BC Coastal Soccer League

[easoccer]

It has been pretty frustrating. We saw the schedule with the bye in it for this weekend and informed the team and then the next day the November 11th second round game gets moved to this weekend. Parents are rightly annoyed by the poor execution and communication.

Yup, schedule changed for us again as well. Going to play one team 2x, another 3x possibly 4x if we meet in cup. All within 2 months of season play. All the while we might not even meet teams for the 1st time until the new year. WTH are they doing? This is crazy.

 

[TKBC]

Yup, schedule changed for us again as well. Going to play one team 2x, another 3x possibly 4x if we meet in cup. All within 2 months of season play. All the while we might not even meet teams for the 1st time until the new year. WTH are they doing? This is crazy.

I wonder which cup format is best? The traditional style that D4 follows (cup play blended into league play, one-off games - is that how it is?) which the new BCCSL has adopted, or the D5 format that has adjusted over the years to its current format (now defunct of course). Last year D5 played a regular league schedule Sept-Dec. Then after Dec broke into group-play cup in groups of 6. Generally went ranked on league position. Group A 1-6, Group B 7-12 so on and so forth all the way down to Division 4. Every team then was placed in a group that had all teams competitive with each other, generally speaking (always 1 team wins and 1 team finishes last but for most part the teams were fairly competitive). Having played, and coached, in both cup styles - I definitely definitely prefer the District 5 final format. The teams played 5 group games. Teams that finished 1-2 in the group then played a final for 1st-2nd. So every team had meaningful games after Christmas.

Sure you played teams from your league, typically, a 2nd (or 3rd if you meet in the final) time but that's fine because it was a fresh start. You also got a chance to play new teams because leagues often had 12+ teams and often you didn't get 11-12 league games in - so there were plenty of teams in your league you never got to play even though they might have been within 1-3 league positions of you. You not got to see them in a cup. It created nice little rivalries as well.

District 5 did once have the random draw, sprinkled into league play. Teams were elimited from cup in the first month or so of the season - often creating a meaningless league season for them. Then they created round robin groups, again randomly, but you had meaningful games - and a "fresh" start in cup if your league season wasn't going well (or vice versa!). Then they switched to moving the cup after Christmas and ranking the teams as noted above. The final change was fantastic. Never heard a single complaint except for the overlap it had with District Cup games (they once tried to force my team to play both the district cup final and league cup final on the same day, in different cities, about 30 minutes apart.....and that was just the beginning of that huge mess!). But that didn't happen often to many teams. District cup games typically weren't until Feb-April.

I am glad I am not involved in BCCSL this year (or in the near future). It sounds like a royal mess!

 

[easoccer]

I don't have any problems with the league or cup format. Sure a round robin is a more friendly approach, but kmockout is acceptible.

At tiering they didn't need to change the schedule or standings. If a team moved up a bye is created or eliminated. If a lower team joins same thing. To redo the schedule and then repeat games is dumb. Then to announce a schedule then change it, and change it again, while also announcing cup with so many mistakes is not good management at all. I'm sure there must be some kind of infighting or disagreements going on to create so much confusion.

 

[Coach Ian]

My own u11 schedule has changed as well (appropriate). They changed all the groups after Thanksgiving, and we played a game with that sched, they've now changed all the groups again. LOL. I was away from the game and my boys said they were really fast....lol any bets on if we played a u12 team by mistake? hahaha....guys you gotta laugh, as frustrating as it is.
*my team is not in BCCSL. We're in the Fraser Valley one. Seems we have the same issues

I have been saying this ever since SPL has come about. Doesn't make sense having MSL . The idea of MSL was to take the top rated players. Once SPL came and took those top rated players, MSL wasn't taking just top rated players. They were also taking Silver and Bronze players to fill up their rosters. I had 3 of my players make a MSL team 2 of which were solid silver players and 1 that was more bronze than silver. It really makes MSL redundant.
The only thing now is where are those players going to go? Are they going to go to their home clubs or are they going to stay with the clubs they are with now, and instead of the league being MSL, they will be gold by name and nothing has really changed, at which whats the point!
Cheers,
Ian

 

[TKBC]

I have been saying this ever since SPL has come about. Doesn't make sense having MSL . The idea of MSL was to take the top rated players. Once SPL came and took those top rated players, MSL wasn't taking just top rated players. They were also taking Silver and Bronze players to fill up their rosters. I had 3 of my players make a MSL team 2 of which were solid silver players and 1 that was more bronze than silver. It really makes MSL redundant.
The only thing now is where are those players going to go? Are they going to go to their home clubs or are they going to stay with the clubs they are with now, and instead of the league being MSL, they will be gold by name and nothing has really changed, at which whats the point!
Cheers,
Ian

They'll figure out a way to simply move the current MSL into the existing BCCSL schedule and identify it as the top tier....

BCSPL doesn't get all the top BCSPL players either. No league in BC ever will. BCSPL gets most of the top players though.

 

[Coach Ian]

Well here in vancouver, Vancouver FC is financially supported by all the clubs in vancouver through VYSA.
Why would we want to support VFC to put a gold team on the pitch, when each club has several of their own?
Cheers,
Ian

 

[TKBC]

Well here in vancouver, Vancouver FC is financially supported by all the clubs in vancouver through VYSA.
Why would we want to support VFC to put a gold team on the pitch, when each club has several of their own?
Cheers,
Ian

My guess is they'll rename all the divisions, and still have district-based teams at the top of the tier. I can't see, for example, Fraser Valley Selects disappearing.

 

[GGMU]

How would teams qualify for Boys B Cup Provincials?
Heard there wont be BC Coastal Cup this year.

 

[Coach Ian]

How would teams qualify for Boys B Cup Provincials?
Heard there wont be BC Coastal Cup this year.

Yes there will be, they did the draw for coastal cup 2 weeks ago!
Not sure when the game will be scheduled though, must be soon.
Cheers,
Ian

 

[TKBC]

Yes there will be, they did the draw for coastal cup 2 weeks ago!
Not sure when the game will be scheduled though, must be soon.
Cheers,
Ian

they did the coastal cup draw before they did the district cup playdowns?

 

[TKBC]

Confirmed no MSL next season. It's folding into BCCSL, will be called Division 1 (or Gold or whatever name they choose). All the current divisions will be renamed - Div 1 now Div 2, Div 2 now 3 so on and so forth. The current MSL programs will continue to run as they are. There will be a promotion-relegation system, but how has not been determined. For example should a "district"-based team (ie, the Burnaby metro program) be relegated, should they then drop to div 2? That wouldn't be "fair" and should a club-based team move up to MSL and could they compete? To stick with the Burnaby example, should Cliff ave move to metro if they win div 2? Maybe. I don't think anyone will come up with the perfect answer. If a district-based team gets relegated and those players all choose to stay together in div 2 no one can stop them - for example Cliff gets promoted, Burnaby metro gets relegated there's nothing stopping all those Burnaby metro players from going and creating a team at Wesburn for example, should the Wesburn club sign them all on and designate them div 2 (which they would).

I think it's good for one reason - gets everyone under the same umbrella. Will make permits etc much easier I assume.

All leagues will be running on the same rules, and yes girls will join the boys league to be under the same umbrella.

BC Soccer is getting more involved in league rules and league set-ups moving forward. I also think this is good in that they are the ones ultimately responsible for the playing experience, and development of players in this province.

 

[easoccer]

Thats fine and all but promotion and relegation needs to be done a bit more often. If you look now we have teams with large goal differences at the top of some groups. For example, relegation was done after 2 or 3 games this year. In u17 a team was dropped from gold to silver. They are regularly winning 5-0, 6-1. We also have teams that were promoted that get stomped.

Another thing I hope they fix is the idiotic scheduling they have. In past years a team would have played 11/12 games by december break. This year some teams are lucky if they played 5-7 games including a poorly formatted cup system. And the biggest gripe I have with this? The weather has been very good this year.

 

[TKBC]

Further underlining the issues with a score-based pro/rel system. We all have stories of teams that were bottom of a division that were actually very strong, and teams top of a division in a lower tier that were sandbagging, or the club/league refused to move them up, but at same time a team that is dominant in a lower tier may in turn get smashed 1 tier up.

League coordinators have a tough job. How should leagues be sorted? By collecting the TD's together and they can arrange the leagues as a group, rather than well-meaning volunteers who never see a game or talk to a coach.

 

[easoccer]

Im not sure what the solution is but tiering after 2-3 games and then holding cup with obvious mismatches isnt it. Maybe 5 games, then another 5, then cup. Maybe 6 or 8 divisions. Who knows.

 

[TKBC]

Definitely agree re-tiering after 2-3 games is ridiculous - always has been. If re-tiering after 2-3 games is required my question goes back to the TD's who designated the tiers their teams would play in. This is always hard to predict for u13 and u18, but after the u13 season clubs know what level their teams are. At u10-12 this is difficult as well but league re-orgs are easy enough as standings aren't kept and coastal cup isn't a factor.

 

[easoccer]

In areas where a club has one or 2 teams the club should have a good idea, but in newton where there are several clubs, many teams at certain ages, and a lot of movement between the clubs, it would be tough.

 

[TKBC]

Regardless size of club - they should have a pretty good idea. Remember this only affects teams that win easily or lose by biggish scores regularly - which is a small number of teams.

I can see u13 being quite difficult, but after that it should be fairly predictable. Re-shuffle after 6-8 games sure, but not 2-3.

 

[easoccer]

I was thinking more along the lines of season to season. But I think sometimes it more about club/coach/team/player egos than doing whats right.

I dont mind seeing an undefeated team. What I dont like is teams with 30 plus goal differentials and being unbeaten or winlesss. In this instance moving a team would not be such a hard decision.

 

[TKBC]

You don't mind undefeated teams but you don't like unbeaten teams?

I think people need to accept when a Gold team wins all or almost every game by a healthy score in a season. The issue is if they are sandbagging and staying at that level when there becomes an opportunity for them to move to a higher tier.

 

[easoccer]

I said I dont mind if they are unbeaten, but not by large margins of victory. Conversely I dont mind a winless team hanging on if the margins are very narrow.

My issue is a gold team losing 2 or 3 games, getting tiered down and then winning by 5 goal margins. In that case the team needs to be reassessed.