'05 Girls FBR Rankings - 10-14-14

Just curious as to who you are showing Fort Worth FC Remmel's third loss to since 6/22? They have 2 losses to FC Dallas Hanlon and Sting Sanchez. Who is the 3rd.

Sable35 wrote:Just curious as to who you are showing Fort Worth FC Remmel's third loss to since 6/22?  They have 2 losses to FC Dallas Hanlon and Sting Sanchez.  Who is the 3rd.

Thanks for checking up and keeping me honest!

Looks like I had a score reversed from one of FWFC's games in the Arlington Labor Day tournament. Changing that actually impacts a few teams. I'll get it corrected and updated shortly.

bwgophers wrote:

Sable35 wrote:Just curious as to who you are showing Fort Worth FC Remmel's third loss to since 6/22?  They have 2 losses to FC Dallas Hanlon and Sting Sanchez.  Who is the 3rd.

Thanks for checking up and keeping me honest!

Looks like I had a score reversed from one of FWFC's games in the Arlington Labor Day tournament.  Changing that actually impacts a few teams.  I'll get it corrected and updated shortly.

Oh my.  Everyone check your respective records.  And here I thought BW was perfect.

You do good work. Thank you

TatonkaBurger wrote:

bwgophers wrote:

Sable35 wrote:Just curious as to who you are showing Fort Worth FC Remmel's third loss to since 6/22?  They have 2 losses to FC Dallas Hanlon and Sting Sanchez.  Who is the 3rd.

Thanks for checking up and keeping me honest!

Looks like I had a score reversed from one of FWFC's games in the Arlington Labor Day tournament.  Changing that actually impacts a few teams.  I'll get it corrected and updated shortly.

Oh my.  Everyone check your respective records.  And here I thought BW was perfect.

If you only knew...

My dd's team (LFCA '05 Barnes Minnis) is not a top 25 team, but they are a hard working group of girls that just moved to #1 in their league (PTCL) this weekend by winning both games in their double header. It would have been nice to see the change in their rankings...not quite sure why those last two games weren't included in their W column???

Ive seen LFCA 05 Barnes play before, a good little squad.

Soccermomto22 wrote:My dd's team (LFCA '05 Barnes Minnis) is not a top 25 team, but they are a hard working group of girls that just moved to #1 in their league (PTCL) this weekend by winning both games in their double header.   It would have been nice to see the change in their rankings...not quite sure why those last two games weren't included in their W column???

When I was putting the ranking together this morning, those scores had not been posted by PT yet. I have added those games in and updated the rankings posted above.

TxKpr wrote:Ive seen LFCA 05 Barnes play before, a good little squad.  

Thanks TxKpr!! The girls are really coming together as a team. A great coach and diligence are going to take them to great places!!

bwgophers wrote:

Soccermomto22 wrote:My dd's team (LFCA '05 Barnes Minnis) is not a top 25 team, but they are a hard working group of girls that just moved to #1 in their league (PTCL) this weekend by winning both games in their double header.   It would have been nice to see the change in their rankings...not quite sure why those last two games weren't included in their W column???

When I was putting the ranking together this morning, those scores had not been posted by PT yet.  I have added those games in and updated the rankings posted above.

Thanks bw for taking the time to recalculate and post the new rankings!!

Hello I have a question could someone tell me how the Rank and Points system works? I see some teams win their game but get negative points.

soccerismylife wrote:Hello I have a question could someone tell me how the Rank and Points system works? I see some teams win their game but get negative points.

Sent you a PM.

bwgophers wrote:

soccerismylife wrote:Hello I have a question could someone tell me how the Rank and Points system works? I see some teams win their game but get negative points.

Sent you a PM.

BW - once we have the final send off into the sun for your retirement party, are you going to pull back the curtain and post your mathematical genius?

Lakedad wrote:

bwgophers wrote:

soccerismylife wrote:Hello I have a question could someone tell me how the Rank and Points system works? I see some teams win their game but get negative points.

Sent you a PM.

BW - once we have the final send off into the sun for your retirement party, are you going to pull back the curtain and post your mathematical genius?

I'll post it here.  No secret.  I've posted it several times before.  Most people don't particularly want to see the gory details.  However, since you requested...

DISCLAIMER:  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.  SIDE EFFECTS INCLUDE DIZZINESS, SEVERE HEADACHES (USUALLY A RESULT OF REPEATEDLY BANGING YOUR HEAD ON YOUR KEYBOARD, OR SMACKING YOUR IPAD AGAINST YOUR FOREHEAD), AND INCOHERENT MUMBLING.  IF ANY OF THESE SYMPTOMS LAST LONGER THAN 4 HOURS, SEEK IMMEDIATE MEDICAL ATTENTION:

FBR uses 3 primary ranking criteria:

1)  Weighted Wins*
2)  Average Margin of Victory (MoV)
3)  Strength of Schedule (SoS)

*Weighted Wins is split into 2 sub-categories – Average Weighted Wins/Game Played (AWW), and Most Weighted Wins (MWW).  

AWW accounts for 40% of the final ranking calculation
MWW accounts for 10% of the final ranking calculation
MoV accounts for 20% of the final ranking calculation
SoS accounts for 30% of the final ranking calculation


Section I:  Weighted Wins and Weighted Losses:

Weighted Wins (WW) and Weighted Losses (WL) are used in the AWW, MWW and SoS calculations, and are at the heart of how FBR works.

We establish ranking Tiers in the FBR that give greater weighting to games played against stronger opponents.  Placement in the ranking tiers is based solely on actual game performance and is reviewed and adjusted where necessary on a frequent basis.  The "general" rule governing tier placement is an "80/20" rule.  A team should get a Win or Draw in >80% of their games against teams from a lower ranking tier, a Win or Draw in somewhere between 20-80% of their games against teams within their ranking tier, and a Win or Draw in <20% of their games against teams from a higher ranking tier.  The net result is that you should get grouping of teams of relatively similar strength in each tier.  A weighting factor is then assigned to each tier.  From empirical experience with a full year's worth of data on the '01's at U10, we determined that reducing the weighting factor by 50% in each successive tier works the best overall.

Current weighting factors are:
Tier 1 = 52
Tier 2 = 26
Tier 3 = 13
Tier 4 = 7**
Tier 5 = 3**
Tier 6 = 1**
**(can only assign whole #'s)

A win gets a team (1*Tier weighting factor) Weighted Wins (i.e. 52 WW for a W over a Tier 1 team, 26 WW for a W over a Tier 2 team, etc.) and 0 weighted losses (WL)
A draw gets a team (0.5 * Tier weighting factor) WW and (0.5 * (100-Tier weighting factor)) WL (i.e. 26-24 WW-WL for a Tier 1 draw, 13-37 WW-WL for a Tier 2 draw, etc.)
A loss gets a team 0 WW and (1*(100-(Tier weighting factor)) WL (i.e. 48 WL for a loss to a Tier 1 team, 74 WL for a loss to a Tier 2 team, etc.)

Section II: Average Weighted Wins per Game Played:

The first ranking criterion used is Avg WW.  This is simply a team’s total WW (as calculated using the method described above) divided by the total # of games they have played.  In other words, what is the average "strength" of their game results any time those girls lace up their cleats.

Section III:  Most Weighted Wins

This is simply the total # of Weighted Wins for a team.  It is used in the rankings to give credit to teams that step up and play tougher competition on a regular basis AND perform well in those games.  

For example, if you have 2 teams that have played roughly equal strength competition, but Team A is 16-0 while Team B is 8-0, Team A should get more credit as they have actually played the games and delivered the results.  Team B might go 8-0 over their next 8 games, but the actual probability of that happening is < 100 %.

Section IV: Average Margin of Victory:

Pure and simple...  (Total Goals Scored - Total goals allowed)/Total # of Games

Section V: Strength of Schedule:

Uses WW-WL record of a team's opponents AND the opponent's opponents.  Weighted 75% for opponent's cumulative WW-WL record, 25% for opponent's opponents cumulative WW-WL record. (You really need the FBR SW's database capability to keep track of all of this).

Section VI:  Calculating Final Ranking Points:

The ranking criteria values are calculated for each team as described in sections II-V.  For each criterion, the teams are listed and sorted from highest criteria total to lowest.  The team with the highest total in a particular criterion is assigned 100 points.  The ranking points for all other teams in that criteria are then calculated as a % of the top team’s total.

For example:

Team A has the highest total for Avg. WW = 50 WW/Game.
Team B has Avg. WW = 30 WW/Game

Team A gets 100 Ranking Points in the Avg WW category
Team B gets (30/50)*100 = 60 Ranking points in the Avg. WW category.

The ranking points for each criterion are then multiplied by the corresponding final ranking calculation weight for that criterion, and summed up to get a team's Total Ranking Points.

Again for example, let's say:

Team A = 100 points for Avg. WW, 100 points for Most WW, 90 points for MoV, 75 points for SoS
Team A Total Ranking Points = (100 * 0.4) + (100 * 0.1) + (90 * 0.2) + (75 * 0.3) = (40) + (10) + (18) + (22.5) = 90.5 points

Team B = 60 points for Avg. WW, 80 points for Most WW, 50 points for MoV, 100 points for SoS
Team B Total Ranking Points = (60 * 0.4) + (80 * 0.1) + (50 * 0.2) + (100 * 0.3) = (24) + ( 8 ) + (10) + (30) = 72 points

Teams are then sorted by total ranking points to determine final FBR ranking.

bwgophers was kind enough to send me this in a PM awhile back and answer some of my questions. As a statistical model, it has a few "baked" in assumptions that creates a "bias" in the system. BW explained that the models attempt to reduce those bias' as low as possible by the ongoing data. I tend to think he is right.

Bottom line I took away form this model and BW's answers to my questions is really based on "who" you play. If you will notice in all the FBR's, the top teams (1-20) are always and mostly the CFBAL Platinum group with other CFBAL Gold, Silver, etc. The bias is that the "best" teams in all the age groups play in the CFBAL Platinum or maybe Gold group. Therefore, a win or loss is ranked higher against these teams. Therefore, if a team does not play in the CFBAL P league, they will probbaly never be in the top 5 or at least the top position. The GF, GA and GD work their magic in the data as well. So, if you want to be in the top 10 or 20 your team needs to be in the platinum league or at least beat the Platinum teams in tournaments.

I hope I represented this as accurate as possible form the understanding I got from BW. If not, or I am a bit off, thanks for any corrections.

The way the FBR formula is constructed and weighted, it "rewards" teams for playing strong competition AND performing well against that competition.

CFBAL Platinum is the strongest top-bottom '05 girls league/division in NTX this fall.  Not because FBR says so, but because a larger number of strong teams signed up for that league/division, and recent history of results of games between CFBAL Platinum teams and teams in TGPL and/or CFBAL Gold back this up.  FBR is much more a reflection of this, than it is dictating this. TGPL comes next, then CFBAL Gold.  After that, it's admittedly a little more subjective, because there are fewer "crossover" results from tournament and/or teams playing in multiple leagues, to calibrate the relative strengths.  

Now, would a team like DT South be ranked a few spots higher if they were playing in CFBAL Platinum and had a stronger SoS than they currently have?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It would depend on how they performed when they played other teams that are currently ranked above them.  They haven't, so all we can really do is just speculate. At the end of the day, does it really matter if DT South is #1, #3, or #6 in FBR?  Not really.  I'm pretty sure Gabe Adames, or Chris Pulpaneck, or Danny Diaz, or Tahlon Drake really don't give a rat's behind about where they are ranked, and I doubt any of those coaches have delusions about what kind of opponent they are going to face when they play each other based on what FBR says.

I'm not trying to crown some kind of mythical academy "champion" with FBR.  Just trying to give people a good general idea of the relative strength of teams out there in the age group, and some perspective on where they can likely expect their DD's team to be playing once U11 rolls around.  Data from the past 4 years suggests that FBR does a pretty good job with that.  If you are arguing or upset over one team being ranked higher than another, or any particular team being ranked a few spots higher or lower than you think they should, then I will say that you are, unfortunately, missing the point.

But just think - "FBR CHAMPIONS!!" tees - $19.99 all over the NTX soccer scene. I can smell the money from here. You could sell them to a new team each week.
Sweaters, headbands, patches... oh the possibilities!

futbollove wrote:But just think - "FBR CHAMPIONS!!" tees - $19.99 all over the NTX soccer scene. I can smell the money from here. You could sell them to a new team each week.

The sad fact is that only parents will want to wear them.  DDs won't care.

TatonkaBurger wrote:

futbollove wrote:But just think - "FBR CHAMPIONS!!" tees - $19.99 all over the NTX soccer scene. I can smell the money from here. You could sell them to a new team each week.

The sad fact is that only parents will want to wear them.  DDs won't care.

Is that why you've been wearing that youth medium around town lately? Not gonna let $20 go to waste.

Lakedad wrote:

TatonkaBurger wrote:

futbollove wrote:But just think - "FBR CHAMPIONS!!" tees - $19.99 all over the NTX soccer scene. I can smell the money from here. You could sell them to a new team each week.

The sad fact is that only parents will want to wear them.  DDs won't care.

Is that why you've been wearing that youth medium around town lately?  Not gonna let $20 go to waste.  

Yup.  I take the Mesquite gunshow with me everywhere I go now.

bwgophers wrote:The way the FBR formula is constructed and weighted, it "rewards" teams for playing strong competition AND performing well against that competition.

CFBAL Platinum is the strongest top-bottom '05 girls league/division in NTX this fall.  Not because FBR says so, but because a larger number of strong teams signed up for that league/division, and recent history of results of games between CFBAL Platinum teams and teams in TGPL and/or CFBAL Gold back this up.  FBR is much more a reflection of this, than it is dictating this.  TGPL comes next, then CFBAL Gold.  After that, it's admittedly a little more subjective, because there are fewer "crossover" results from tournament and/or teams playing in multiple leagues, to calibrate the relative strengths.  

Now, would a team like DT South be ranked a few spots higher if they were playing in CFBAL Platinum and had a stronger SoS than they currently have?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It would depend on how they performed when they played other teams that are currently ranked above them.  They haven't, so all we can really do is just speculate.  At the end of the day, does it really matter if DT South is #1, #3, or #6 in FBR?  Not really.  I'm pretty sure Gabe Adames, or Chris Pulpaneck, or Danny Diaz, or Tahlon Drake really don't give a rat's behind about where they are ranked, and I doubt any of those coaches have delusions about what kind of opponent they are going to face when they play each other based on what FBR says.

I'm not trying to crown some kind of mythical academy "champion" with FBR.  Just trying to give people a good general idea of the relative strength of teams out there in the age group, and some perspective on where they can likely expect their DD's team to be playing once U11 rolls around.  Data from the past 4 years suggests that FBR does a pretty good job with that.  If you are arguing or upset over one team being ranked higher than another, or any particular team being ranked a few spots higher or lower than you think they should, then I will say that you are, unfortunately, missing the point.

BG - Generally agree for the top 10, but I think coaches use the FBR as a source to gauge what league or tournament division they want to be in. As for parents, I can attest when looking for new teams, I have used the FBR as a resource to find teams that my DD would go out and practice with. It was a big help for someone with little experience or knowledge in the soccer world.

Are the weights dynamic or static? How much is deemed by electronic calculation versus the human eye algorithm Interested to see the tiers/weights. That sounds like the true magic in determining the rankings.

Lakedad wrote:

bwgophers wrote:The way the FBR formula is constructed and weighted, it "rewards" teams for playing strong competition AND performing well against that competition.

CFBAL Platinum is the strongest top-bottom '05 girls league/division in NTX this fall.  Not because FBR says so, but because a larger number of strong teams signed up for that league/division, and recent history of results of games between CFBAL Platinum teams and teams in TGPL and/or CFBAL Gold back this up.  FBR is much more a reflection of this, than it is dictating this.  TGPL comes next, then CFBAL Gold.  After that, it's admittedly a little more subjective, because there are fewer "crossover" results from tournament and/or teams playing in multiple leagues, to calibrate the relative strengths.  

Now, would a team like DT South be ranked a few spots higher if they were playing in CFBAL Platinum and had a stronger SoS than they currently have?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It would depend on how they performed when they played other teams that are currently ranked above them.  They haven't, so all we can really do is just speculate.  At the end of the day, does it really matter if DT South is #1, #3, or #6 in FBR?  Not really.  I'm pretty sure Gabe Adames, or Chris Pulpaneck, or Danny Diaz, or Tahlon Drake really don't give a rat's behind about where they are ranked, and I doubt any of those coaches have delusions about what kind of opponent they are going to face when they play each other based on what FBR says.

I'm not trying to crown some kind of mythical academy "champion" with FBR.  Just trying to give people a good general idea of the relative strength of teams out there in the age group, and some perspective on where they can likely expect their DD's team to be playing once U11 rolls around.  Data from the past 4 years suggests that FBR does a pretty good job with that.  If you are arguing or upset over one team being ranked higher than another, or any particular team being ranked a few spots higher or lower than you think they should, then I will say that you are, unfortunately, missing the point.

BG - Generally agree for the top 10, but I think coaches use the FBR as a source to gauge what league or tournament division they want to be in.  As for parents, I can attest when looking for new teams, I have used the FBR as a resource to find teams that my DD would go out and practice with.  It was a big help for someone with little experience or knowledge in the soccer world.

Are the weights dynamic or static?  How much is deemed by electronic calculation versus the human eye algorithm Interested to see the tiers/weights.  That sounds like the true magic in determining the rankings.

...and that's EXACTLY what it's intended and should be used for - as A GUIDE.  

For Coaches/Managers/TD's/LD's...  A GUIDE to seek out and set up leagues/divisions that provide the most appropriate level of competition to foster player development.

For Parents...  A GUIDE to seek out potential teams that would be a good fit.  Just like you would use the US News & World Report list, or the Barron's guide to look for and identify colleges that may be a good fit for your kids.  But just like if you were to choose which college your kid should attend based solely on where that school ranks in the US News list, if you choose a team for your kid to play on solely because of where that team is ranked in FBR, the likelihood of your kid (and/or you) being happy with that choice in the long run, isn't going to be very good.  

As for the tier weighting factors, they are static and haven't changed in 4 years.  

The tier assignments are dynamic and are reviewed on a weekly basis, using the 80/20 rule described above as the general guide, both for individual teams, and for the tiers as a whole when evaluated against the other tiers.  Most teams fit very clearly into a particular tier, but there are teams that straddle the line between 2 tiers, and simultaneous meet the 80/20 criteria in both tiers.  That's when it becomes a judgement call on my part, and the final judgement comes down to which output can I defend the best based on the actual game results.  Sometimes, it will lead to the rankings having 1 or 2 teams where I honestly can't defend their ranking based on the results.  However, if I change a tier placement to move those 1 or 2 teams into a position where I can defend them, it ends up moving 3 or 4 teams into positions that I can't defend.  So, it comes down to a choice of the lesser of two evils.  Like I've always said, FBR isn't perfect, just pretty darn good.

So, to answer you last question, I'd say it's 90-95% electronic calculation, and 5-10% "eye" test as a verification/validation.

...and by the way, I've never watched a single '02, '03, '04, or '05 girls academy soccer game.  It's all in the data.

As an information junkie (and being, as my wife would say, way too analytical in nature), I find the calculation discussion very interesting.  Being fairly new to soccer, at least at this level, makes it even more so.

I'm curious about the tier definitions.  Can you give a real-world example of how they play out?  For example, approximately how far down the ranking list would each tier typically extend? Is Tier 1 typically the top 10...14...19?  From your explanation, I would not be surprised to see quite a bit of variation in the size of the tiers based upon gaps in performance levels.

garageoffice wrote:As an information junkie (and being, as my wife would say, way too analytical in nature), I find the calculation discussion very interesting.  Being fairly new to soccer, at least at this level, makes it even more so.

I'm curious about the tier definitions.  Can you give a real-world example of how they play out?  For example, approximately how far down the ranking list would each tier typically extend? Is Tier 1 typically the top 10...14...19?  From your explanation, I would not be surprised to see quite a bit of variation in the size of the tiers based upon gaps in performance levels.

There are no guidelines as to how big or small the tiers are. Who falls into what tier is based strictly on performance. You are correct that you can have quite a bit of variation in the size of the tiers based on relative competitive level of teams.

Over the years, there have been times when I've had only 1 team in Tier 1, and there have been times when I've had 10-12 teams in Tier 1. It really depends on if there is a group of teams at the top that have clearly separated themselves from the pack.

Currently for the '05's:

Tier 1 is 1-7, except Dallas Rush.
Tier 2 is Dallas Rush + 8-25 (some overlap with Tier 3 from 20-25)
Tier 3 is ~20-35 (some overlap with Tier 2 from 20-25 & Tier 4 from 30-35).
Tier 4 is ~30-60 (some overlap with Tier 3 from 30-35 & quite a bit of overlap with Tier 5 from 46-61).
Tier 5 is ~46-85 (quite a bit of overlap with Tier 5 from 46-61, some overlap with Tier 6 from 80-85).
Tier 6 is ~80-95 (some overlap with Tier 5 from 80-85).