Month: November 2018

non-soccer rant

How to save the World Chess Championship

Posted on by Beau Dure

Imagine you’re watching a two-legged championship soccer final. The games have been interesting but scoreless. 

Suddenly, in the 75th minute of the second game, United FC switch formation. FC City freeze, not sure what to do. The City defense responds out of reflex, but United gain the advantage. Finally, the 89th minute, United slice through the City defense. The attacker is one-on-one with the keeper. She prepares to shoot … 

… and then says, “Nah, you know what? Let’s just go to penalty kicks.” 

That’s roughly what happened today in the World Chess Championship between defending champion Magnus Carlsen and American Fabiano Caruana. (Caruana used to represent Italy, but he switched nationalities and was first chair for the first American team to win a non-boycotted Olympiad since the 1930s, so the USA definitely got the better of the trade for Giuseppe Rossi.)

Carlsen, the Norwegian whom some idiot writer hyped as the “new face … and abs” of chess in 2013, had drawn the first 11 games of the 12-game match with Caruana. Each player had a slight opportunity here and there, but not much. 

Today, Carlsen surprised Caruana on the 12th move. The computer engines we use to evaluate such things were not impressed, but it clearly unnerved Caruana. These games are timed, and Caruana spent an awful lot of time to play the wrong moves in response. 

While the chess world salivated at the prospect of a game that did not end as a draw, Caruana’s clock kept running. 

And then Carlsen offered a draw. Caruana, who didn’t get this far in chess by being stupid, quickly agreed. 

The U.S. commentators, who have made little effort to pretend they’re not rooting for the local-ish guy, were shocked. 

The international commentators were stunned. 

The Rutles were very stunned.

Yes, that’s Eric Idle.

The only explanation here is that Carlsen is so confident that he’ll win the tiebreakers that he figured he’d just ditch a position in which the Stockfish computer gave him only a 9% chance of losing even without taking into account the 30-minute time advantage he had.

In fairness, the computer also said the game had a 56% chance of being drawn. If Caruana had continued and found all the right moves, he likely would have survived. 

And in classical (slow) chess, these guys find all the right moves most of the time. If you’ve followed along through these games, you’ve seen time and time again that one and only one move will deny the opponent a subtle but potentially decisive advantage, C&C Chess Factory find that move. 

The tiebreakers are simply faster games. The 12 classical games give each player 100 minutes to make 40 moves, though because each move adds another 30 seconds, it’s really 120 minutes. Then it’s 50 minutes, plus 30 seconds added per move, for the next 20 moves. Then 15 more minutes, again with 30 extra seconds per move, for the rest of the game. 

First up are “rapid” games. Each player gets 25 minutes plus 10 seconds per move for the whole game. They’ll play four of those games. If it’s still drawn 2-2, we go to …

“Blitz” games. Five minutes plus 3 seconds per move. Best of two — get a win and a draw, and you’re the champion. Then again. And again. And again. And for a fifth time if no one wins. 

Finally, it’s an “Armageddon” game. They’ll be randomly assigned white or black. White gets 5 minutes, and the 3-second increment only kicks in at move 61. Black gets 4 minutes and the 61st-move increment. But black only has to draw. 

All of which raises the question — why don’t they just add these games into the championship? 

When Grischuk (that’s Alexander, the grandmaster cited above said “RIP classical chess,” I don’t think he was kidding. These guys are too good. 

In a tournament, players can occasionally surprise each other and gain an advantage. In a match, which lets players prepare for months to analyze the best opening lines against an opponent and then regurgitate them at the table, such surprises are rare. 

This isn’t some new trend. When Carlsen beat challenger Vladimir Kramnik in 2016, each player won one of the 12 games before Carlsen prevailed in rapid chess. In 2012, Vishy Anand and Boris Gelfand won one game each. 

Something needs to change. Let’s do this …

We already have world championships in rapid and blitz chess. Let’s take the winners from those championships and the winner of a classical chess tournament, along with the defending champion, and create a final four. 

In that final four, each match is a mix of classical, rapid and blitz. Each game, regardless of time control, counts the same. 

For the semifinals, make it six classical games, six rapid and two blitz. 

For the final — eight, eight and four. 

Play these matches back to back, not long after the other world championships, so there’s no time to memorize a whole database of openings. 

The winner will be the best overall chess player in the world.

And the matches might be a little less disappointing.

0
Uncategorized

The official Athletes(‘) Council arrivals and departures list, and more

Posted on by Beau Dure

I got clarification on one thing from the past post on the Athletes Council (or Athletes’ or Athlete’s, though the last seems incorrect unless you’re talking about one athlete).

Elected/re-elected in 2016 to 2017-21 term (not up for election this time)
Gavin Sibayan (Paralympic)
Brian Ching (MNT)
Brad Guzan (MNT, playing for team as I type)
Stuart Holden (MNT)
John O’Brien (MNT)
Jonathan Spector (MNT)
Lauren Holiday (WNT)
Lori Lindsay (WNT)
Heather O’Reilly (WNT)
Aly Wagner (WNT)

So that’s five MNT, four WNT and one Paralympic.

Running for re-election
Chris Ahrens (Paralympic)
Carlos Bocanegra (MNT)
Lindsay Tarpley (WNT)
Nick Perera (Beach)

Not returning (either term-limited, out of 10-year window or, like Jerry Seinfeld, choosing not to run)
Shannon Boxx (WNT)
Angela Hucles (WNT)
Leslie Osborne (WNT)
Kate Markgraf (WNT)
Christie Rampone (WNT)
Will John (YNT)

So the WNT might not have half the seats on the Council in the next two years as it did in the past two years. Then again …

Candidates
Sean Boyle (Paralympic)
Kevin Hensley (Paralympic)
Landon Donovan (MNT)
Yael Averbuch (WNT)
Meghan Klingenberg (WNT)
Ali Krieger (WNT)
Samantha Mewis (WNT)
Alex Morgan (WNT)
Alyssa Naeher (WNT)
Becky Sauerbrunn (WNT)
McCall Zerboni (WNT)
Jason Leopoldo (Beach)

So when you add in the candidates for re-election, the breakdown is:

3 Paralympic
2 MNT
9 WNT
2 Beach

The WNT will get at least three seats, even if all seven of the non-WNT candidates win. The possible breakdowns coming out of this election are:

1-4 Paralympic
5-7 MNT
7-13 WNT
0-2 Beach
0 Futsal
0 YNT

Plenty of overlap with the YNT, of course — almost all MNT/WNT players were on the YNTs at some point, as was Leopoldo.

Note that the election process has no guarantee of diversity. It certainly could end up with 13 WNT players/alumni. Or four Paralympians. The chair and vice chair positions have had an even MNT/WNT/Paralympian split in recent years, but that’s not required.

The Council could be more diverse than it currently is. I found a few examples of people who are eligible from their YNT days (as Will John was). It’d be interesting if the MASL ever joins U.S. Soccer and one of its many players from the futsal national team runs.) Like all aspects of U.S. Soccer, it’s getting more scrutiny. It now has a website and is posting its policies and processes.

The most controversial inclusion, on the current board or the nominees, is Carlos Bocanegra, who’s now in a management position with an MLS team. Ethics hounds would probably have a good argument on whether that’s a conflict of interest.

That said, repeat after me …

The Athletes Council is not a union. It does not negotiate with “management.” 

You could argue that Bocanegra isn’t well-placed to represent athletes in his current role — or simply that there are other people better suited to do so.

But they still need more people running.

 

2
us soccer

Should the Athletes(‘) Council include non-national teamers?

Posted on by Beau Dure

Start with the Ted Stevens Act, the law (Congressional — Sunil Gulati did not write this) that gives organizations such as U.S. Soccer their authority.

From that Act (U.S. Code › Title 36 › Subtitle II › Part B › Chapter 2205 › Subchapter I › § 220501):

(1) “amateur athlete” means an athlete who meets the eligibility standards established by the national governing body or paralympic sports organization for the sport in which the athlete competes.

Note that this is not “amateur” in the sense of playing in the NPSL or the PDL or the Cosmopolitan Soccer League or not being paid. This is “amateur” in the sense that the athlete is eligible (for what, I don’t know) under the standards of the national governing body (NGB, in this case U.S. Soccer).

Related (the next paragraph, in fact):

(2) “amateur athletic competition” means a contest, game, meet, match, tournament, regatta, or other event in which amateur athletes compete.

A few more definitions …

(6) “corporation” means the United States Olympic Committee.

(7) “international amateur athletic competition” means an amateur athletic competition between one or more athletes representing the United States, individually or as a team, and one or more athletes representing a foreign country.

(8) “national governing body” means an amateur sports organization that is recognized by the corporation under section 220521 of this title

Moving ahead to U.S. Code › Title 36 › Subtitle II › Part B › Chapter 2205 › Subchapter II › § 220522 – Eligibility requirements …

(a)General.—An amateur sports organization is eligible to be recognized, or to continue to be recognized, as a national governing body only if it—

…

(10) demonstrates, based on guidelines approved by the corporation, the Athletes’ Advisory Council, and the National Governing Bodies’ Council, that its board of directors and other such governing boards have established criteria and election procedures for and maintain among their voting members individuals who are actively engaged in amateur athletic competition in the sport for which recognition is sought or who have represented the United States in international amateur athletic competition within the preceding 10 years, that any exceptions to such guidelines by such organization have been approved by the corporation, and that the voting power held by such individuals is not less than 20 percent of the voting power held in its board of directors and other such governing boards

Now this is a little interesting. Parse the words here, and you could conclude that the athletes don’t have to be national teamers. It really depends on what the NGB considers an “amateur athlete.”

So unless there’s a paragraph I’m missing, the definition on the USSF Athlete Council site is technically incorrect because it says the Ted Stevens Act defines an athlete as “anyone who has competed for their respective National Team within the last two years OR anyone who has competed in a major world championship within the last ten years.” That definition is indirect — the Act empowers the NGB to make the definition.

The USSF Bylaws are no help. Bylaw 321 says the Athletes’ Council is composed of athletes, and if you go back to Bylaw 109(4), you’ll see them punt that definition back to the Stevens Act.

The definition U.S. Soccer uses is actually spelled out in a set of Athletes’ Council policies, which Chris Kivlehan found:

Side note: It’s a good thing the International Paralympic World Championship is included, because the only type of Paralympic soccer in which the USA has competed is no longer included in the Paralympics. Seriously.

Beach soccer and futsal players are eligible because they can indeed play in World Cups. If you’re curious, here’s the roster for the last Beach Soccer World Cup qualifiers (they didn’t qualify for the finals, but as you can see, qualifiers count for eligibility). Same deal with futsal.

The youth national team path makes things interesting. Here are some people who are still in the pool (corrections welcome, as always) …

  • Gale Agbossoumonde (2009 U20 WC / 2011 U20 WC qualifiers, last of Pittsburgh Riverhounds)
  • Danny Cruz (2009 U20 WC, currently coaching, played for San Francisco Deltas and Real Monarchs in 2017)
  • Dilly Duka (2009 U20 WC, FC Motown)
  • Josh Lambo (2009 U20 WC, now an NFL kicker)
  • Brian Ownby (2009 U20 WC, Louisville City)
  • Joseph Gyau (2011 U20 WC qualifiers, MSV Duisburg)
  • Šaćir Hot (2011 U20 WC qualifiers, somewhere in Germany?)
  • Korey Veeder (2011 U20 WC qualifiers, last of the Cosmos?)
  • Omar Salgado (2011 U20 WC qualifiers, El Paso Locomotive)
  • Juan Pablo Ocegueda (2013 U20 WC, California United II – UPSL)
  • Mikey Lopez (2013 U20 WC, Birmingham Legion)
  • Brandon Allen (2013 U20 WC, Nashville SC)
  • Tyler Turner (2015 U20 WC qual, Elm City Express)

And so forth and so on. You can also find a few women’s youth national team veterans who aren’t playing professionally right now, let alone on the senior national team.

Some of these people have enough time left to serve a four-year term on the Athletes’ Council before their 10 years are up.

But they’re not running.

So you can make a case that the definition of “athlete” should be expanded to include players in pro leagues who were never on a national team. And perhaps there should be a codified split — maybe 6 MNT, 6 WNT, 2 beach, 2 futsal, 2 Paralympics and 2 wild cards. Or something.

But it’s also true that players in the men’s lower divisions could be running for the Council. And they’re not.

Maybe now that more people are paying attention (the Council’s site is new, part of an effort to get the word out and convince more people to get involved), that’ll change.

ADDENDUM: 

A few additional bits of info …

When will we know? The election procedures linked from the FAQ say voting runs from Nov. 1 to Nov. 8. The latter date is incorrect. It’s Nov. 16 (Friday).

From those procedures: “The Election Runner results (e.g., the percentage of vote for each candidate) will be posted promptly (approximately 24 hours) after the close of the election.”

When does this election take effect? At the U.S. Soccer Annual General Meeting. That’s also when they’ll elect a chair and co-chairs. (Note that the chair and one co-chair are running for re-election to the Council itself.)

Noteworthy: For many years, the three chair/co-chair positions have split — men’s national team, women’s national team, Paralympic. There’s nothing in the policies, procedures, bylaws or anything else that says it has to be that way.

(The “Who’s in, out or running” section has been superseded by this post, and I need to correct one thing from the prior post: Athletes do NOT have a limit of two terms for the Council. They have a two-term limit on the USOC’s Athletes’ Advisory Council, which overlaps with the Athletes Council, but someone could serve two terms as a USOC rep and then another term on the Council but not as the USOC rep and this is giving me a headache.) 

How long have these policies been in place? The policies on the site say “Established in 2003; revised 2018.” (Note: The USSF Board was trimmed from 40 to 15 people in 2005, reflecting the USOC’s efforts to get boards to be somewhat manageable.) In the 2014 AGM report, the Council says this: “Outcome #1: Cleaned up our policies and procedures. We created and passed policy more in line with the Amateur Sports Act.”

1
case studies, youth soccer

Re-organizing Northern Virginia leagues

Posted on by Beau Dure

First, a quick announcement — because I’m writing for Soccer America now and have a book in the works, I won’t have many posts and podcasts over the winter.

But I wanted to take care of something I’ve been trying to do for a while, and it’s a case study of what can be done with a dose of sanity.

The basic idea: There’s no need for artificial divisions between levels of play, and kids/teams should be able to find their levels on their own.

Another basic idea: Quit traveling MORE to play LESS competitive games.

Which leads to this: Like most countries, we’re going to put league play under one umbrella.

You can do club-vs.-club league play IF all or most of your teams are in the same tier as your opponent. No more dragging your U13s 150 miles to lose 8-0.

And this reorganization doesn’t affect tournaments at all. If you have some exclusive league, you can reset it as a couple of tournaments/showcases. (The one caveat: Can we please have ONE State Cup? If you don’t want to enter it, and you want to have a special tournament of your own, fine, but don’t call it a “State Cup.”)

You might think this is just some OCD thing or the narcissism of a lone youth coach who’s sick of seeing lopsided soccer games in which one team has a bunch of kids who are near-elite level and the other has kids who simply can’t keep up physically. But let’s look at a larger issue from that Atlantic article everyone has been reading (“American Meritocracy Is Killing Youth Sports“):

Expensive travel leagues siphon off talented young athletes from well-off families, leaving behind desiccated local leagues with fewer players, fewer involved parents, and fewer resources.

Here’s the cycle I see here:

  1. Big clubs hold cattle-call tryouts at U9, usually taking the more athletic players. (I’m constantly amazed by the coaching gurus who think they can cast players aside at age 8 or 9 when they’re in their growth-spurt clumsiness. It’s almost as if they haven’t spent any time with children other than their selected few. Sure, you can spot someone who’s light years ahead of the rest in terms of understanding the game, but sifting through the other 99.9% is a fool’s errand.)
  2. The players who don’t make it are often discouraged and sometimes quit.
  3. The players who do make it aren’t necessarily those who are really devoted to soccer. They burn out, and they quit, and then the travel teams are left scrambling to grab kids from what’s left of the rec league.
  4. Some players may really like soccer, but when they hit middle school and high school, they have other interests that keep them from making the year-round commitment to travel (related issue: year-round commitments to mid- and lower-level travel teams are ridiculous), so they drop back into those “desiccated local leagues.”
  5. The clubs all band together to form a larger “rec” league that’s basically “travel lite.”

A few years ago, I suggested a way to bring players through the U-Little ranks up through Under-10 soccer, inspired by my local Little League baseball program that brings everyone to the “Majors” at their own pace. Basically, if you’re advanced, you play up. You can also arrange scrimmages with other clubs — putting your top players against theirs, your second-best against their second-best, etc. — and make those distinctions fluid. You don’t need “full-time” travel. You need your advanced players to be challenged, and you need your less advanced players to have the same access to good coaching because they might be great players when they grow into their bodies.

Move up to the older ranks: Middle school has a way of reshaping children’s priorities. If they’re truly elite soccer players and want to pursue it, they’ll be in an ECNL Academy program. (Yeah, we’re merging those two — we’ll get to it.) If they’re pretty good “travel” players but also good basketball players, tuba players, drummers or Eagle Scouts-to-be, they might want to drop their commitment level.

Does that mean these players have to quit playing with their similarly inclined friends? Does it mean they have to play at the lowest level of soccer along with new players or those who haven’t figured it out (or don’t have the physical tools to play particularly well)?

I don’t think so. And what I’ve found by high school age is that the difference between the top half of “rec” players and the bottom half of “travel” players no longer exists. The only difference is that the “travel” players are spending more money on professional coaches and … travel.

Let’s change that. As a model, we’ll use Under-14 boys in Northern Virginia. Our data and the abbreviations we’ll use:

  • YSR: Youth Soccer Rankings for Virginia (no ranking is perfect, in part because teams don’t always play for the result, but this is the most comprehensive)
  • EDP-1, EDP-2, etc.: EDP standings
  • CCL-1, CCL-2: Club Champions League Premiership and CCL Championship standings (which aren’t included in Youth Soccer Rankings — note this is not a promotion/relegation league)
  • VPL: Virginia Premier League standings
  • NCSL-1, NCSL-2, etc.: NCSL standings (this IS a pro/rel league)
  • ODSL: ODSL standings
  • SFL-1, SFL-2: Suburban Friendship League (rec) standings
  • Cup: Spring 2018 U13 State Cup (Play-in is PI, Round of 16 is R16, quarterfinal is QF, etc.)
  • Club Cup: Spring 2018 U.S. Club Soccer State Cup
  • GotSoccer rankings, but more importantly, tournament results. I didn’t want to reward teams for chasing GS points, but I used their event rankings to judge tournament results. Between that and YSR, I should have a good sense.

The result is admittedly subjective, but I hope I’ve accounted for idiosyncrasies in the rankings in which teams are dragged down (or up) by the strength of their leagues.

ECNL DEVELOPMENT ACADEMY (yes, get over it and merge — and yes, YSR’s rankings are muddled here because of a lack of data points comparing these teams to others)

  • Arlington (DA)
  • D.C. United (DA)
  • Loudoun Soccer (DA)
  • McLean (ECNL)
  • Virginia Development Academy (DA)

At this level, traveling a bit farther makes sense. The rest of the current Mid-Atlantic DA  (Baltimore Armour, Bethesda, Lehigh Valley United, PA Classics) and other nearby ECNL programs (Baltimore Celtic, Maryland United) can be reached with an easy day trip.

We won’t have traditional promotion/relegation here because this league will have different standards than others, and each club will have its teams evaluated by a combined U.S. Soccer/ECNL staff. But any team that is clearly overmatched at this level, it’ll be asked to drop down at that particular age group, even if other teams in that club (in other age groups) remain in the ECNLDA. I’ve done this here with Braddock Road, whose results in and out of ECNL do not indicate a competitive team.

We’ll have one more level with medium-range travel.

EDP D.C. METRO REGIONAL 

  • Doradus Barca Elite (#2 YSR, #4 EDP, #4 NCSL-1, State Cup R16)
  • Alexandria Red (#3 YSR, #2 CCL-P, State Cup QF)
  • Lee Mount Vernon Patriots Red (#4 YSR, #6 CCL-P, State Cup QF)
  • DC Stoddert Blue Metros (#6 YSR, #8 CCL-P)
  • Arlington Red (#12 YSR, #4 CCL-P, State Cup QF)
  • Loudoun Red (#9 YSR, #10 CCL-P, State Cup QF)
  • Stafford Soccer Revolution Blue (#15 YSR, #3 VPL)
  • Annandale United/Villarreal Academy (#10 YSR, #2 VPL, Club Cup champion)

Those eight teams will combine with similar teams in Maryland, with yearlong standings. At least, at U14 — above that, you run into the problem of Virginia playing its public school soccer season in the spring while Maryland and most others play in the fall.

The champion is the non-ECNLDA D.C. metro area champion. (Maybe they could even play some games with ECNLDA teams in the spring season.)

No club can have more than one team in this division or the one beneath it. We want to encourage clubs to use club passes, and it pretty much defeats the purpose if you have multiple teams in the upper tiers.

The bottom Virginia team from this league is relegated to …

NORTHERN VIRGINIA PREMIER LEAGUE

  • Herndon Ciclones Black (#16 YSR, #16 CCL-P, State Cup R16)
  • Fredericksburg FC Black (#20 YSR, #12 CCL-P, State Cup R16)
  • SYA Cardinals Red (#25 YSR, #14 CCL-P, State Cup R16)
  • Capital FC Red, formerly Diplomats (#19 YSR, #1 EDP-4)
  • FCSC United Black (#29 YSR, #4 CCL-C)
  • McLean Green (#26 YSR, #3 CCL-C, State Cup runner-up but may have sent many players to ECNL – Jaime Moreno is the coach!)
  • Great Falls Reston Elite NPL (#30 YSR, #5 VPL, Club Cup PI)
  • NVSC CCL (#36 YSR, #11 CCL-P, State Cup R16)

The distances here aren’t too bad, though we have some 70-mile drives and might need to think about moving Culpeper, Fredericksburg and FCSC (Fauquier County) to other regions, perhaps with the opportunity to move into EDP. Below this level, as we draw the leagues more locally, teams from this clubs won’t be in the NoVa league.

These top tiers will only have eight teams playing seven games per season. That should give them plenty of time to play tournaments and showcases.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA LEAGUE ONE

  • Lee Mount Vernon White (#43 YSR, #2 CCL-C)
  • Arlington White (#38 YSR, #1 CCL-C)
  • Vienna Red (#31 YSR, #6 VPL)
  • Virginia SA NPL (#32, #9 VPL)
  • Barca Academy NoVa Blue (#28 YSR, #9 EDP-1)
  • Loudoun Black (#42 YSR, #6 CCL-C)
  • DC Stoddert Red Metros (#35 YSR, #7 CCL-C)
  • Doradus Barca Premier (#36 YSR, #4 NCSL-4)

The Barca team is tough to judge because it has been routed in its league games, and it has also chosen too high of a level in tournament play so far. Its ranking reflects the strength of opposition. I’m giving it the benefit of the doubt in placing it here.

The Doradus team is one of those that plays low-level league play but does quite well in tournaments.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA LEAGUE TWO

  • Cougars Youth Club Olympiakos (#53 YSR, #1 ODSL)
  • Chantilly YA Purple (#44 YSR, #8 VPL)
  • FC Virginia United Elite (#48 YSR, #10 VPL)
  • Team America Academy (#49 YSR, #9 NCSL-1, State Cup R16)
  • FPYC Blue (#51 YSR, #7 NCSL-1)
  • FC Dulles Gold (#53 YSR, #5 NCSL-4)
  • McLean White (#58 YSR, #1 NCSL-3)
  • Burke Fusion Blue (#64 YSR, #3 NCSL-3)

The FC Dulles team is another tournament overachiever.

I happen to have reffed a game with Olympiakos. They’re one of those teams playing in (and dominating) ODSL because the club isn’t in a higher league, and they’re doing well with an ambitious tournament schedule.

One more eight-team division …

NORTHERN VIRGINIA LEAGUE THREE

  • DC Stoddert White Metros (#73 YSR, #10 NCSL-1)
  • Annandale Villarreal Yellow (#61 YSR, #1 NCSL-4)
  • NVSC CCL II (#63 YSR, #5 CCL-C)
  • SYC Lions Blue (#55 YSR, #12 VPL)
  • PWSI Pre Academy NPL (#59 YSR, #11 VPL)
  • Real World FC Scorpions (#65 YSR, #8 NCSL-4)
  • Premier AC Navy (#86 YSR, #3 NCSL-2)
  • Leesburg Infinity (#79 YSR, #4 NCSL-2)

As mentioned above, I’ve started skipping teams from farther out — in this case, Fredericksburg SC Vasquez Academy and Winchester Orange.

We’ve now accounted for all of the CCL Premiership and VPL teams. The remaining CCL-Championship teams, EDP team and ECNL team might disagree, but we’re getting to the point at which most of these teams have smaller ambitions, so we’re going to have more league games on the assumption that these teams will not go to as many tournaments. This should create a cheaper price point.

I’m going now by league affiliation rather than rankings, which are splitting hairs at this point, and I can attest there’s still a gap between the typical NCSL Division 2 team and NCSL Division 5.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA LEAGUE FOUR

  • Braddock Road ECNL
  • Barca Academy NoVa Yellow (EDP-4)
  • Herndon Ciclones White (CCL-2)
  • SYA Cardinals White (CCL-2)
  • Alexandria White (NCSL-2)
  • VSA Select Red (NCSL-2)
  • Arlington Blue (NCSL-2)
  • Chantilly Gold (NCSL-2)
  • SYC Lions Orange (NCSL-3)
  • Great Falls Reston Napoli (NCSL-3)
  • Vienna White (NCSL-3)

NORTHERN VIRGINIA LEAGUE FIVE

  • Loudoun White (NCSL-4)
  • Sterling Black Lions (NCSL-4)
  • Lee Mount Vernon Patriots Blue (NCSL-5)
  • SYC Lions Blue (NCSL-5)
  • Alexandria Blue (NCSL-5)
  • Chantilly Black (NCSL-5)
  • Vienna White (NCSL-5)
  • FPYC Gold (NCSL-5)
  • Premier AC White (NCSL-5)
  • Braddock Road United (ODSL)
  • PWSI Challenge (ODSL)

Now we’re going to get regional and “recreational,” though we’ll still have promotion and relegation opportunities. We’ll start adding in the SFL (recreational) teams here as well as teams from the two non-SFL clubs — Arlington (15 teams) and Vienna (five — they have 10 in a combined U13/U14 league, so divide in half).

SFL has two divisions, with the top one smaller than the second.

NORTHERN VIRGINIA DEVELOPMENTAL 1-WEST

  • Loudoun Gray (ODSL)
  • Virginia Revolution WLFC United (ODSL)
  • PWSI Classic (NCSL-6)
  • Loudoun Silver (NCSL-6)
  • Great Falls Reston 1 (SFL-1)
  • Herndon 4 (SFL-1)
  • FPYC 2 (SFL-1)
  • NVSC 6 (SFL-1)
  • NVSC 5 (SFL-1)
  • Sterling 1 (SFL-1)
  • PWSI 3 (SFL-1)
  • Herndon 1 (SFL-1)

NORTHERN VIRGINIA DEVELOPMENTAL 1-EAST

  • Alexandria Black (ODSL)
  • Capital FC White (NCSL-6)
  • Annandale 1 (SFL-1)
  • Springfield 1 (SFL-1)
  • Annandale 2 (SFL-1)
  • Gunston 1 (SFL-1)
  • Top four from Arlington
  • Top two from Vienna

Beyond that, we have:

  • 11 more from Arlington
  • 3 more from Vienna
  • 10 more from SFL-1
  • 32 from SFL-2

So that’s probably two more tiers of three regional divisions each.

Over time, some of the SFL teams would probably work their way up into League Five. Other teams would be relegated — and this might keep them together. It’s frustrating to be the bottom team in a travel league with nowhere to go but splitsville.

The teams at the top divisions will always have an eye out for good players. Clubs will promote from within — perhaps a player on the FPYC Developmental 1 team will move up to League Five or even League Two.

Beyond that, kids can play with their friends and find their level. All without breaking the bank.

(Now all we need is field space.)

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