Post by zizou on Sept 23, 2013 10:31:34 GMT -5
A few thoughts...
I agree that they are of dubious value for judging national standings; there just are not enough linking data points. It is also kind of silly to use them for trying to determine, for instance, whether ECNL teams are superior to Athena A teams for the same reason. I also agree that the available alternatives are at present of limited utility because all teams do not routinely enter results (or they do so strategically). And I frankly do not care if AFUs U9 squad is ranked ahead of GSAs U9s.
But where I do think such rankings could be helpful is group placement for tournament play, scheduling of friendlies during Academy regular season play, and for initial consideration of proper level when u12 sides move to Select (not everyone plays Academy Cup). How many events have we been to where teams are unfortunately unevenly matched leading to embarrassingly lopsided outcomes? How many lopsided affairs do you see during Academy season play? How often are squads placed in the wrong level at u13 and then get hammered all year long before adjustments can be made for the next season? Not good for anyone. If clubs were encouraged to routinely enter all of their results into some database then perhaps such unfortunate experiences could be avoided.
There would probably need to be some leadership at the state level to make this practical and useful. It may be necessary to re-think how comparative quality of sides is determined statistically. I think over the course of seasons, though, there could be enough data points to make something like this useful during the Academy years.
Of course, maybe this is a pipe dream that could never work under any circumstances!
I agree that they are of dubious value for judging national standings; there just are not enough linking data points. It is also kind of silly to use them for trying to determine, for instance, whether ECNL teams are superior to Athena A teams for the same reason. I also agree that the available alternatives are at present of limited utility because all teams do not routinely enter results (or they do so strategically). And I frankly do not care if AFUs U9 squad is ranked ahead of GSAs U9s.
But where I do think such rankings could be helpful is group placement for tournament play, scheduling of friendlies during Academy regular season play, and for initial consideration of proper level when u12 sides move to Select (not everyone plays Academy Cup). How many events have we been to where teams are unfortunately unevenly matched leading to embarrassingly lopsided outcomes? How many lopsided affairs do you see during Academy season play? How often are squads placed in the wrong level at u13 and then get hammered all year long before adjustments can be made for the next season? Not good for anyone. If clubs were encouraged to routinely enter all of their results into some database then perhaps such unfortunate experiences could be avoided.
There would probably need to be some leadership at the state level to make this practical and useful. It may be necessary to re-think how comparative quality of sides is determined statistically. I think over the course of seasons, though, there could be enough data points to make something like this useful during the Academy years.
Of course, maybe this is a pipe dream that could never work under any circumstances!
