Here’s a link to a very solid article from SoccerAmerica if anyone is interested.
https://www.socceramerica.com/publications/article/83165/boys-development-academy-shakeup-us-soccer-move.html
In the article, it says that the following criteria was used by USSDA to create the new groupings:
- Performance history. US Soccer was quoted as saying “we’re not looking at a single year (instead) using data across age groups and across years”
- Player production (presumably for YNT)
- Markets
- Ability of a club to provide “meaningful games”. Last year, US Soccer was quoted as defining “meaningful games” as games with a three or smaller goal differential i.e. 3-0, 4-1 etc.
The article also says that US Soccer will re-evaluate the tiers and structure and may move teams in 2020-21 but US Soccer has not provided specific criteria (other than the general notes above) for how teams will be evaluated.
So, looked at the u18/u19 clubs and their performance history since the 2015-16 season and looking at team results from the u15 thru the u19 age groups. Two key items stand out from looking at the data:
- Generally, looking at all the performance history that’s available from u15 up, the groups seem to be highly performance-based, particularly looking at performance in aggregate across age groups and seasons.
- However, exceptions seem to have been made in three fo the four groups. Based on aggregate performance, the following clubs deserve to be in Tier 1:
East: Cedars – Bergen and Met Oval
Frontier/Southeast: Kendall and Weston
West: Barca, Crossfire Premier and Strikers
And the following clubs likely deserve to be in Tier 2 (Will be interesting to see how meaningful the games are next year with these clubs. Suspect that a number of folks will be paying close attention to results):
East: Baltimore Armour and New England Revolution
Frontier/Southeast: Saint Louis FC and Solar Soccer Club
West: De Anza Force, Portland Timbers and San Diego Surf
Here’s the data table looking at USSDA new groupings. Per USSDA, teams are sorted in each group by alpha.
View attachment 5150
And here's a data table for reference grouped and sorted by best to worst club aggregate performance instead of the USSDA grouping. Teams in each group are sorted by best to worst aggregate club performance:
View attachment 5151