Flamefest Soccer Tournament - Buyer Beware

Just a heads up for teams in their future tournament planning, and maybe some tournament directors will read this and take the observations into consideration.

Three years in a row,  I thought the timing of Flamefest was perfect for teams who were looking at new players to play in actual game scenarios.  But from what I have seen this tournament has not been run very well.  Again just from my small sampling this is what I have seen:

2014:  two brackets of four teams each but only two teams advance to a finals, no wildcard, no semi's.
2015:  Three brackets but the seeding was not thought through at all.  Bracket B is hammered by bracket C in all the crossover games.   In Bracket C all three teams end up tied with 29 points in bracket play, while Bracket B teams lose all three games, yet a team which scored a goal (their only goal) advances to the Semi Final game.   Could not believe the TD did not seed this tournament properly.
2016:  Not a lot of teams signed up (maybe based on the two previous years?)  so the U17 Bracket is set up as one bracket with all the games being played for 30 minute halves.  There was no scheduled finals game between the top two finishers.  Normally, if this type of set up is known going into the tournament the bracket games are played with more time per game.  But all these games were played at 30 min halves for U17.  Obviously it was hot, and it was Father's Day Weekend, so not a lot of complaints.  But still, the tournament once again failed to schedule properly, or avoid issues by being proactive based on changing conditions that are well known before the tournament even starts.

I am not sure who benefits from the tournament, whether its a club, the city of McKinney, or this is a private company running the tournament, but I think the tournament is in a major downward slide and needs to be careful or it may end up being a non-tournament in the future.    

Note:  Being a positive person by nature  the refs were good and the fields seemed to be good, and all the teams we played exuded great sportsmanship as well as the parents.

Looked like a real nail-biter.



   

 Team   MP     W      D      L      GF     GA     Pts    
               
 1: DALLAS TEXANS 01G BLACK FTW (FKA FWFC 01G BLACK) (TXN)     4  4  0  0  19  0  38  
 2: ANDROMEDA FC 00G BLUE (TXN)     4  2  1  1  9  4  23  
 3: SAO PAULO FC 99G SEDEH (TXN)     4  1  2  1  8  7  18  
 4: MEJA NORTH 00G (TXN)     4  1  1  2  8  9  16  
 5: DC UNITED SC 01G HARRIS (TXN)     4  0  0  4  2  26  2

11v11 for the 06's was a nice touch.

The tournament claimed they were "full" at U-16 Girls and U-15 Girls three weeks before the tournament and shut down enrollment.

They only had 5 teams in U-16G and only 6 teams in U-15G. This was a good tournament previous years. Surprised they were not even considering an eight team bracket much less more participation. Hope next year they look at 8-12 teams per age group playing. Its perfectly timed for large participation.