After playing the Delta Lions on Friday, hearing about the Metro Ford piss take of Chilliwack on Saturday, and watching the Firemen/Croatia game, some of my early reactions to the BC Soccer decisions were cemented as accurate.
The Delta Lions were a great group of guys that were put in a situation where being successful was not an option. Based on the tournament format this year, they finished off the year at the same level as Firemen!!! The more disturbing notion is that all of the ping pong balls were in the same fish bowl and it very easily could have been West Van and Columbus playing a preliminary game with the winner facing the Delta Lions in the round of 16!!!
Not wanting to be a guy who complains without offering up solutions, I will detail a few points from a proposal that will eventually end up in the hands of the BC Soccer Competition Committee. I will also state that I understand being a member of the
VMSL can be seen as a bias but will attempt to keep the best interests of all leagues in mind from a fairness and travel point of view.
In order to make sure that playing league games actually means something when it comes down to Provincial Cup time, I believe there needs to be more of a structured approach to the bracket and a more defined seeding system to allow the tournament to achieve its most important objective...crown the best team as the Provincial champions so they can represent us well at the National Tournament.
A few assumptions that need to be made for this proposal:
1. BC Soccer will continue to grant a spot to the PCSL champs (I don't agree or think it is feasible over the long term)
2. The 20 team format will continue to be 9
VMSL, 5
FVSL, 5
VISL and the aforementioned PCSL champs
3. It is preferrable in the early rounds to avoid playing someone from your own league
Keys to a fair 20 team format that rewards teams for performing well in league standings.
a. The 8 teams competing in the preliminary rounds will be the bottom 4
VMSL teams, the bottom 2
FVSL teams and the bottom 2
VISL teams based on league standings.
b. The 4
VMSL teams will be matched up against one of the other 4 teams and home field advantage can be rotated each year
c. At the start of the season teams know that if they finish, for example, as
FVSL #5 they will host a preliminary game vs.
VMSL #7
d. The 4 seeded teams are placed in the round of 16 where they play a winner of a preliminary game
A typical round of 16 in this system would then look like this:
Top half of draw-
VMSL #1 vs.
Winner of
VMSL #6 and
VISL #5
FVSL#2 vs.
VMSL #3
VISL #1 vs.
Winner of
VMSL #9 and
FVSL #4
VMSL #4 vs.
VISL #3
Bottom Half of Draw FVSL #1 vs
Winner of
VMSL #8 and
VISL #4
VMSL #2 vs.
FVSL #3
PCSL #1 vs.
Winner of
VMSL #7 and
FVSL #5
VISL #2 vs.
VMSL #5
If anybody wishes to comment or provide feedback, this can be tweaked to represent the ideas of all teams and we can then put it to paper and see what BC Soccer does with it.
Cheers,
WC