CJSA Issues

[Unregistered]

Here are some issues that CJSA should address if they don't want to become totally irrelevant on the girls side.
1. Make CSJA league relevant
a. Tier earlier age to give new teams a better experience and create better match ups. Need to do this earlier as once teams have bad experiences, they start looking for alternatives and usually don't come back
b. Adjust league schedule....looking at U12 thru U16 standings, many teams have only played 1 or 2 games and league ends June 17. State cup comes along and the games take a back seat. Not only for the teams advancing, but the teams that are supposed to play those teams. Look into starting earlier (NERP does), shortining number of games, mandating schedule and having historically strong match ups teams scheduled after state cup
c. Make the league championship mean something. For example, automatic bye in first round of state cup for top finishers. No away games in Spring for a Fall league champion. Or, make a club championship competition with points awarded for state cup finishes as well as league finishes. Perhaps clubs that don't enter teams would if they could be awarded club champion for the year. Award league winners a "free" odp training spot, ie one player fee is waived.
d. Mandate certain field conditions (size, pitch of field, surface condition)
2. State cup - Do a better job seeding the tournament
3. ODP - Fix the intial experience. Not enough attention given to initial years. Kids and adults have a bad initial impression and drop out or tell others it is a waste of time and future pools are impacted. Improve communication. Create unity (not sure how many kids on my daughter's team actually know who all the kids in the pool are, ie clubs thay come from, name, anything. Make it mean something, publicize results (names of players, players clubs, etc, award selection (patch, plaque), provide more subsidy for players/clubs, ie look at ID2 model. Also, remove overlap between odp and league, ie Rider tournament still during league play, etc
4. Solve high school and premier issue. Should not have to be either or.

[Unregistered]

It is too late. Cjsa waited to long. There is no chance teams will leave ECNL or NPL or Academy.

Cjsa will be for travel teams and lower level "premier" teams

[Unregistered]

"will be"

It is too late. Cjsa waited to long. There is no chance teams will leave ECNL or NPL or Academy.

Cjsa will be for travel teams and lower level "premier" teams

It already is...just take a look clubs not sending teams to the Spring league on the girls side. Even state cup competition can't lure the better cfc teams out of hibernation in CT. Is it really that taxing to mix in 3 or 4 games in May for those teams? The answer is no. Maybe they just want to protect the girls from playing too much and the chance of injury. Can't tell you how many times I have seen players get beat to a ball and the result is a blow to the back or a foot from behind that could injury a player. Fustration, lack of skill and speed is a recipe for injury

[Unregistered]

At this point, not sure how to fix things. CJSA is partially to blame for allowing every person who wants to setup a premier club, due so. But if the top teams stayed instate in CJSA league D1, there is still plenty of competition for them in state. At least on the girls side. So for that I blame the clubs. They are joining these other leagues, not because they lack competition, but for monetary purposes. To "claim" they are better than everyone else and use that as a marketing tool to draw in $$$$$$$. Yankee to elite to play in state? What a joke. Yes they currently have strong U16-17 teams but the rest are no better than most other CT teams. All would get, and do get plenty of competition in state.

Now I would like to see CJSA limit the number of premier teams in each age group. Maybe 12 teams, two equal divisions. Then all the top players from the remaining clubs would need to join these 12 clubs and it would make the entire league stronger. Maybe below this allow a qualifying or open division with some sort of opportunity to earn a spot in the premier league.

U12 qualifying? No way. We need to be developing players at this age. Who cares about wins and losses at U12. U13 is early enough to start meaningful competition.

[Unregistered]

This out of state thing can backfire. I dont think all these parents are going to be like soccerplus parents and are going to make trips to NY so their kids can get killed. Good teams will enjoy it and others will come back home? Especially at u13... top CT teams arent going to travel to beat a terrible NY team. The college recruitment rate will be expected to go way up too. At u12-13-14 parents make the call.

[Unregistered]

You have to look at history, and the big picture. CJSA has always promoted " premier play " to a certain point. The voting block are the Club Presidents of Clubs, the majority of which are not Premier. The original plan to have a limited Premierprogram in the state evaporated as the free market took over. New " premier" clubs stated popping up anywhere there were fields toplay on, and parents willing to pay for their children. That started the wheels in motion forward to what exists today. Part of the motivation of parents to move their children into " premier" was their unhappiness wth the travel teams in their own town, along with the potential for better coaching and better competition.
This all started in the mid 1990's. The " premier " program crawled along, but really started to take off over the past 6-7 years. In fact , a dozen or so years ago, CJSA itself tried to " market : their own Premier teams under their umbrella. The other Premier clubs that were in busiiness at the time, crushed that effort. There just weren't enough interested parents and children , and their wasn't enough perceived value.

Large Premier Clubs in this state always were on the look out for ways to distance themselves from CJSA. Some of them were just not satisfied by the service of the organization. As leagues started opening up outside of CJSA, Premier Clubs were eager and happy to leave CJSA in the dust. Just like a product you buy that when you have used up all that you can, you throw it away, and start with another.

The big picture is the battle between US club Soccer and USYSA. The fallout may mean that organizations like CJSA will become marginalized and remain strictly in service for the majority of players that wish to play travel and lower level " premier". The State Cup, once the highlight of the Spring season is already watered down in importance.

With the rise of the DAP, and ECNL, CJSA is once again left out of the big dance. The highest level of players , little by little, are out of CJSA. The handwriting has been on the wall for years. Once the effectiveness of an organization is brought into question , it opens up areas for additonal decline and flight of some of the previous members.

Perhaps the best thing CJSA could do is to concentrate fully on servicing the members of the community that they can best serve. That being REcreation, Classic Travel, and lower level " premier" teams. They won't be able to compete with DAP, ECNL or the next regional or national league du jour.

[Unregistered]

development?

At this point, not sure how to fix things. CJSA is partially to blame for allowing every person who wants to setup a premier club, due so. But if the top teams stayed instate in CJSA league D1, there is still plenty of competition for them in state. At least on the girls side. So for that I blame the clubs. They are joining these other leagues, not because they lack competition, but for monetary purposes. To "claim" they are better than everyone else and use that as a marketing tool to draw in $$$$$$$. Yankee to elite to play in state? What a joke. Yes they currently have strong U16-17 teams but the rest are no better than most other CT teams. All would get, and do get plenty of competition in state.

Now I would like to see CJSA limit the number of premier teams in each age group. Maybe 12 teams, two equal divisions. Then all the top players from the remaining clubs would need to join these 12 clubs and it would make the entire league stronger. Maybe below this allow a qualifying or open division with some sort of opportunity to earn a spot in the premier league.


U12 qualifying? No way. We need to be developing players at this age. Who cares about wins and losses at U12. U13 is early enough to start meaningful competition.

Thats the problem....is development winning 7-0? Parents and coaches see that and say we need to play better teams to develop, so they start going out of state to tournamnats and then realize they can get in a stronger league, so they do. Yes it needs to be qualifying, otherwise, clubs, parents, etc will seek other alternatives and then won't come back.

I agree, it isn't about winning, but if you play 9 games and 5 or 6 are blow outs in the CJSA league, you lose the desire to play those teams on a regular basis

[Unregistered]

So who is blowing out people 7-0 at u11 and u12 week in and week out? And winning is not development. Parents needs to understand that. I have seen teams play very well and lose and play really bad and win.

[Unregistered]

you havent seen one in a while I guess

So who is blowing out people 7-0 at u11 and u12 week in and week out? And winning is not development. Parents needs to understand that. I have seen teams play very well and lose and play really bad and win.

U12...quick look at cjsa Spring "premier" league

I only pulled examples where one team scored at least 5 goals and where the other team scored no goals or a team scored 6 or more and the other team scored no more than 1 goal. Hopefully you would agree that is one sided. 15 of the 42 games played so far, or 36% fell into this category.
FSA 7-0 Western United
CFC Wolves 6-0 NE United
FSA 7-1 Soccer Plus
CFC Extreme 6-0 NE United
CFC Extreme 5-0 Beachside
CFC Extreme 6-1 Soccerplus
Soccerplus 9-0 NE United
Beachside 7-1 NE United
Oakwood 5-0 Southeast
CFC Arsenal 7-0 CFC Azzuri
Yankee 9-0 Everton
CFC Arsenal 7-0 Southeast
Oakwood 6-0 CFC Azzuri
CFC Arsenal 9-0 Everton
Simmons 5-0 CFC Azzuri

You could argue that the scores could have been more one sided had the winning team not taken the foot off the gas. Can't imagine why some clubs wouldn't be excited to play the same teams in the Fall as U13s.

[Unregistered]

wow

U12...quick look at cjsa Spring "premier" league

I only pulled examples where one team scored at least 5 goals and where the other team scored no goals or a team scored 6 or more and the other team scored no more than 1 goal. Hopefully you would agree that is one sided. 15 of the 42 games played so far, or 36% fell into this category.
FSA 7-0 Western United
CFC Wolves 6-0 NE United
FSA 7-1 Soccer Plus
CFC Extreme 6-0 NE United
CFC Extreme 5-0 Beachside
CFC Extreme 6-1 Soccerplus
Soccerplus 9-0 NE United
Beachside 7-1 NE United
Oakwood 5-0 Southeast
CFC Arsenal 7-0 CFC Azzuri
Yankee 9-0 Everton
CFC Arsenal 7-0 Southeast
Oakwood 6-0 CFC Azzuri
CFC Arsenal 9-0 Everton
Simmons 5-0 CFC Azzuri

You could argue that the scores could have been more one sided had the winning team not taken the foot off the gas. Can't imagine why some clubs wouldn't be excited to play the same teams in the Fall as U13s.

Clearly NE United, Azzuri, Everton and Southeast should not be playing with the majority of the teams in the league.

How about looking at goal differential. Thru 6 games, cfc azzuri, cfc spurs and Northeast United scored exactly one goal and let up 19,12 and 24 respectively. Everton through 5 games let up 16 and scored 2. Since there are only 20 teams in total in the two divisions, those 4 make up 20% of the league. There are many others that the goal differential would say are not competitive as well, so not picking on those teams.

[Unregistered]

Thats the problem....is development winning 7-0? Parents and coaches see that and say we need to play better teams to develop, so they start going out of state to tournamnats and then realize they can get in a stronger league, so they do. Yes it needs to be qualifying, otherwise, clubs, parents, etc will seek other alternatives and then won't come back.

I agree, it isn't about winning, but if you play 9 games and 5 or 6 are blow outs in the CJSA league, you lose the desire to play those teams on a regular basis

Having at least a few easy games can be very good for development. It is much easier to work on implementing new tactical approaches (say integrating defenders into possession and offense), or trying out new formations, or players in different roles, in easy games than closely competitive games. Optimum development requires playing games with a variety of difficulty. Re playing easy games and development -- my understanding is the Barca's youth teams routinely blow out their opponents but it doesn't seem to hurt their development.

[Unregistered]

whatever!

Having at least a few easy games can be very good for development. It is much easier to work on implementing new tactical approaches (say integrating defenders into possession and offense), or trying out new formations, or players in different roles, in easy games than closely competitive games. Optimum development requires playing games with a variety of difficulty. Re playing easy games and development -- my understanding is the Barca's youth teams routinely blow out their opponents but it doesn't seem to hurt their development.

So now you have studied Barca youth development. Whatever....that is what has gotten CJSA to where it is today....you are either part of the problem, or you are part of the solution.....you sound like you are part of the problem. This forum is for suggestions to the problem......you shoud go to the CJSA mtg and stand up and tell them nothing is wrong with their model and they should keep doing what they are doing....don't mind all the laughter you hear, just keep telling yourself they are laughing with you , not at you.

[Unregistered]

any feedback?

So now you have studied Barca youth development. Whatever....that is what has gotten CJSA to where it is today....you are either part of the problem, or you are part of the solution.....you sound like you are part of the problem. This forum is for suggestions to the problem......you shoud go to the CJSA mtg and stand up and tell them nothing is wrong with their model and they should keep doing what they are doing....don't mind all the laughter you hear, just keep telling yourself they are laughing with you , not at you.

Anyone go to the CJSA gripe session last night? Would love to hear what was discussed as issues and what some of the suggestions were