Keeping up with the 4th tier of American soccer is difficult. Clubs form. Clubs disband. They change owners, personnel, stadiums, and even cities, with great frequency. All this happens under the guidance of a mostly part-time, or volunteer leadership that has about a million other things in their lives to accomplish. So it’s no surprise that the League’s structure often isn’t “official” until days before opening weekend. Still, we hard core fans Chattahooligans demand information in the off season (those tailgating menus, nylon flags, and Jacksonville travel accommodations aren’t gonna make themselves). And with the fall addition of five new teams to our region, no one seems to know exactly what the 2012 season or schedule will look like.

But piecing together the various rumors, Facebook photos, and quick mentions from other clubs, we have a fair idea of how our region’s structure should look. We’ve also been reading more about our new members and where they’re located (for those away game trips to exotic locations like Mercedes, TX and Fort Smith, AR). A working picture of these developments can be seen in this Google Map: NPSL Southeast Region Home Fields.

So, with three months until our April 28th home friendly vs USL newcomer, Chicago Inferno, we’re getting a better picture of what 2012 will look like.

So Chattanooga FC is gearing up for the 2012 season: the first round of official tryouts was this past Saturday at Finley Stadium. Your favorite nosey scout from the Chattahooligan was there to scope out the scene. Here’s a few short notes:

It’s always tricky to know who’s going to be picked for the team and who’s going to come next summer at these first of 3 tryouts — as a good amount of the really talented players are given a bye by the coaches. They are allowed to show up at later tryouts, if at all. So we can’t really get a sense of how important this batch is… A few really talented guys standout, as do some really bad players, but the rest kind of blend together as pretty decent.

But new Head Coach Bill Elliott was there, along with Assistant Jimmy Weekley and GM Sean McDaniel.

Several three season CFC players attended: Russell Courtney, Moises Drumond and Ivan Heredia. A pleasant surprise was that former Dalton standout Irvin Espinal was back after walking away from the team early in the season last year. Perhaps he had issues with former Head Coach Crossman?

We weren’t able to identify all the talent there, but some current or former NCAA Div I players were there — a Clemson teammate of forward Michael Brooks and a younger brother of a Covenant kid who starts at the U of South Carolina. There was a good bit of local talent trying out too — kids from CCS, McCallie, UTC and Covenant, to name just a few…

The play looked good in general, and we’ll be excited to see how the team shapes up.

Other notes:

News on players from last season: Forward Mark Sherrod had an insane sophomore season at Memphis University — finishing as something like the second leading scorer in all of NCAA Div I! So while that looks good on CFC’s resumé for developing talent, it means that Mark is on the radar for some pro teams and looks like he’ll be heading elsewhere for the summer (we’ve heard rumor of Portland, not a bad place to go).

Another first season player (and Memphis teammate of Mark’s), midfielder Cody McCoy is rumored to be heading to NC to tryout with the USL Pro team Charlotte Eagles.

First season midfielder José Robles is also going to tryout at some sort of a pro combine, so he may not be able to return either.

All the best of luck to you fellas! Make Chattanooga proud!

The conference:

Apparently the Southeast Conference of the NPSL is being broken into 2 divisions: East and West, each compromised of 5 teams. All the teams in the same division will play each other twice, once at home, once away. They will also play some (maybe all?) of the teams in the other division once.

We think this is what we heard on the division break down:

EAST
Chattanooga FC
Knoxville Force
Jacksonville United FC
Myrtle Beach
Mississippi Storm

WEST
Atlanta Silverbacks
Georgia Revolution
FC Tulsa
Rocket City United
Galveston Pirate SC

Or something like that. If anyone knows more that we do, please correct us in a comment.

And the winners of each Division facing off in a playoff game to get to the national championships.

So it looks like our arch-rivals Atlanta and Rocket City won’t be playing us as often.

CFC finally announced that they have named a new coach today, we’re posting what they had on their site below.

—

Chattanooga FC announced yesterday that Bill Elliott has agreed to take the Head Coach position for the team’s 2012 season.

“Bill’s great reputation along with his Chattanooga roots made him an easy choice for us. We felt his successful longevity at the collegiate level will be carried over to CFC and the upcoming season. We’re glad to have him and assistant coach Weekley in 2012,” said General Manager Sean McDaniel.

“I was born and raised in Chattanooga, I attended the University of Tennessee and I never thought I would leave East Tennessee,” said Elliott. “When the position was offered to me at the University of West Florida, it was a opportunity to make a career in my passion — coaching. Seventeen years later, I feel it was a good decision.”

Elliott is very excited to be back in Chattanooga for the summer season. He says he is glad to have his wife Chrissy, his three and a half year old daughter Peyton and his eighteen month old son Trey around his extended family that lives in and around the Chattanooga area.

Elliott has kept up with Chattanooga FC even while he’s been in Pensacola. “I think the CFC organization has done a fantastic job in the past three seasons. They have set a standard in the league and in the southeast and I am honored to be a part of that.” He also had great things to say about former head coach Brian Crossman. “I’ve known Brian Crossman for years, and I believe he did an outstanding job establishing a great foundation for the team. I hope to continue to build on that.”

Assistant Coach Jimmy Weekley echoed that sentiment. “Bill and I are former teammates (with the Chattanooga Railroaders in the ’90’s) and have been friends since college. Bill brings a wealth of knowledge to us. I am very excited to have the opportunity to work along with him in furthering the success of CFC.”

Bill Elliott is one of the top coaches in the NCAA Division II. In his years of coaching he has compiled an overall career record of 307-144-29, including a 248-101-28 mark at the University of West Florida (Pensacola). He is among the top NCAA Division II coaches in the top 30 in career winning percentage(.630) and career wins(150).

From 1995 -2001, Elliott served as head coach for both the men’s and women’s team. He is the only coach in conference history to lead both men’s and women’s programs to the conference tournament, and the only coach to have won both men’s and women’s titles. In his time serving as the head coach for the women’s team he led his team to the GSC tournament every year, winning three titles in seven years. Elliott has also won three men’s and three women’s GSC Coach of the Year awards.

Elliott came to West Florida from Tennessee Wesleyan College in Athens, Tennessee. He spent two successful seasons with the Bulldogs, leading both men’s and women’s teams to the playoffs in each season. Elliott’s 1993 women’s team captured the NAIA District 24 title, and he was named the district coach of the year. Overall, his women’s teams compiled a 17-18 mark and his men’s teams were 17-14-1.

Elliott’s coaching career began in 1992 at Division III Maryville College in Maryville, Tenn. as an assistant under Pepe Fernandez. In his year at Maryville, the women finished 15-3 and ranked 20th in the NCAA Division III. The men finished 10-8.

Elliott played high school soccer at Hixson High School in Chattanooga, where he led his team to a second place finish in the state as a senior captain.

Elliott also played Division III professional soccer in the United States Interregional Soccer League as a member of the Chattanooga Express. He helped lead the Express to a runner-up finish at the 1993-94 Indoor Soccer National Championships. In 1997, he was hired in mid-season as a player and head coach of the U.S.I.S.L. D-III Mobile Revellers with whom he had started the season as a player. In 1998, he was a player and assistant coach for the Pensacola Barracudas.

Elliott earned a bachelor of science in business administration in 1991 and a master’s of science in recreation and sports management in 1993 from the University of Tennessee. He also played played NCAA Division I varsity soccer for the Volunteers. Elliott holds the NSCAA Advanced National Diploma and a USSF A License.

Okay, the news is out: Chattanooga FC has not renewed its ‘contract’ with three season Head Coach Brian Crossman for the 2012 season. You can read the Times Free Press article here, but it seems a bit vague and innocuous… Who knows a bit more about the whole change up?

We here at the Chattahooligan suspect that the failure to win the conference (with three opportunities to do so), the three straight losses to end the season (our longest losing streak ever) and the departure of three good players during the season (Irvin Espinal, Mark Beattie and John Calderwood) may have been mitigating factors in the decision. Hey, those things all came in three’s, weird…

Questions:

Does this include the whole coaching staff or just the head coach (the only one mentioned in the articles)? Who are the other coaches “nationwide” that CFC will be considering? Who should they be considering (since Jurgen Klinsmen is now engaged)?

What do you think about the change readers? Is it good or bad to let Crossman go? He did have a winning record every season, and he did take us to the National Championship last year.

Should CFC have kept Coach Crossman?

Speaking of all star performances this season (see the comments on our last post, Post Season Doldrums), who do you think should be nominated this season’s Most Valuable Player and why? It looks like Mike Rabil will not be nominating anyone from the midfield besides Fynn Glover…

We here at the blog are partial to Chris Ochieng, but Thomas Hunter did do a bang up job throughout the whole season…but what do the rest of you Chattahooligans think?

As this weekend rolls around and the NPSL National Championships begin, we Chattahooligans are again reminded of the sad fact that our team is not in it. And as much as we dislike the Madison City field, it is a far better scenario to be playing on it than not. So, we’ll hang our heads low and look forward to next season…

The DC United game last week was a great deal of fun, with some entertaining play by both sides, but the result was not what we wanted. Sure, we looked very competitive — with as good a chance to win the game as the U23s had, and far and away better than we looked against them last year — but a third loss in a row was a tough way to wrap up the year. Especially after leading the league for 80% of the season.

So we’ll hold out with our hopes for a better turn of events in 2012. In the meantime, everyone should look in on the NPSL Semifinals going on tonight between the Southeast champion Jacksonville United FC and the Northeast’s Eerie Admirals and then between the West’s Hollywood Hitmen and the Midwest’s Milwaukee Bavarians. The odds seem to be stacked in Hollywood’s favor as they boast several ex-pro and internationally traveled players, but you play the game for a reason. It is interesting to note that none of last year’s Final Four teams returned this year — though all had pretty good seasons.

Some factoids from the Chattanooga FC 2011 season:

The team finished in third place with 17 points — as Georgia Revolution and Jacksonville United tied for first with 18 points, but since they were tied on head-to-head match ups, Jacksonville went through due to their 6 wins over Georgia’s 5…

Chattanooga FC finished with 5 wins, 2 ties, 3 losses in league play, and 8-2-5 overall.

On July 9, 2011, the team lost it’s first match at home in Finley Stadium since May 2009.

The team’s unbeaten streak in regular season league play (13 games) ended on June 4, 2011 in Jacksonville. The last regular season loss in the NPSL Southeast was on June 27, 2009.

In three seasons the team’s record is 20 wins, 5 ties and 10 losses. All under Head Coach Brian Crossman.

This year, the team won it’s first berth in the Lamar Hunt US Open Cup by defeating Rocket City in the semifinals and Atlanta Silverbacks Reserves in the 118th minute in the finals.

The team won it’s second ever international match against CF Monterrey’s U20s.

The team played its first professional opponent, the Pittsburgh Riverhounds of the USL Pro, in the US Open Cup, losing in overtime by one goal (after leading 2-0 after 75 minutes).

Each of the five losses this season were by only one goal.

12 different players scored this season.

Chattanooga, let’s be sure to turn out in big numbers tomorrow night to send off the boys of Chattanooga FC in style as they welcome the DC United U23 team to Finley Stadium for the very first time! This is your last chance to see the guys play before most of them head off home or back to school for the fall. Let’s give them a great send off!

Now, this may be the first season that DC United has hosted a U23 team, but they should be very good — perhaps the best competition we have seen all season. Last year’s Super 20′s (a younger team) handled Chattanooga FC quite easily, beating us 3-0 up in RFK Stadium in Washington DC. Though were it not for great saves in each half by both Richie Masters and Thomas Hunter, the spread could’ve been a lot worse.

What should help swing some things in our favor:

There should be a couple thousand more fans for CFC at this game than the 50 or so than turned out at RFK last July. The DC team may not have played in front of an opposing crowd that big.

The temperature on the field should not be 101º F (with extremely high humidity) as it was last July in DC.

Our guys should not be as nervous as they were last season — several of them were in that game last year. Like going to the playoffs, that experience can help bring confidence.

And we’re playing on our home field (which isn’t exactly a great surface), and knowing the specific nuances of the turf that may help our guys out.

It should be a great night to celebrate the team and get the last of that $4 beer. Let’s turn out Chattahooligans!

So, all our speculations and hypotheses turned out to be completely unnecessary. Chattanooga FC fought hard and played well, but the ball would not go in the goal. And so not even a draw was in the cards for the team as they fell 2-1 to the Knoxville Force on a very late goal. That loss means there will be no NPSL postseason for Chattanooga FC this year. After leading the league for most of the season — trading first occasionally amongst each other — Chattanooga FC, Atlanta Silverbacks Reserves and the Georgia Revolution all lose out to Jacksonville United (who clinched the Southeast Region title with their sixth straight win last night).

We don’t have much heart to rehash the game, but after a nice first goal by Knoxville in the 6th minute, Chattanooga FC seemed to take command of the game, pressing and attacking and missing opportunity after opportunity. In the last stoppage minutes of the first half Chris Ochieng won and then scored a PK to tie it all up. In the second half CFC started to throw everyone at the Force, again creating chance after chance, but never finding the goal — even with some very amazing opportunities. And all the offensive pressing led to a counterattack in the 89th minute that led to a bouncing header. 2-1 Knoxville.

Our Knoxville players are no doubt discouraged — forward Mark Sherrod played well but couldn’t find a goal, while midlfielder Cody McCoy seemed to have an off game and outside mid Tom Webster almost never got the ball. The rest of the guys played decently enough, and Nickson Odeny‘s presence in the back was helpful.

While result is certainly disappointing for us, it has to be much more so for the team as they had the chance to win the title in their grasp not once but three weeks in a row.

Well, it has certainly been a fun ride this season, with plenty of ups and downs. We have to encourage everyone to turn out for Saturday’s final match of the season against DC United’s U23 squad and let’s give our team a wonderful send off and thank you for another winning season!

While there is an extreme outside chance that Chattanooga FC could still win the division with a loss or a tie, it is very clear that the only way to ensure that title is by treating Saturday’s final regular season game at Knoxville Force as a playoff game — win or go home.

The scenarios as we know them:

1. We win, we win the division straight out with 20 points and no one can catch us. We’re off to the NPSL National Semifinals (just outside of Huntsville) for the second straight season.

We tie Knoxville: there are multiple scenarios…

2. If Georgia Revolution wins at Rocket City United (very likely as RCU has not won a home game this season), they win the division since the beat us in head-to-head competition (a tie at their place and that win in Finley last weekend).

3. If the Revolution tie Rocket City or lose, we win the division.

4. If Jacksonville United FC wins — and they have not lost at home — (and 3 happens), they would be tied with CFC. If that happens, we presume that CFC wins the division based on goal differential since our head-to-head is equal — we both won at home. CFC would have the leg up as we won 2-0 and lost only 1-0 (so +1 in head-to-head goal differential). And if CFC ties Knoxville our total goal differential would stay at the +6 it is now. The only way Jacksonville could beat us is if they beat Atlanta by 6 goals. Not very likely.

*BUT we do not know if this is how the NPSL would decide who wins if head-to-head competition is equal!

5. If JUFC ties or loses to Atlanta (and 3 happens) then CFC wins the division.

6. If Chattanooga FC loses and the Revolution and JUFC both tie or lose, CFC still wins the division.

While Chattanooga FC fans have alot to be worried about after Saturday’s crazy 4-3 loss to the Georgia Revolution, we can still console ourselves that the team remains in first place in the Southeast Division and can clinch a second consecutive title with a win in Knoxville next week.

Still, there is much to be concerned about. Would you rather hear the bad news first or the good news?

The Bad News:

Chattanooga FC lost its first game in Finley Stadium since May 2009 (when the team lost its inaugural season’s opener to Atlanta FC 3-1). Saturday’s first half was arguably the worst half of soccer since that game, and the first 60 mins most certainly were the worst ever in Finley for the team.

The defense gave up more goals in this game than it has in all the other NPSL game this season put together (4 in one vs 4 in the 8 previous games!). This is at a time in the season when you would hope the team is starting to peak, not fail…

Starting defender Nickson Odeny is injured (hence his lack of appearance), three season midfielder Ivan Heredia is not even on the bench (where is he?), and rumors are flying that a disagreement between wide mid Mark Beattie and Coach Crossman have made Beattie quit the team… Not good developments for play on the field or for team morale.

Stalwart defender Andy Stewart has taken a physical beating in the last two games… will he be full strength for the must-win game in Knoxville? What about if we win? Will he be 100% for the National title pursuit? What about sub and goal-scorer Luke Winter who came out with what looked like a not-good injury too?

Chattanooga FC has 17 points with one game left. Georgia Revolution and Jacksonville United have 15 with a game left. Both of them will most likely win next week, putting each at 18 points. If Chattanooga FC ties Knoxville Force, we’ll also have 18 — beating out Jacksonville in head-to-head, but losing to Georgia. Chattanooga FC has to win next week away to Knoxville.

Knoxville is coming off a tie with Monterrey and a win against Atlanta Silverbacks Reserves at home. They would love to end their less than stellar first season with a win against Chattanooga FC.

Thomas Hunter’s goals allowed average is shattered — going from 0.5 goals per game average in the first 8 games to now 0.89 goals per game average. Doubling total goals allowed: from 4 to 8!

However, there are a few high points worth noting…

The Good News:

Chattanooga FC came from 3-0 down after 60 minutes of play to tie the game 3-3 in less than 20 minutes. No matter what league you play in, you gotta admit that’s pretty damn good.

Two of the goals scored came from guys who had not scored yet this season: Luke Winter and Moises Drumond. By our rough count that makes 11 different scorers for Chattanooga FC this season.

The team played with heart and a never say die attitude that made all 2500 of the fans in Finley Stadium believe that we could come back and have a chance a victory… that’s pretty good when you’re team was down 3-0 with less than 30 minutes left in the game.

The offensive group that was in for the last half hour of the game was pretty dangerous. We averaged a goal every 10 minutes… maybe we should start the games with this offense?

For this game, we gotta name Men of the Match: Luke Winter and Moises Drumond — each for nabbing their first goals of the season and for making us believe that we could come back. Well done men!

So, one game left now. It’s win or go home. Let’s see what happens next week in Knoxville.