Why huge gap between Concorde Platinum and Concorde Premiere

I assume you’re referring to ECNL, not ECRL. For ECNL girls, the Platinum team is their top team so the Platinum coach gets to choose his or her players before Premier. I’m guessing both teams at each age group have quality coaches so for the most part it comes down to having the best players, that’s why Platinum is always the better team. For ECRL girls, it’s a different dynamic since Platinum is based out of their Central location and Premier is based out of their Columbus location. So sometimes ECRL Premier is the better team.

Note that the 2011 premiere team is based out of Columbus.  But that's the only age group I'm aware of that doesn't have both platinum and premiere out of Atlanta 

Interesting to see that in the 2008 Girls age group, Premier actually finished the fall in 1st place, ahead of Platinum. But that seems to be a major anomaly. In every other age group, Platinum is at or near the top of the standings, while Premier is mid-to-bottom of the table.


theecnl.com/sports/2023/8/8/ECNLG_0808235831.aspx

They finished 1 & 2 in the standings, played each other once to a 2-2 draw. Sounds like they just have a lot of depth and talent in that particular age group.

He probably holds some players back that could/would otherwise be on Platinum to boost up his own team. And if you're the Platinum coach, I guess you can't complain too loudly- he's your boss!

Not uncommon on the boys side. Honestly it was one ECNL coach who’d drop 2-3 players every yr to ECNL RL Plat. But he’d allow them to train with his team. They’d miss our practices opting for theirs. A few had “I’m better than this team” attitudes and put in little effort. Barely showed up to games… but they’d get moved right back up the next yr. I guess they used all their energy/effort at the ECNL practices.

This is actually wrong now. Players can move between Premier and Platinum now, and did so quite a bit on the Girls side.

It looks like there are several checks in place to make sure the transfer is needed. Otherwise if Premier is playing NASA and Platinum is playing FC Alliance then CF could just swap out most of each team with each other to give both the best chance to win. Certainly that would be a competitive advantage that wouldn’t be allowed and what my point was.

It is a very weird dynamic. There are some age groups that platinum RL is stronger than premier ECNL. The existence of two teams at Concorde is definitely a topic that has been discussed many times as it relates to removing one of the ECNL teams. This would spread the talent out amongst other clubs and strengthen Georgia soccer as a whole.

How does it strengthen Georgia soccer as a whole? Not following the logic here. Maybe it's how we define the situation??

I will be a contrarian. It is not as if the stronger players can just go to another local team, how are they going to make it to practice? Do you think a kid being in a carpool with practice four hours a night four nights a week is reasonable? Atlanta traffic sucks. Even if some kid was willing to do that we as adults should encourage them not to unless they are driving to ATL UTD or getting looks from the national team, and even then...

They should add an ECNL/RL team in the Roswell / Woodstock area. Last year 3 of the 4 teams that played in the Georgia State Playoffs came from this area. A lot of talent in that area are stuck if they can't make NASA ECNL and/or if Concord West doesn't have an ECNL/RL team in their age group, which has a cascading effect through all levels. The only option is to drive, some kids on the east side of 400 can drive to AFU, some kids on the west side of 75 can drive to SSA, some kids make the drive north to UFA, and most kids make the hike to central. All of those options though suck for those kids as they are long drives. The kids that are left settle. If you look at this year or past years, it is why you get anomalous teams from this area - a few years ago SCCL was placed in a tournament with ECNL teams and got a couple of ties and a win, or this past season a 4th place SCCL team last year (spring 2023) with no roster changes ties an ECNL team in a tournament (fall 2023), or a SCCL team beating an ECRL team (fall 2023), those are just a few of the random games I am aware of, I am sure the list goes on and on.

I would add, that I believe you get better teams performing nationally by encouraging expansion. I think what we all know if you have had a child playing at a high level here in ATL, the thing you notice the most is speed of play and technical ability, I would add after that intensity. The more kids you have playing at that level, then have the best kids from those teams get recruited to a NASA or Concord Plat.

I understand why you disagree, as I think my suggestion is counterintuitive and yours is more straightforward. I am assuming that training with better teammates and playing against better teams produces better players. In my example I am merely suggesting opening the pool up in at least one (maybe there are other areas) so more players get those things. This would theoretically produce a larger pool of better players. 

I then make a leap, that the top players will migrate to 2-3 teams so they get more exposure, etc. in national events. 

There is always the first question. What is the goal, to produce better players or produce better teams? Do better players produce better teams? It is too early for me to think through such deep subjects 

I would say, as a complete aside, I wish there was no ECRL or NAL so that more clubs had teams in SCCL. The pro/rel while flawed at times is far superior to the walled gardens our kids play in now. 

There have been several national champs from the SE so not sure that I buy the argument that SE cannot compete with west coast and other areas of the country.

If there is statistical relevant data to suggest otherwise, I would attribute more to the soccer calendar than anything else.  Having club in the fall and HS in the spring is a huge disadvantage to SE teams v. teams that have HS in the fall and club in the spring when the tournament is played over the summer.

Exactly. I've actually been very impressed by the soccer prowess shown from the southeastern teams, and in particular, Metro Atlanta. Concorde and Tophat are often recognized nationally as some of the top performing clubs in National Championship/Showcases, as well as, on website rankings like Soccerwire.com. UFA and GSA are also up there, all be it, to a slightly lesser degree. Although, UFA has made great strides and is poised to be along side CF and TH and will probably surpass TH soon enough (if they haven't already), while giving CF a run for their money (No pun intended,  ).