U13 A/B picks for Sept 27-29

GSA was up 4-0 with less than 10 minutes to go before being called due to rain. I think the coaches could have agreed not to replay but no way AFU was going to go for that.

Will know how strong TSC is this weekend as my oldest girl's team plays them on Saturday. We've played the exact same team at the end of the year last year but they might have a few new players. We have several new players on our team as well. We lost 2-1 last season at their place but that was 8v8 so it's a bit different 11v11. Then her team has 3 weeks off in the middle of the season. Kinda strange how that works especially since there are no tournaments during that time. Roswell usually does extremely well and Tophat is, well Tophat. NASA is solid and GSA is also usually pretty strong. I was kind of surprised at how Concorde's team in this bracket is not doing so well. Maybe they aren't as deep as some of the other teams. Our girls lost the 1st game against the Lady Freedom club but it was their 1st 11v11 game and I think they've gotten a bit more organized. This weekend will for sure show them where they stand against the stronger clubs.

A little off topic.

Jack alludes to a really important issue when determining team placements at U13 and predicting how they will do at a particular athena or classic level. Going from 8 to 11 players is increasing the number of players on the pitch by more than a third. Obvious I know. Despite the tactical adjustments, that is a huge requirement on available talent. Teams that looked good at U12 can struggle at U13 because they do not possess the same depth in their club. This can be a real problem for smaller clubs, but can also be an issue for some bigger clubs as well. A team might be able to field a really good U12 team with 7 average to above average field players. Then they need to find not only three more field players to start but additional players to serve as quality subs. A small club that can really only field one quality U12 team, for instance, can be on shaky ground when they go to U13. And even for bigger clubs, look at the difference in rankings between their first and second U12 squads. Some clubs have pretty big gaps, others have 4 teams in the top 50 (Tophat). Not to mention this can be a time when kids start to focus on their other interests, perhaps further compromising teams that had a limited player base to begin with. I start to think it almost argues for the need to have club alliances as one moves to full sided games so that kids have a chance to play at the level most appropriate for them. But this is a discussion for another thread. Barring the need to consider player movement, however, I do think quality of predictions at U13 could be improved by using such information, at last until there are sufficient game performances.

Yep...they have the top scorer in the bracket. Of course, we have the 2nd highest so it might be quite the battle. Roswell has the 3rd and 4th leading scorers so that shows a nice balanced attack. Our defense is solid and the ball movement has been impressive the past few games. 

Figured Concorde had players moving to other parts of their club. They are usually quite strong. We've never played a GSA team since they aren't in the friendly alliances with NSA but should be fun to finally play them. We've only played a Roswell team one time that I can remember and it was a loss. Our team has changed from last year as well. Our goalie moved up a level (my opinion is that she is a premier level goalie at any club) but we got a pretty darn good replacement. We've got at least one girl that came from our Rec leagues last year and some from our 4th level team from a season ago but the coach has got them playing well as a team. Definitely need some time to get things solidified though. My daughter I think has finally found a position that suits her perfectly. She plays a defensive center midfielder. She's always had good field vision and excellent passing but just not very aggressive offensively. I haven't seen her happier at soccer in quite a while. She loves playing 11v11.