Plano Labor Day 97 Boys

I am sure there will be usual supsects applying for this tournament but curious what teams already know that they will be applying for this tournament.

hoosier41 wrote:I am sure there will be usual supsects applying for this tournament but curious what teams already know that they will be applying for this tournament.

Probably just the usual suspects...

The U16 Boys Age Group accepted teams are listed in alphabetical order.
1 97 LOBOS RUSH BLUE
2 ALLIANCE UNITED FC ALLIANCE UNITED 97B
3 AMARILLO LIGHTNING SC 97B
4 ANDROMEDA FC - U15 PRE-ACADEMY
5 ANDROMEDA FC 97B RED
6 ARKANSAS COMETS FC 98B PREMIER
7 BARCELONA BLUE 97B
8 CANADIAN VALLEY FC 97 RED
9 CATOOSA UNITED 97 CANNONS
10 COPPELL FC 97B
11 CSC FURY 97
12 DALLAS TIGRES ACADEMY 97B
13 DYNAMOS SELECT SOCCER DYNAMOS 96/97B-GOLD
14 FC DALLAS WTX 97 BOYS
15 FC DALLAS YOUTH 97B BLUE
16 HOUSTON EXPRESS 97B NAVY
17 HURST UNITED FC 97B BLACK
18 INFINITYFC INFINITY FC 97 BOYS
19 MEJA CLARK 97 BOYS
20 MEJA FRISCO 97 BOYS
21 NYSA CELTIC 97 GREEN
22 OCSA LIVERPOOL UNITED97
23 RAYADOS DE DALLAS 97B
24 SOLAR CHELSEA 97B RED
25 SOUTH LAKES COSMOS 97 BLUE
26 TFC97B WHITE
27 TUSC BLITZ-THUNDER UNITED 97 BOYS BLACK
28 TUSC BLITZ-THUNDER UNITED 97 BOYS NAVY

socmom97 wrote:1 97 LOBOS RUSH BLUE
2 ALLIANCE UNITED FC ALLIANCE UNITED 97B
3 AMARILLO LIGHTNING SC 97B
4 ANDROMEDA FC - U15 PRE-ACADEMY
5 ANDROMEDA FC 97B RED
6 ARKANSAS COMETS FC 98B PREMIER
7 BARCELONA BLUE 97B
8 CANADIAN VALLEY FC 97 RED
9 CATOOSA UNITED 97 CANNONS
10 COPPELL FC 97B
11 CSC FURY 97
12 DALLAS TIGRES ACADEMY 97B
13 DYNAMOS SELECT SOCCER DYNAMOS 96/97B-GOLD
14 FC DALLAS WTX 97 BOYS
15 FC DALLAS YOUTH 97B BLUE
16 HOUSTON EXPRESS 97B NAVY
17 HURST UNITED FC 97B BLACK
18 INFINITYFC INFINITY FC 97 BOYS
19 MEJA CLARK 97 BOYS
20 MEJA FRISCO 97 BOYS
21 NYSA CELTIC 97 GREEN
22 OCSA LIVERPOOL UNITED97
23 RAYADOS DE DALLAS 97B
24 SOLAR CHELSEA 97B RED
25 SOUTH LAKES COSMOS 97 BLUE
26 TFC97B WHITE
27 TUSC BLITZ-THUNDER UNITED 97 BOYS BLACK
28 TUSC BLITZ-THUNDER UNITED 97 BOYS NAVY

Definitely not the usual suspects!! Looks to be a great tournament line-up

Where the heck is IE... I mean ETX. This tournament must not be as big as Puma Cup or Summer Classic. This is one you should be in. If you bring home a title and only get 600 points for it, then it was one weak tournament teams wise. Not saying Plano Labor Day is that strong compared to years past, but there are enough good teams to give ETX some competition.

Re: Where is ETX?

fair criticism if a little snarky. It would be a great test for the squad. A couple of markers to watch to gauge relative strength. The Better Solar Red does or CSC Fury (LA) does then you could at least infer some parity there (I am not in the ETX is the next anything camp) We will travel to LA in early September for the CSC Classic and to Jackson, MS in October to face the better MS and TN teams. Budget constraints keep us to about one tourney a month but I agree in theory that a good showing in Plano would have bolstered our "perceived" relative strength (point totals not withstanding)

now the one part of your post I will disagree with is the assertion that the "600 points" we brought home from the Summer Classic was someone indicative of a weak tourney. We scheduled that because last year the flight value in U-15 was over 3000 points, this year some late dropouts reduced the flight value to 1000 points. Why then did we get only 600+ simple Got Soccer "handicaps" its scoring so you take a 20% hit (of your current point total) and that is subtracted from the maximum points possible (flight value) champions get 100% of the flight value less the "hit" since we had just won the Puma Cup we had added a 1000 points earlier and so our hit was much larger.

It is even possible to get 0 points for winning a tourney if your current point value is high enough.

I do think we are aiming for a Dallas Cup qualfier in NOV so we can all take ETX off the front burner for now and get on to other topics.. I for one an very interested in the numbers of 97's rostered (FT and DP) on the 4 DA squads in the metro area. My guess would be 8-10 for each squad and my question would be... do 32-40 kids (talented as they are) really dilute the pool that much..

Everyone enjoy EPL opening weekend

Futbolfiend

I find it interesting that anyone would ascribe much value to the GotSoccer "Points" system at all.

Team X may play in 2 tourneys and team Y may play in 10. Team Y may have more points that its peers just on volume. Does that mean Y is better?

Gotsoccer ascribes values to tournaments using a semi-automated system that may or may not reflect the "difficulty" of the tournament. The points awarded for tournament P vs. tournament Q may not necessarily be reflective of the actual team performance.

Then of course, you have tournaments that don't even participate in gotsoccer at all, and that "value" is lost to the wind.

And on and on.

The GotSoccer points and ranking is interesting for discussion purposes, but it is not the be-all end-all judgment of how good your team is.

With that logic in mind 'onthesurface', then why put any credence into rankings from tournaments at all?

In hindsight, playing the PLD tournament probably would have been better for ETX. Maybe next year?

With all the competing youth soccer entities (pa/da, US Club leagues/competitions and usys sanctioned competitions) it is very difficult and therefore unlikely to see who the top teams really are. As there are very few opportunities for the top teams to go head-to-head.

One thing I find interesting is that if you look at the 'big4', da/pa member clubs gotsoccer rankings, it includes tepal league points in their totals.

In terms of exposure, it makes sense for indy teams to seek better competition outside of NTX.

Why is an Arkansas '98 team being allowed to play up in the u16 division? (AR Comets.) I'm somewhat familiar with this team. They are a strong 98 team. But if memory serves me, they didn't break out of bracket play last year in the (gold) u14 division.

'98 AR state champs. But, you can't assume a state champ from a smaller state carries the same weight.

I have a feeling that even if ETX managed to win NTX state cup, the naysayers would still come out of the shadows casting their doubts.

Laimport, if ETXP wins the State cup, any naysayers would look like boneheads. Will they be playing in it?

Don'tknow yet. It does conflict with another showcase event in another state.

It's the coach's call.

Albeit a tough one.

On one hand, if this team is in it to showcase, then that's the direction.

Then again, state cup carries a lot of weight with regard to getting invites to the better showcase tournaments.

Laimport wrote:With that logic in mind 'onthesurface', then why put any credence into rankings from tournaments at all?

That's a perfectly valid question to ask as well. Why should any given tournament give substantially more points than any other given tournament? What is a "competitive" tournament? Gotsoccer attempts to make this determination using a system that they have developed. It determines awarded points based on how "good" are the teams playing, and that itself is derived from previously earned points, and so on down the line. Not every team has data, and not every team has sufficient data. This makes the entire exercise statistically flawed.

I'm not trying to beat up on GotSoccer, at least they are trying, and it is the best that we have today. But we must all keep in mind what it is, and what it is not. Until and unless every team has a solid set of data in GotSoccer where you can make an apples-to-apples comparison, then GotSoccer rankings will be always be imperfect.

Now we must ask ourselves, is it good enough? Is there a better way? I don't have any of these answers. But I do know that if you are spending all your time and efforts trying to chase down GotSoccer points, you may not be accomplishing as much as you hope you are.

Good point. No easy answers.