What is "PCSSL Lite"?

PCSSL Lite grew out of efforts to manage playing games in and around COVID protocols. This program is not active at this time, but the structure will be sustained to continue to facilitate games when full league play is not manageable.

The materials below are now out of date. They remain here for reference only.

Any and all questions can be addressed to the League Director.

Spring 2021 COVID

With COVID changing all the rules, there is no real PCSSL season for Spring 2021. But we'd still like to help teams play good soccer if we can.

Rather than run a league this season, we are just hoping to connect coaches together. As conditions allow we will coordinate communications between teams and help coordinate the best available matchups for teams seeking additional opportunities to play.

If you are interested, we keep our running status on the PCSSL.org home page. Just reach out to us, and we'll add you to our lists and connect you as best we can.

Below is a quick summary of the teams that have reached out to us so far:

Notes

Willingness to cooperate is key for any of this to work, without a proper league structure a lot more burden will fall on coaches -- and working together is the best way to get good opportunities to play.

There will be more hurdles involved. Restrictions on play are constantly moving, and there may be local restrictions that are changing even faster than state-level or county-level rules -- staying abreast of the latest rules will fall on the coaches, both home team and the visitors, stay in touch and communicate often. Without leagues or regions in place, it will fall on the coaches themselves to do stuff like check each other's medical forms -- signed forms are very important to have in hand if anybody ever gets injured, and these forms are even more important when viral infection is a publicized possibility.

Regions are unlikely to have proper staff to support each game. Referees may be unavailable, or may be stretched too thin to be as on top of your game as usual -- with the clubs and all the school teams trying to fit a year's worth of play into a few short months, and with most of the qualified officials still waiting for their vaccine appointments, most every qualified match official is getting asked to cover more than they probably can. Also, fields may not be set up, or may require more work to reset before and after games.

Finally, but perhaps most importantly, there may be increased change of injuries -- most players are probably not in soccer-shape, and may not have their usual senses of touch or balance.

General advice is to treat each of these matches as a scrimmage. Trade players to keep matches balanced. Avoid fouls, especially the cardable offenses. Don't keep score because there are no records. Enjoy the chance to play.

Region Requirements

This is "PCSSL Lite", we've cut the requirements to the bare minimums. Still for any organized games there needs to be some organization...

For each team we will need 3 things (which probably come from the RC or his/her designate):

1) Something written that acknowledges that this coach and this region are on the same page (just a sanity check -- I love our coaches' excitement but sometimes coaches will take off before the region really is ready to back them...)

2) Something written that acknowledges that somebody in the Region (probably the RC given the volunteer shortages) has checked this team's roster and can confirm that all the players and the coaches are valid members of MY2020 (normally this is done by our Area Registrars, but during this mess we'll need to ask the region to take this responsibility). At each game coaches are still expected to check each other's stack of Medical Release forms (which AYSO requires at any AYSO practice or event, and certainly at every game).

3) Pointer to whatever information your region is using for health regulations/guidelines/restrictions both at the County level and whatever might be added for your community or for your field providers, and an agreement to let me and your coaches know of any changes to those rules. We will post these regs on the PCSSL.org website so that visiting teams can look them up and be prepared prior to traveling to your fields.

Field logistics are the responsibility of the home team's coach. The home coach will need to know who in their region has the field info, at this point conditions are still too fluid for centralized scheduling -- and there's little we could add from a "league level".

Referee scheduling is not part of "Lite", at least so far -- not enough regions are up and running enough to have a referee community active enough to schedule game coverage, too many referees are just not (yet) available to volunteer, and it's probably a better idea for coaches to be thinking "scrimmages" to start before they try to get competitive enough where referee management of games is beneficial...