The most common question we receive at TopDrawerSoccer.com is about how we do our Players To Watch regional and national rankings, along with the accompanying player ratings.

I suppose the three main motivations for asking this question are, in no particular order; 1) continually increasing readership bringing in new people who aren’t familiar with previous explanations; 2) incredulity over particulars in the actual rankings, or; 3) Trying to get a better understanding on the concept of ranking so many players from all over the country.

I have varying sympathy for each of the three. We’re certainly gratified at the continued growth of readership and interest in our coverage of club and college soccer across the country. There are times when we are slow to get it, either through not knowing about players or perhaps having somewhat dated information on a ranked player’s status and capabilities. In other instances, the dismay over the rankings is solely about our network of observers not agreeing with an individual’s perspective on a given player (usually their offspring). And regarding the third, it is a daunting task and there’s no question that it involves a lot of nuances, and at the end of the day, some level of subjectivity.

The shortest answer for how we rank is that we try to talk to as many people as we can, as close to the ground where the players are actually playing, in as many parts of the country as possible. We listen to proactive feedback from readers, but the brunt of our decisions are based on reaching out to people we increasingly are able to gauge in terms of giving us honest, informed assessments about players.

More recently we’ve started the Team of the Month feature which allows us, via added staff, to look more regularly at the most recent happenings in the elite youth soccer world, region-by-region, so we can keep more up-to-date.

Our desire is to make these as accurate as possible. It is a difficult task. But this is our commitment and we are striving daily to improve. The difference between just being wrong and honest differences of opinion among observers will always be there, and we encourage you to remember that, even as you should feel free to weigh in with your own observations at rankings@topdrawersoccer.com

Today is the July update for our Players To Watch Top 100 ranking for 2013 Boys. You can see the whole list here.

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