PNW Boys U11-U18 updated biweekly through end of season

The WA, OR, ID boys are updated approximately biweekly through the end of the U11-U14 season.

2013-2014 Club strength across A, B and C teams (boys)

Same as previous analysis for team strength across ages across clubs but now showing the A, B, and C teams in a club.  Only 16 clubs that had enough B teams across multiple ages to have an interesting plot.  B team also needed to be strong enough to appear on my plot (not fall off the bottom of the y-axis).

8 data points.  B02 (U11) on the far left and B95 (U18) on the far right.   Red line is the median of the A teams from WPFC, Crossfire, Seattle United and Eastside.  Green line is the median across all select teams (not clubs) in WA.

2013-2014 Boys team strength across WA clubs

Following up on last years longer analysis of the strength of Washington clubs for boys,

here is an analysis of the strength of every select club's top boys team at U11-U18 in Washington.

Plot 1 shows and overview with Seattle United, Crossfire Premier, Washington Premier FC, and Eastside FC in red and every other club in black.  The green line is the median of all the black lines.

Plot 2 breaks this out by individual club.  This gives an overview of the types of teams difference clubs produce, what strength their A teams tends to be at, and whether the club fields teams at every age.

The red line is the median strength of the top teams at age in Seattle United, Crossfire Premier, Washington Premier FC, and Eastside FC. The are the four largest and strongest clubs in Washington and consistently produce a top 4 team across most every age. The dotted-red line is a strength -2 below the top team (or -200 on new scaling). The predicted goal ratio in a match-up between a team on the red line and one on the dotted red line is 4, so 4-1 or 8-2. So the red line team is heavily expected to win, but it would still be a somewhat competitive game. The green line is the median across all the top teams from every select club in Washington, except those top 4.

B02 at far left, B95 at far right. 

1pt difference is about the length of this hyphen - on this graph. Yes, small. Being 1 full pt stronger = scoring 2x as rapidly so is a significant advantage. So being on the green line versus slightly above it indicates a big difference in strength. The red line teams score about 80-100x more rapidly than the green line teams...

RCL D1 regional distribution

Here I look at the regional distribution of boys teams in the RCL D1 for fall 2013.  The RCL D1 is the strongest level of play in WA for all age groups except B97.  RCL is a closed league (closed to the clubs shown in the graphs).  However, except for B97, most WA teams at this level are playing in this league (the largest soccer clubs in WA are in the RCL so this is not surprising).

BU11-14
RCL is a state-wide league, but the top division in BU11-14 (32 teams) has about the lowest travel of any league/division.  Almost all teams (29 of 32) come from the SE Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Metro area: Redmond, Seattle, Preston, Woodinville, Tukwila, and Tacoma.  The longest distance, Woodinville-Tacoma is 50miles (ca 1 hr) and most games would involve under 30min of travel.  In the fall 2013 season, there were no teams from E WA, W side of Puget Sound or the Portland Metro area in RCL D1.  There was 1 team from N WA (Bellingham) and 2 from the N Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Metro area (Everett area).

 

BU15-18

At the HS age, BU15-18 (again 32 teams) the regional distribution of teams is more diverse and more "state-wide".  In fall 2013, most teams (21 of 32) still came from the SE Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue Metro area. But N WA (Bellingham) had a team at 3 of the 4 age groups, and N Seattle Metro area (Everett) at least 1 team at each age group although these teams were not in the same club. There are 3 N Seattle Metro area RCL clubs: NWN, Rush and Snohomish. At U15, Rush had a team in D1, at U16 Snohomish, at U17 both Snohomish and Rush, and at U18 NWN.  This suggests that the N Seattle Metro area only has sufficient players to support 1 D1 team at the HS age.  This might explain why there are no D1 N Seattle Metro teams at BU11-14 as significant cross-club player-migration is needed to form a D1 team and this doesn't happen until HS age.

The Bellingham Metro area, despite being only the 5th largest metro area in the state, is well-represented in the HS RCL D1 with teams at 3 of the 4 ages.  The 4th largest metro area in WA is the Tri-Cities and is again is about 2x the size of the Bellingham metro area, but had only 2 teams in D1.  The N Portland Metro area (WA side) is the 3rd largest metro area and also about 2x as big as Bellingham, but is even less represented in RCL D1 at the HS age (1 team).  The second largest metro area in WA, the Spokane metro area, has no teams in the RCL D1.

What is driving these patterns?  The most obvious is population size.  If we look at county size versus # of HS boys teams in the RCL D1, we see see a strong relationship. 

• King Co: Crossfire, SU, Eastside, PacNW, FCA
• Snohomish: Snohomish United, NWN, WA Rush
• Pierce: WPFC, FWFC, Harbor, Slammers
• Spokane: SSC
• Clark+Skamania: WA Timbers
• Tri-Cities (Benton+Franklin)+Yakima: Three Rivers and Three Rivers Yakima
• Whatcom+Skagit: Whatcom Rangers
• Kitsap+Mason: Westound
• #s from here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_statistical_areas

A couple things jump out:

• Whatcom Rangers appears to over-produce RCL D1 teams relative to what you would expect given the population size of Whatcom+Skagit counties.  Both the Whatcom region has PSPL "competitors" but not at the RCL D1 level.
• Spokane metro area has 2-3 fewer RCL D1 teams than expected.  However Spokane does have 3 HS teams at RCL D1 strengths, but they do not play in the RCL D1 (2 in PSPL D1 and 1 in RCL D2).

When we plot the same relationship for the younger ages U11-14 (red line and dots), there seems a very different pattern:

 First, it looks like the size of the player pool has a much bigger effect at the younger ages.  There seems to be a minimum population size of about 500,000 before a region is able to produce a team strong enough to compete in the RCL D1.

HOWEVER, there RCL is promotion-relegation and it may be that there is a initial selection bias at U11 towards the King County clubs and that this takes a few seasons to work its way out.  Next up, I want to repeat this but with my team strength estimates which won't have this initial selection bias.

Where WA boys U11-14 play select soccer

I took all the teams BU11-14 and divided them into E WA vs W WA.  There are 546 boys teams in the WA select soccer leagues.

Where W WA plays
65% of W WA boys U11-14 teams play in the USYS leagues: PML, DIII, NPSL, and RCL. The main leagues are the NPSL and RCL.  The former is open to all USYS leagues while the latter is a closed league with only some USYS clubs sanctioned as "RCL" clubs.  The strongest teams in the state play in RCL division 1 (15 out of 16) and come from almost exclusively four western WA clubs: Seattle United, Eastside, WPFC, and Crossfire Premier (15 out of 16 with the 16th being another W WA club).  PML, DIII, and NPSL are regional leagues serving respectively Vancouver/Portland region, south Puget Sound, and north Puget Sound.  Outside of RCL division 1, the strength of competition in the leagues overlaps considerably.  35% of W WA boys U11-14 teams play in the USCS leagues: PSPL and OPL.  OPL serves the Vancouver area WA teams (and Oregon) and PSPL is a state-wide league.  However, approx 20% of W WA teams in the PSPL are in the Copa division which is restricted to western WA.

Where E WA plays
In contrast to W WA, only 30% of boys U11-14 teams play in the USYS leagues: DIV and RCL. 70% of E WA boys U11-14 teams play in the USCS leagues: PSPL and PSPL-inland.  PSPL is the state-wide league and PSPL-inland is restricted to eastern WA teams.  The strongest eastern WA teams generally (9 out of the top 16) play in the PSPL league, with the older ages more often in the WSPL (state-wide) and younger strong teams often found in the PSPL-inland league.  5 out of the top 16 eastern WA teams play in the RCL and 2 in the DIV league.

2013 Strength Ratings posted to Blog

Updated DRAFT 2013 boys ratings
9-21-2013

The tabs on the blog now point to the 2013 ranks. Soon I will add links to the archived 2012 ranks. I don't have the league table done yet nor column re what fall league the team is in.

I've entered the first 1-2 league games.  Leagues included are RCL, PSPL, OPL, NPSL, DIII, DVI, and PML.
Email corrections and additions to lastplanetranking@gmail.com.

Some things to keep in mind for the 2013 ratings:
* I have changed the scaling for teams.  All teams are scaled against the median U13 team.  The median U13 team is set to a strength of 800.  This makes the ratings look a little more like chess ratings.  2000 is a very strong HS team and the top teams won't hit this till U17-18.

* Check out the FAQ on the blog to understand the meaning of the strength rating.  This is a predictive model and the DIFFERENCE in strength ratings between 2 teams gives you a prediction of the RATIO of the goals scored.  If rescaled the ratings, so now a difference of 100 is a prediction that the ratio of goals scored will be 2 (so a 2:1 or 4:2 or 8:4 score, which of those depends on the strength-attack characteristics of the teams).  A difference of 200 is a prediction that the ratio of goals scored will be 4 (so 4:1 or 8:2 etc score).

* The ratings are based on 13 months of matches but the ratings are weighted (heavily) towards the more recent 2-3 months of games. On the pdf, you can see how a team changed after try-outs (or after key players added or dropped).

* The "All-xx" tables you see have teams that are from 2012-2013 and don't exist anymore, but the state tables only have teams that played a game in the last 3 months.

* Only teams with 7+ games are listed on the main tables.  You can see all teams on the All_Bxx_ranks.html file.  Don't make much of the rating of a team with only 3-5 games.

* I have the B02s listed to help me figure out 02 teams that played up in a tourney but didn't list their age.  I won't be rating the B02s past this stage.  I start with U12s when games are 11v11.

* I have B94s listed, but I won't include those either in the final.

* Oregon ratings will be sketchy until the fall league starts.  There were many name changes and reorganization of teams, so more data is needed to get these sorted out.

--LP