Classic Scores Apr 14-15

DTFW 1 Solar 0
Heard FWFC over FCD Gold
Heard DTR 1 IE 1
Looked like FCD Central over Tigres

TFC Blue 1
Thapheuala 0

FWFC 3
FCDG 2

TFC Royal 3 - Andro Gold 1

D2

DTRW 1
Rayados 0

RytMid wrote:DTFW 1 Solar 0
Heard FWFC over FCD Gold
Heard DTR 1 IE 1
Looked like FCD Central over Tigres

You heard correct 1-1 DTR-IE
FCDB 2-1 AR
FCDC 4-1 Tigres

RytMid wrote:DTFW 1 Solar 0
Heard FWFC over FCD Gold
Heard DTR 1 IE 1
Looked like FCD Central over Tigres

Way to go DTFW!

Lightning 1
Millenium 0

Dallas Texans Red South 2
DFW Tejanos 1

FCD Silver 2 Solar Gold 0

TFC Blue 3
FCD West Texas 1

Lightning 5
North Texas 1

Andro Gold 1 - TFC 0

Congrats to the Andro boys who picked up their first win of the season, outlasting two lightning delays and a disallowed goal for TFC on a free kick that was taken before the referee was ready for play. This has been a tough, tough season for Andro, taking a group of boys who had never played together or at this level and trying to make them into a team. They have gotten steadily better over the season and did very well today.

DTRS 1 - 2 TFCR

two goals in last 10min for TFCR

hoff1032 wrote:Andro Gold 1 - TFC 0

Congrats to the Andro boys who picked up their first win of the season, outlasting two lightning delays and a disallowed goal for TFC on a free kick that was taken before the referee was ready for play. This has been a tough, tough season for Andro, taking a group of boys who had never played together or at this level and trying to make them into a team. They have gotten steadily better over the season and did very well today.

I am sure the help of the pre academy players has nothing to do with your win today. But for sure you started the game ready to play whereas TFC was asleep and took advantage.

The German wrote:

hoff1032 wrote:Andro Gold 1 - TFC 0

Congrats to the Andro boys who picked up their first win of the season, outlasting two lightning delays and a disallowed goal for TFC on a free kick that was taken before the referee was ready for play. This has been a tough, tough season for Andro, taking a group of boys who had never played together or at this level and trying to make them into a team. They have gotten steadily better over the season and did very well today.

I am sure the help of the pre academy players has nothing to do with your win today. But for sure you started the game ready to play whereas TFC was asleep and took advantage.

The two pre academy players have been playing with Andro since late in the Fall, and yes, of course they helped them in the same way that the addition of two quality players would help ANY team. They shouldn't have to apologize for that. Andro has two other players they have added to the team (one of whom was injured today and did not play) that have also helped, along with the boys learining to play together as a team. And it's not like Andro has won every game since the pre academy players joined the team; this was their first league win of any kind since the team joined D2.

I don't think it is a coincidence that Andro's lone win and one of their two ties have come against TFC. Nor is it a coincidence that TFC did not score a single goal (that counted anyway) against Andromeda in two matches. Some teams just create matchup problems for other teams. Either that, or TFC looked at Andro's record coming into each game and took them too lightly. And to clarify, the 0-0 tie the two teams had in the Fall came WITHOUT the two pre academy players. No need to hate, TG, just give Andro the credit it deserves.

The German wrote:

hoff1032 wrote:Andro Gold 1 - TFC 0

Congrats to the Andro boys who picked up their first win of the season, outlasting two lightning delays and a disallowed goal for TFC on a free kick that was taken before the referee was ready for play. This has been a tough, tough season for Andro, taking a group of boys who had never played together or at this level and trying to make them into a team. They have gotten steadily better over the season and did very well today.

I am sure the help of the pre academy players has nothing to do with your win today. But for sure you started the game ready to play whereas TFC was asleep and took advantage.

Im not too sure Andromeda's PA players make that much of a difference

omega striker wrote:

The German wrote:

hoff1032 wrote:Andro Gold 1 - TFC 0

Congrats to the Andro boys who picked up their first win of the season, outlasting two lightning delays and a disallowed goal for TFC on a free kick that was taken before the referee was ready for play. This has been a tough, tough season for Andro, taking a group of boys who had never played together or at this level and trying to make them into a team. They have gotten steadily better over the season and did very well today.

I am sure the help of the pre academy players has nothing to do with your win today. But for sure you started the game ready to play whereas TFC was asleep and took advantage.

Im not too sure Andromeda's PA players make that much of a difference

I think both players are really good and as hoff said any team would be better with them, no doubt. Hoff I am not hating at all, especially towards those two boys. What I don't like is the system here. PA was started to give the more serious or better player a league where they can compete every week and get prepared for DA. This by itself is a whole different topic. I don't think anybody had in mind that PA players will play "down" (no disrespect to your team) in order to try to keep a bye in CL. The double roster idea was for players that might need more time to also play in D1 unless you don't have a team in D1. Fact is you did put the ball in the net and we didn't therefore you won. Congrats. Now we could discuss who had more shots or hit the crossbar/post more often which is useless at this point IMO. Good luck for the remainder of the season.

Thanks German. No disrespect taken with the playing down comment. I think by definition any PA player who plays for any CL team would be "playing down".

I don't think the addition of these players was intended to try and keep our CL bye, nor was it intended to be a permanent solution. We'll still be in CL next season regardless of what happens this season. It was pretty clear from the get-go that Andro Gold was a notch or two below the rest of the D2 teams. You can look at their Fall results and tell that. The addition of these two players is a result of the fact that the team had a couple of open roster spots, there were a couple of PA players who clearly love to play the game, and the team needed a boost just to be in the same competitive neighborhood as the rest of D2. Who likes to get blown out 5-0 and 7-2 every weekend?

As a parent, I welcomed the PA players because their play is a great example to our boys. It gives them something to aspire to, because those players lead by example out on the field. I believe all our boys are improving their play and their confidence level because of the PA players. It also gives the coach more flexibility to put players in different positions and roles, a flexibility he would not have had otherwise. In other words, there is more player DEVELOPMENT, which I hear debated quite a bit on this site.

Our season was too far gone to hope to remain in D2 next season. But that is a good thing IMO. I think we will be much more competitive in D3, and I look forward to the drop in division next year. In the meantime, I can't see how this experiment can be classified as wrong or a misuse of "the system" by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe you could argue the merits of such a move in another situation, but in ours I think it is working beautifully.

hoff1032 wrote:Thanks German. No disrespect taken with the playing down comment. I think by definition any PA player who plays for any CL team would be "playing down".

I don't think the addition of these players was intended to try and keep our CL bye, nor was it intended to be a permanent solution. We'll still be in CL next season regardless of what happens this season. It was pretty clear from the get-go that Andro Gold was a notch or two below the rest of the D2 teams. You can look at their Fall results and tell that. The addition of these two players is a result of the fact that the team had a couple of open roster spots, there were a couple of PA players who clearly love to play the game, and the team needed a boost just to be in the same competitive neighborhood as the rest of D2. Who likes to get blown out 5-0 and 7-2 every weekend?

As a parent, I welcomed the PA players because their play is a great example to our boys. It gives them something to aspire to, because those players lead by example out on the field. I believe all our boys are improving their play and their confidence level because of the PA players. It also gives the coach more flexibility to put players in different positions and roles, a flexibility he would not have had otherwise. In other words, there is more player DEVELOPMENT, which I hear debated quite a bit on this site.

Our season was too far gone to hope to remain in D2 next season. But that is a good thing IMO. I think we will be much more competitive in D3, and I look forward to the drop in division next year. In the meantime, I can't see how this experiment can be classified as wrong or a misuse of "the system" by any stretch of the imagination. Maybe you could argue the merits of such a move in another situation, but in ours I think it is working beautifully.

Just curious, but are you saying you will be more competitive in D3 than you were in D2. Do you think the teams in D3 are not as good or better than the teams in D2? From what i have seen over the years in this age group, once you remove the top team from D1, the rest of the teams in D1, D2, and D3 would be very competitive on any given day. You regularly see D3 teams beating D1 and D2 teams in tournaments, so if that is your logic, i think you will be very surprised next season on how good the D3 teams actually are. Just my thoughts.

My assumption was that, from top to bottom, D1 is better than D2, which is better than D3, which is better than Plano/Arlington. I don't think I'm too far off base in making that assumption. I know this to be the case within our own division. When we play the top two or three teams, we have virtually no chance to win. But when we play the middle or bottom of the division we at least have a fighting chance.

I'd be interested to know how "regularly" those types of results happen where a D3 team beats a middle or top-level D2 or D1 team. I think most any D3 team that would play Andro Gold today would have a pretty good shot at winning, but then again, I don't really consider that an upset based on our level of play. But that would fit your definition of "D3 beating D2". Plus, in tournaments teams can utilize guest players, so there's no telling how their level of play might be affected for the better. There is clearly not much difference between a top D3 team and a bottom D2 team because CL chooses to move those teams up and down each year.

I think more to your point, I meant no disrespect to any past, present or future D3 team. After all, we'll be there next year. The D3 teams are typically very hungry because they had to earn their way into CL over the course of one or more seasons of qualifying.

In general i agree, however this year I believe in the 97 group that D3 is at least as good as the D2 teams with the exception of TFC Royal. Just my observation from the last 8 months.

The German wrote:In general i agree, however this year I believe in the 97 group that D3 is at least as good as the D2 teams with the exception of TFC Royal. Just my observation from the last 8 months.

Not sure about how regular the D3 teams win over D2 teams but I agree that this year, D3 is very competitive. I know NTX Stikers, who is in 6th in D3, beat Dallas Texans Red South (9th in D2) 2 weeks ago in a tournament.

D3 is separated from top to bottom by 17 points. This is the lowest spead in all of boys soccer so far this year. Most are separated by 30 points or more and 97b D2 is separated by 40 points. Not many teams are sitting on 17 points with 2 games to go and still worried about the challenge games, but 1/2 of the teams in D3 are still fighting to stay out of the bottom 2 and we have 2 games left. It's make for a pretty exciting year.

I concur that there is a lot of parity in D3 this season. It is pretty unusual to have so many teams in the bottom half of any division be that close in points. Teams 6-10 are separated by just three points at the moment.

But the NTX Strikers win over DT Red South you referenced is not a remarkable win. It just proves the point I made that there's not much difference between a top D3 team (or in this year, ANY D3 team) and a bottom D2 team. That's why they promote/relegate. In fact, the promotion/relegation means that in Classic League's eyes the top D3 teams are better than the bottom D2 teams.

Show me a significant number of wins by D3 over the top half of D2 or any D1 team and I'll be both surprised and impressed.