u/Sea-Cartoonist7024

Wanted to open up this post because looking around Atlanta and other Southern cities, we are continuing this insanity. Games at 1pm on Saturday and Sunday with temp's in the county at 95-98 degrees, and the heat on the turf well into the 100's.

Add to that this past weekend that we had all 3 games (1pm Saturday, 7pm Saturday and 1pm Sunday) were delayed because of lightning strikes. That left over 100 sets of parents (3+ fields) sitting in a parking lot for hours waiting for the thunder clock to run out and not reset.

So, I ask the question- WHAT ARE WE DOING?

Would love some thoughts on:

1. Playing games early and late with an embargo from 1-6pm. I know I don't want to wake up at 6am on a Sunday but we have to have the discussion

2. Adopt a T2 Tennis model for Preseason- Coaches here are each others contact and we have reserved fields (or you can arrange other fields) and you have to finish your games in the next 2 weeks. We can have the Championships on the weekend if you like.

3. Do you maybe shorten the games to 30 minutes and play more games. This offers rest and makes it easier to jam in games when lightning delays happen.

4. To quote my childhood coach... Do we just keep doing what we are doing? The heat is just part of the game and it's part of the preseason process? Lightning delays are a great chance for the team to get together with some social time and just be kids?

Since the leagues have no intention of asking these questions, maybe we can have a constructive conversation and see if there are some options.

It really is amazing that even after we left this league, the reach they have in our home county keeps pulling us back in. We will save the unorganized crapfest that they call "tryouts" for another day as we will just talk about their Preseason "Invitational" occuring this weekend.

So, our new team needed a Preseason Tournament and eventually wound up on this one. We are an N1 team that might be pretty good but we don't have the killers needed at striker to compete in the ECNL or RL spots. UFA took our money and never made mention of the (let's call it "light") enrollment in this bracket. That's right, 5 teams total: UFA ECNL & RL and Jacksonville, FL ECNL & RL....and our N1 team.

**Quick reference, a bunch of UFA teams are going next weekend down to Jacksonville to play in their tournament so leave it up to UFA to travel their teams 6 hours to Jacksonville, just so UFA can con the Florida team to enter their home tournament.

Back to our team and the tournament this weekend. Would you:

1. Expect the tournament to offer your money back seeing you are playing outside your division
2. Expect the tournament to just shut their mouth and collect their money
3. Just eliminate this division from the bracket and figure out a better time for UFA to play the Jacksonville team?

There is just a bad taste when you are told "this is going to be a strong tournament with teams above and below your ranking, perfect for the Preseason". Thoughts?

It really is amazing that even after we left this league, the reach they have in our home county keeps pulling us back in. We will save the unorganized crapfest that they call "tryouts" for another day as we will just talk about their Preseason "Invitational" occuring this weekend.

So, our new team needed a Preseason Tournament and eventually wound up on this one. We are an N1 team that might be pretty good but we don't have the killers needed at striker to compete in the ECNL or RL spots. UFA took our money and never made mention of the (let's call it "light") enrollment in this bracket. That's right, 5 teams total: UFA ECNL & RL and Jacksonville, FL ECNL & RL....and our N1 team.

**Quick reference, a bunch of UFA teams are going next weekend down to Jacksonville to play in their tournament so leave it up to UFA to travel their teams 6 hours to Jacksonville, just so UFA can con the Florida team to enter their home tournament.

Back to our team and the tournament this weekend. Would you:

1. Expect the tournament to offer your money back seeing you are playing outside your division

2. Expect the tournament to just shut their mouth and collect their money

3. Just eliminate this division from the bracket and figure out a better time for UFA to play the Jacksonville team?

There is just a bad taste when you are told "this is going to be a strong tournament with teams above and below your ranking, perfect for the Preseason". Thoughts?

We are in Murfreesboro, TN this week for the girls 13-19 National Soccer Championships. Let’s start this off with stating some facts

— Our team didn’t come in ready and lost 2 of our 3 round robin games
—the Tournament does a nice job of signage and maintaining the most accurate information which is critical. You can tell they are trying to keep a solid flow of information out there.
— My daughter is a goalie which basically means anytime she touches the ball, my wife and son are an emotional basket case. That all being said,I wish there was somewhere where parents and players could get real answers. Let me show you what I mean

1. in the middle of a rain delay (mostly lightning delay) our game for tomorrow got moved from 8am to 2:45pm. It’s the first game of the day, so how did we get bumped? If it was worried about rain on grass fields, don’t you weave those games in so these teams don’t have to rearrange there travel day (new hotel stay, someone to stay with the dog, etc. no explanation, too bad, here’s your new time on this field. Awesome, just another $300 and trying to change a placement test at school.

2)I know how this sounds but it needs to be said. These games are being played for the soccer teams, the refs are there to support those games. I have ref’d many sports at many levels so am fully aware that these refs are as good as it gets and they are being graded. It’s a big deal. What grinds my gears is you can easily see points of emphasis that steals huge spots of attention while other things go unnoticed. Goalie is knocked over as she collected a ball, ref gives a stern look. While the goalie is standing up, the ref starts counting the new 8 second rule. The ref was closer to calling a turnover to a corner than seeing if the goalie had a concussion. Offsides. We are calling it. We might miss a defender back and away from the play but we are calling that offside. We can also talk about hip to hip and shoulder to shoulder inconsistency, but that is going to happen at all tournaments even the WC.

3. it’s a tough game and an even tougher weekend. The reason we all have this is the players. Not the refs, not the tournament staffer that decider to keep riding around the parking lot to get inside the cars. My guy, you’re not publishing a clock that says where we are or how much of the lightning delay we have. But you can ride around on a golf cart telling us to leave the parking lot and then we can watch you stack tee shirt boxers on tables with metal legs and awnings with metal walls, etc. I know it gets annoying when 20 parents ask you “when are we going to start up again”. But instead of causing me more frustration cause I am standing in a parking lot, come up with a better way to communicate the lightning clock so k can then go get a taco down the street.

As been discussed and experienced in the past few weeks, Youth Academy soccer has gone through a shift of its age cutoffs. In short, Academies across the country are leaving a calendar based cutoff to adopt one that is more aligned with the grades that kids attend (https://www.usyouthsoccer.org/news/2025/06/10/updated-decision-on-age-group-formation/)

The adoption of the reclassification is up for debate and quite frankly, cannot see why to go through the trouble of it all. The issue that it has caused is a tipping point for Larger Clubs who have survived on outdated hustle and growing recreational budgets to just continue to line the pockets of the owners while players are exiting en mass through the front and back doors.

The question now becomes how do they stop the leak? When does that leak become a break and the end is inevitable? Do the clubs seek out VC money and try to exit at the high point?

For these clubs that are taking a deep breath that the reclassification is behind them... you might want to take a peek at the road ahead.