National Cup 2002 Pool of Death (Group E)

SocalPapa

SILVER ELITE
I was looking through the results from Round 1 of National Cup and was struck by how insanely competitive one of the pools was (Group E) for the 2002s. My DD has never had any affiliation with any of the teams in that pool, but I am familiar with some of them. If these are the teams I think they are...

The #1 seed was CDA FC Slammers - Fullerton. They are the type of team you might expect to see as a strong first round #1 seed. They won their Europa division and were undefeated in SCDSL league play.

The strength of the #2 seed the Slammers team had to face is a little surprising. Barcelona Cantera won the Presidents Division of State Cup last year and advanced to the finals of the regional championships. They finished second in Flight 1 of SDDA (by one point and with a +20 goal differential) even though they had 2 forfeited games.

It's the #3 seed where things get really wacky. The third seed was Westside Breakers Elite. They were the third place Champions team in SCDSL league play last fall with only 1 loss and a +19 goal differential. They made it to the championship of the SCDSL playoffs where they lost by only 1 goal. A number of teams they've beaten this season had byes to the second round of National Cup. YSR has them as the #11-ranked team in So Cal.

With a group this strong surely they got a 4th seed that they could all beat up on, right? Nope. The 4th seed was the Pat's DPL team. It's hard for me to judge how strong they are, but I know they were strong enough to beat the #1-seeded CDA Slammers team the first weekend.

Only 1 team ended up advancing out of this pool, which, no surprise, was Westside Breakers. The other 3 just beat up on each other (each had 1 win and 2 losses).

Maybe Westside Breakers is the only team with a legitimate shot to win National Cup so its not a travesty that they were the only team to advance. But on its face I can't see any first round pool that was remotely as difficult as Group E.

The National Cup rules say "Entries into the National Cup will be seeded and placed in brackets based primarily on California Regional League participation and the previous year’s National Cup." Maybe that's how this anomaly happened, but it seems Cal South should at least peek at teams' performances in the current season before finalizing everything.
 
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The National Cup rules say "Entries into the National Cup will be seeded and placed in brackets based primarily on California Regional League participation and the previous year’s National Cup." Maybe that's how this anomaly happened, but it seems Cal South should at least peek at teams' performances in the current season before finalizing everything.

Its really an impossible task to take into account league performance given the fact that these teams come from multiple leagues with varying degrees of competition. Cal South has to draw the line somewhere.
 
I understand they've got to draw the line somewhere, but the pools are so imbalanced, it's hard to see any line. Compare the seeds in Group A for example:

#1: 3rd in CSL Silver Elite North (did well in President's Cup last year)
#2: Tied for 4th in CSL Gold
#3: Tied for 9th in SCDSL Europa East
#4: 2nd in CSL Gold (not surprisingly, this is the team that advanced)
 
I was looking through the results from Round 1 of National Cup and was struck by how insanely competitive one of the pools was (Group E) for the 2002s. My DD has never had any affiliation with any of the teams in that pool, but I am familiar with some of them. If these are the teams I think they are...

The #1 seed was CDA FC Slammers - Fullerton. They are the type of team you might expect to see as a strong first round #1 seed. They won their Europa division and were undefeated in SCDSL league play.

The strength of the #2 seed the Slammers team had to face is a little surprising. Barcelona Cantera won the Presidents Division of State Cup last year and advanced to the finals of the regional championships. They finished second in Flight 1 of SDDA (by one point and with a +20 goal differential) even though they had 2 forfeited games.

It's the #3 seed where things get really wacky. The third seed was Westside Breakers Elite. They were the third place Champions team in SCDSL league play last fall with only 1 loss and a +19 goal differential. They made it to the championship of the SCDSL playoffs where they lost by only 1 goal. A number of teams they've beaten this season had byes to the second round of National Cup. YSR has them as the #11-ranked team in So Cal.

With a group this strong surely they got a 4th seed that they could all beat up on, right? Nope. The 4th seed was the Pat's DPL team. It's hard for me to judge how strong they are, but I know they were strong enough to beat the #1-seeded CDA Slammers team the first weekend.

Only 1 team ended up advancing out of this pool, which, no surprise, was Westside Breakers. The other 3 just beat up on each other (each had 1 win and 2 losses).

Maybe Westside Breakers is the only team with a legitimate shot to win National Cup so its not a travesty that they were the only team to advance. But on its face I can't see any first round pool that was remotely as difficult as Group E.

The National Cup rules say "Entries into the National Cup will be seeded and placed in brackets based primarily on California Regional League participation and the previous year’s National Cup." Maybe that's how this anomaly happened, but it seems Cal South should at least peek at teams' performances in the current season before finalizing everything.
I'm glad someone else saw this and had the same thoughts I did! I watched part of the Pats loss to Barcelona Cantera. That game could have easily gone to them from what I saw. They play a nice brand of soccer, connecting pretty passes and lots of off the ball movement and Barcelona has some tough, talented girls who just wouldn't quit on a play. Honestly, this bracket looks tougher than a couple of the second round brackets.
 
I'm glad someone else saw this and had the same thoughts I did! I watched part of the Pats loss to Barcelona Cantera. That game could have easily gone to them from what I saw. They play a nice brand of soccer, connecting pretty passes and lots of off the ball movement and Barcelona has some tough, talented girls who just wouldn't quit on a play. Honestly, this bracket looks tougher than a couple of the second round brackets.
We will find out this weekend.
 
I was looking through the results from Round 1 of National Cup and was struck by how insanely competitive one of the pools was (Group E) for the 2002s. My DD has never had any affiliation with any of the teams in that pool, but I am familiar with some of them. If these are the teams I think they are...

The #1 seed was CDA FC Slammers - Fullerton. They are the type of team you might expect to see as a strong first round #1 seed. They won their Europa division and were undefeated in SCDSL league play.

The strength of the #2 seed the Slammers team had to face is a little surprising. Barcelona Cantera won the Presidents Division of State Cup last year and advanced to the finals of the regional championships. They finished second in Flight 1 of SDDA (by one point and with a +20 goal differential) even though they had 2 forfeited games.

It's the #3 seed where things get really wacky. The third seed was Westside Breakers Elite. They were the third place Champions team in SCDSL league play last fall with only 1 loss and a +19 goal differential. They made it to the championship of the SCDSL playoffs where they lost by only 1 goal. A number of teams they've beaten this season had byes to the second round of National Cup. YSR has them as the #11-ranked team in So Cal.

With a group this strong surely they got a 4th seed that they could all beat up on, right? Nope. The 4th seed was the Pat's DPL team. It's hard for me to judge how strong they are, but I know they were strong enough to beat the #1-seeded CDA Slammers team the first weekend.

Only 1 team ended up advancing out of this pool, which, no surprise, was Westside Breakers. The other 3 just beat up on each other (each had 1 win and 2 losses).

Maybe Westside Breakers is the only team with a legitimate shot to win National Cup so its not a travesty that they were the only team to advance. But on its face I can't see any first round pool that was remotely as difficult as Group E.

The National Cup rules say "Entries into the National Cup will be seeded and placed in brackets based primarily on California Regional League participation and the previous year’s National Cup." Maybe that's how this anomaly happened, but it seems Cal South should at least peek at teams' performances in the current season before finalizing everything.
My DD in the pool of Death! Lost to Barca due to a Offside Goal (4-5 yd min- AR terribly out of position). Legitimate loss to a very strong Westside Breakers Team...although her Team had a legitimate CK goal go into net and unfairly called back...
Huge reason DPL teams will no longer play in National Cup. Ridiculous seedings, completely unbalanced pools and terrible fields.
 
My DD in the pool of Death! Lost to Barca due to a Offside Goal (4-5 yd min- AR terribly out of position). Legitimate loss to a very strong Westside Breakers Team...although her Team had a legitimate CK goal go into net and unfairly called back...
Huge reason DPL teams will no longer play in National Cup. Ridiculous seedings, completely unbalanced pools and terrible fields.
Thanks for the laugh. The only reason DPL teams won’t play NC (if that is true) is so the tracksuit wearing used car salesmen can keep more of the $ and so that no one can compare them to other teams.
 
My DD in the pool of Death! Lost to Barca due to a Offside Goal (4-5 yd min- AR terribly out of position). Legitimate loss to a very strong Westside Breakers Team...although her Team had a legitimate CK goal go into net and unfairly called back...
Huge reason DPL teams will no longer play in National Cup. Ridiculous seedings, completely unbalanced pools and terrible fields.
You don't like silver lakes fields? Seem pretty nice to me.
 
Thanks for the laugh. The only reason DPL teams won’t play NC (if that is true) is so the tracksuit wearing used car salesmen can keep more of the $ and so that no one can compare them to other teams.


The DPL will have plenty of opportunity through Silverlakes, Vegas and Surf Cup to compare themselves to other high level teams. Tournament Directors have proven to do a better job of bracketing teams with like competition. With ECNL and DPL teams spread through all levels of play at most competitive tournaments.Brackets based not only on past results, but most of these Tournament Directors have a brain in their head and realize that even though a team might not have performed that well in a single season, most Tournament Directors take a look at the team, their strength of schedule and how well the team competed against the stronger teams within their league. If winning records were all that counted, we would have a bunch of winning CSL Bronze and Silver teams with no losses at Surf Cup. The brackets for National Cup Round 1 GU2002 were an absolute joke, if you know anything about that age group. Those brackets were the real “laugh”. Silverlakes is great...first games at San Bernardino on dirt, sloped fields not so much...


You don't like silver lakes fields? Seem pretty nice to me.
 
My DD in the pool of Death! Lost to Barca due to a Offside Goal (4-5 yd min- AR terribly out of position). Legitimate loss to a very strong Westside Breakers Team...although her Team had a legitimate CK goal go into net and unfairly called back...
Huge reason DPL teams will no longer play in National Cup. Ridiculous seedings, completely unbalanced pools and terrible fields.
The pool of death died yesterday.
 
Lost to Barca due to a Offside Goal (4-5 yd min- AR terribly out of position). Legitimate loss to a very strong Westside Breakers Team...although her Team had a legitimate CK goal go into net and unfairly called back...

So does DPL plan to get their own refs too? Typically Kool Aid drinking parent. It is NC fault for brackets, the fields suck and off course the refs sucked the most.
The DPL will have plenty of opportunity through Silverlakes, Vegas and Surf Cup to compare themselves to other high level teams.
HAHAHAHAHAHA ....other high level teams. You need a relative check with that blanket statement. And oh yay I've seen plenty of lopsided scores btw DPL teams. DPL is just another team. Some are good, some are ok and some are bad. Get over yourself.
 
The pool of death died yesterday.
I'm not sure what you mean by that. The sole team to advance from the group of death did great. Westside Breakers had 2 wins this past weekend and a goal differential of +6. They were the only team with 2 wins that hadn't been given a bye for the first round. I still don't understand how Cal South made them even play in the first round, let alone assigned them a 3 seed (in a group that also included the 3rd overall seed for round 1).

And for the record @Victoria Quinn, while Group E was out of whack, overall I didn't feel there was a lot to complain about. Perhaps Group B was a little loaded (the surprise of the tournament for me was BYSC failing to advance). And Group A, as I mentioned earlier, was pretty light. (This was confirmed by the fact that the #4 seed that won that group was crushed this past weekend, losing both games with 1 total goal for and 9 goals against.) My only complaint is that if Cal South is going to take the trouble to assign seeds in a tournament like this they could do a better job of identifying the top teams and trying to spread them out.
 
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My DD in the pool of Death! Lost to Barca due to a Offside Goal (4-5 yd min- AR terribly out of position). Legitimate loss to a very strong Westside Breakers Team...although her Team had a legitimate CK goal go into net and unfairly called back...
Huge reason DPL teams will no longer play in National Cup. Ridiculous seedings, completely unbalanced pools and terrible fields.

Of course it is the referees fault Pats DPL lost. The refs played awesome defense and had some great shots on goal.
 
The DPL will have plenty of opportunity through Silverlakes, Vegas and Surf Cup to compare themselves to other high level teams. Tournament Directors have proven to do a better job of bracketing teams with like competition. With ECNL and DPL teams spread through all levels of play at most competitive tournaments.Brackets based not only on past results, but most of these Tournament Directors have a brain in their head and realize that even though a team might not have performed that well in a single season, most Tournament Directors take a look at the team, their strength of schedule and how well the team competed against the stronger teams within their league. If winning records were all that counted, we would have a bunch of winning CSL Bronze and Silver teams with no losses at Surf Cup. The brackets for National Cup Round 1 GU2002 were an absolute joke, if you know anything about that age group. Those brackets were the real “laugh”. Silverlakes is great...first games at San Bernardino on dirt, sloped fields not so much...

@Victoria Quinn,

I would find it very, very unlikely that the DPL would avoid National Cup, and here is why:

1) USYS is restructuring the National League program (which feeds into the National Cup tournament), as such, we can expect the DPL to be given its own division within the National League as the roll out comes west. CRL will also be restructured and consumed by the National League, as will all other "Regional Leagues" operated by other US Youth Soccer state associations. See announcement here.

2) A bunch of Frontier Division DA clubs, just announced the creation of the Frontier Players League, which mirrors the DPL and like the DPL will compete in US Youth Soccer sanctioned leagues, in this case the National League. These teams are all competing for a seat at the National Cup regionals or Finals.

3) DPL teams already play in the National League and attempt to punch their ticket to the Far West Regional through their play in the National League (see, Beach and Albion for example).

4) Because the DPL is a US Youth Soccer sanctioned league, it is prohibited from competing against National Cup dates (which are dark for leagues and other sanctioned tournaments). If the NPL teams don't compete in National Cup they will be sitting home and twiddling their thumbs. Remember, NPL is simply a fall gaming circuit, like SCDSL, CSL, Presidio/SDDA, etc.

With regard to your other comments relating to seeding, etc., all I can tell you is the coming changes to the National League and the absorption of the regional leagues into the various conferences and divisions is going to mean that DPL teams will be competing in the National Cup for years to come, unless, they move from USYS to US Club, which is unlikely to happen given the ECNL angle.

All of that said, the DOCs understand the luck of the draw when it comes to seeding in the tournament, parents and coaches don't. Unless the DOC is telling you your club will no longer compete in the National Cup series, I wouldn't put too much weight into anybody else's statements/predictions.
 
I stand corrected...As we all know no team has ever lost a game due to an out of position referee! BTW... I am a past licensed referee through Cal South.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Westside Breakers had 2 wins this past weekend and a goal differential of +6. They were the only team with 2 wins that hadn't been given a bye for the first round. I still don't understand how Cal South made them even play in the first round, let alone assigned them a 3 seed (in a group that also included the 3rd overall seed for round 1).

And for the record @Victoria Quinn, while Group E was out of whack, overall I didn't feel there was a lot to complain about. Perhaps Group B was a little loaded (the surprise of the tournament for me was BYSC failing to advance). And Group A, as I mentioned earlier, was pretty light. (This was confirmed by the fact that the #4 seed that won that group was crushed this past weekend, losing both games with 1 total goal for and 9 goals against.) My only complaint is that if Cal South is going to take the trouble to assign seeds in a tournament like this they could do a better job of identifying the top teams and trying to spread them out.

The retort to this is CRL is the league to play in if you want to get a buy and be seeded. SCDSL, DPL, CSL, Presidio/SDDA, teams that don't play in CRL know they are going to be dropped in to National Cup brackets based on the luck of the draw.

Note, the DPL encourages its teams to also play in CRL, National League and the National Cup ... why? It bolsters their value proposition. When you are asking parents to pay an amount close to the same amount as the DA teams, you damn well better provide a good value proposition.
 
I stand corrected...As we all know no team has ever lost a game due to an out of position referee! BTW... I am a past licensed referee through Cal South.
So that makes your position more credible?
If you are so knowledgeable, why don't you ref to teach all the other crappy refs?
 
So that makes your position more credible?
If you are so knowledgeable, why don't you ref to teach all the other crappy refs?
Most referees are not crap and very knowledgeable at National Cup. But refs are only human. We have all make our mistakes on and off the field. I’m not begrudging any ref out there on the field...It’s a thankless job, pay is insulting. It’s soccer...you win some you lose some...Get a perspective!!!
 
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