Does anyone know if Super Finals will be the same format as last year? i.e. the top 8 seeded teams competing against each other, rather than playing lower-seeded teams like JOs.
I have not heard, but having D1/2/3 helps prevent it from being as big of a gap like JO for the first 2 rounds. I am guessing we wonāt hear much until NorCal Futures wraps up.
I bet with the strange finishes this past week that they change it from last year.
What I donāt understand, though there is likely a rationale for it, is why the 5th week is scheduled so close to the 4th, yet so far from the Super Finals at the end of June. Why not move the 5th weekend to the end of May, after the National League, NTSC, and Academy sessions are wrapped up?
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thatās why i was askingā¦.
My guess is the zones start hosting their Quals around that time.
@Marco = answers to any tough question!! Thank you
In essence, nothing related to qualifiers prevented the 5th futures weekend from being scheduled in the third weekend of May for the 16/18u age group.
Any major tournament / invite?
Anyway, hopefully to be considered next year.
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Iām confused are you asking for the fifth weekend to be held at the end of May or the middle of May.
Weekend 5 for the 16U boys lands on May 16/17th
18u boys SoCal were last week and NorCal this week.
Are the 18U seeding and tournament structure out?
Last year, 24 teams competed in D1: 11 SoCal, 11 NorCal, and 2 Texas teams, with Greenwich coming through Texas. I assume the 11th team from each of SoCal and NorCal meant that the top D2 team was moved up to D1.
NorCal and SoCal received the same allocation. However, based on the difference between initial seeding and final ranking, SoCal teams moved up by an average of about 3 spots, largely at the expense of NorCal teams. The Texas teamsā movement netted out to zero, meaning they were essentially seeded correctly.
Also, about 70% of the top 24 teams at JOs last year were SoCal teams, versus about 30% from NorCal, which suggests that SoCal talent is more spread out across a larger number of teams.
Taken together, those two observations suggest that the allocation should tilt slightly more toward SoCal. Out of the 22 non-Texas spots, I would argue that 13 should go to SoCal and 9 to NorCal.
It is not a huge change, but it would be one based on merit.
I would also argue that splitting the initial stage of the tournament into a top group of 8 and a remaining group of 16 gives too much advantage to the top 8 teams (4 SoCal and 4 NorCal) compared with the rest of the field. I looked at the final weekend games, and the majority of games were close, within 5 goals, with an average margin of less than 4 goals among the top 10 SoCal teams. Moreover, the impact of National League on rosters, and the likelihood that some teams had different rosters in league play versus finals, suggest that a structure based on seeding all 24 teams without a built-in advantage would be fairer. In other words, 6 balanced groups is likely a better format than last yearās experiment.
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There has not been anything released. It would be great to get the structure posted and not wait for pool locations and scheduling to be finalized.
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Futures in NorCal is still going for the younger ages. Maybe they are waiting for this weekend to finish before finalizing. That way they can send out everything all at once. Hereās hoping anyways
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has anyone heard on tournament structure for super finals yet?
16u Week 5 finished this weekend with seeding for Super Finals.
- Mission 2)LaJolla 3)LA Premier 4)Patriot 5)Newport 6)San Diego Shores 7) Vanguard 8)CIU 9)Greenwich 10)Dons 11)Imperial 12)Santa Barbara WPC
It would appear after dominating 16u at WPE Cup in January, then playing up in mostly 18u through winter and spring, that Mission has settled in as the 16u favorite. Most talented team top to bottom.
LA Premier also impressed. They has their full complement of 16u eligible players who have been playing 18u and Grover was coaching. They seemed out to make a point and beat CIU to open the weekend. Only loss was a close game to Mission.
Newport and SD Shores may have been missing some players. They had the Top 6 byes and ended up 5th and 6th. Shores went 0-3.
7-10 group was a mess with everyone beating everyone losing at least once and winning at least once. Vanguard dominated Channel Islands. Dons was also shorthanded and played with 7 on Saturday so remains to be seen what they do with their 16u eligible athletes as summer approaches.
And now we all wait 6 weeks for Super Finals.
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A shoutout to La Jolla and Patriot as well, placing 2nd and 4th respectively; both teams were missing a couple starting players this weekend. It should be exciting to see how the top 6 battle it out when at full strength.
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I believe all ages of Futures leading up to SF is now complete. Looking forward to seeing the seedings by division soon.
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Futuresā seeding : link
āPlease note that we will be using a similar world aquatics format for almost all D1 tournaments. The format will become clearer once the schedules are published but the top groups will have a distinct advantage as they have earned throughout league play,ā
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What is the world aquatics format?
We will see when they publish the schedules come out by June 12.