I believe PoloEnthusiast’s comment of “the games at Beckman HS for 12/14 girls” is referencing the common training games and not Kap7. I heard that 14U Patriot girls handily beat Lamo.
Oops, my reading skills are probably lacking 
I probably could have guessed that the sentence “My observations from the Kap7 International tournament, granted I only stopped by youth games and the games at Beckman HS for 12/14 girls” refers to the joint training on the girls side.
My remark about the decline of K7 Intl on the girls side stands though.
Many girls teams have 14U players in High School so they are short handed for another 2 weeks. You wont see the full 14U potential until the next tourney, futures or cal cup.
Any idea why clubs are forgoing tournaments for trainings? Seems like the norm this year
at least two reasons
- A highly ranked/skilled team likely gets two easy games on day 1. Too easy/not enough competiton.
- Costs of the tournaments
There are multiple reasons, but the biggest is match-up consistency. It is common for top level teams to have two blowout games on Saturday that don’t challenge their kids, and they only get one or two good games out of a tournament.
With a closed training, the opposition is at the level that can provide work for your team, and it is more than 40 minutes of competition.
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Doh! Beat me to it by less than a minute!
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These are all valid arguments, but many (all?) factors obviously existed, say in 2023 as well. Now, just compare.
In 2023, 12U Girls Platinum division had teams that would finish 2,3,9,10,11,12,14,15,20,21 at the 2023 JO five months later. Thus, 6 teams from the top 12 finishes. This year, Back Bay will be there. Who else? I am not sure any other team that played in 12U competition will be there. And, for the full measure, 2023 12U JO winners played up in 14U Platinum, and #4 played up in 14U Gold at the 2023 K7 Intl.
The situation with 14U is equally dramatic. Two years ago, in 14U Platinum, there were teams that were going to finish 3,6,7,8,9,10,11,15,16,18, and 20 at the JOs. The only potential top ten team that played this year was 680.
I would say that the fall in quality in just two years is pretty dramatic.
Why do you think the quality has fallen? For example at frozen cup very few shootouts and tight scores games. Most were big gaps in scores and unevenly matched play
Joe,
Regarding Frozen Cup. East Bay typically has enough talent for three high quality clubs, but I am not sure that there are enough excellent players for four clubs. CCU fielding the girls teams now has somewhat diluted the talent. Also, Lamo does not play at the Frozen Cup, afaik. Their 14U and 12U A teams would be among the favorites and their B teams are decent. I think 680 entered only their B team for 12U Girls…
Perhaps, we have too many tournaments now
From my observation, this started a couple of years ago with some of the top 14U girls team skipping San Diego Cup in May in part due to reasons mentioned above but also because of shorter courses and shorter periods. This then expanded into common trainings multiple times a year and also expanded to 12U teams. Actually, I don’t think tournament fees were a concern, but some coaches realized they could do their own thing with 4 high quality games in a weekend.
There might be something to that. I know my schedule is packed.
100% this. If you’re in futures D1, then you get the consistent competition through that. No need to spend your Saturday destroying some teams. Quality not quantity.
No one has mentioned the fact that this year ODP scheduled a Southern CA development regional eval on top of the Sunday of Kap7 Intl. That’s 50+ athletes out of the tourney. For some teams the entire starting lineup would have missed Kap7 on Sunday.
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You probably nailed it. This, and maybe the growth of the Futures League could be the main reasons.
This pool is a nightmare for Refs. Your reffing on one side, parents behind you chirping in the stands in a enclosed pool deck making the sounds reverberate like your in some coliseum (While at SC Pool, whistle really loud and watch the Ref turn around and look at you pissed off, or your wife hit you for blowing out everyone’s eardrums) and the coaches across the pool deck making it hard to communicate. Was the coach wrong for disparaging the ref? Possibly, is it a Red Card? It depends. Do these two have history and the Ref is tired of his mouth?
Look at the film - these games cost $250/game and you get a scrimmage product: goal bungee’d to the wall - no side lines, no end lines, one shot clock, minimal warm up space, and an incompetent Ref (sometimes) - would you pay $1000 for 4 games like this?
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A new pool is being built for San Clemente. This pool is kinda the norm for most schools in SoCal as a majority are older HS’s (Tustin, San Clemente,etc…).
I’m not okay with that.
If a player, an assistant, or a fan chirps at a ref, I’m all for a quick trigger and harsh consequences. I’m very supportive of referees and the critical job they do.
In the game between Del Mar 12u and Shore Aquatics 14u this past weekend, there were calls some felt were being missed. At the quarter break, the referee told those making comments they weren’t wrong and asked them to sign up to be referees.
I’m not anti-referee by any stretch, but a coach has to be able to talk to a referee at least a little. It is the privilege denied to players, assistants, and fans. There are obviously limits. History or no, that red card was really quick.
Reason #3 for forging tournaments for trainings: ^^^
Where/when are they putting the new pool? Doesn’t seem like there is a lot of space to work with there….
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