D2, there is no guarantee that you will finish in the top four to stay in Classic League.  If you ask the sixteen teams that are trying to requalify for Classic League, I bet they would say that they wish they had snuck into D1.

Classic League/Select question:

How big of a roster do teams typically have?

Should a red flag go up if it goes past a certain number?

Minimum in Classic League for u11-u12 is 12, maximum is 16. I think 13 is pretty normal if you have players that consistently show up. 14 is the high side of normal. Any more than that and you get a lot of bench time for the bottom few players.

Independents may carry a couple more kids, just in case...Since bigger clubs can "Player Pass" a kid to the team if they have injury problems or something similar, they don't need the bigger roster. They will just move them down a team so they get more playing time and call them up later, if needed.

As noted 12-14 is pretty typical. 12 is probably ideal but doesn't give you much depth and ability to deal with a player or two being sick or absent for some other reason, it also limits what a coach can do in practice to some degree.

4 of the current top 15 teams are carrying 14 and one of them 15.

When we met our coach a month or so before signing the contract we were told by both the coach and the manager that they would only sign 12 or 13 players at most. It's my fault for not taking a headcount at signing day but the coach decided to sign 15. As soon as I realize they'd signed 15 I knew I'd been misled. In the winter the coach decided to sign a 16th player.

16 players for a 9-player field. We had excellent commitment from the families so it was very common for us to have 7 players on the bench.

When the 16th player was signed we deeply regretted our decision to trust that coach for his word. We should never have signed with them. We learned a hard lesson last year about how some youth coaches perceive their role.

We had 4 boys that literally averaged <15 minutes per game for the year. Thankfully my son wasn't one of them.

At this age the goal for your BB should be development, not winning and $$$. The coach may be good but the game is the best teacher. With 15 or 16 players on a 9-player field, there's simply not enough time during games to keep every player happy and developing. My advice... If your potential coach wants to sign >14 players (or might consider going >14 players after signing day) I would sign elsewhere.