ECNL wants to switch back to school year from birth year

[Guest]

I hope so I have an Aug birth month bitch

Don't bitch when ECNL makes the cutoff September 1st. Hahaha!

[Guest]

What is the benefit of the birth year system?

Where I live there were kids turning 7 in kindergarten because their parents red shirted them for competitive advantage back when it was by grade not by birth year. So you had at times full year or two development gap between kids on the same team and it knocked all right-age kids out of sports early. It was actually pretty sad to see those kids as huge, athletic high schoolers on no teams because they tapped out in elementary school.

[Guest]

Listen birth year sucks. Totally dumb move. But as a parent of a 2010 trapped player we are not seeing it as all bad. This fall our kid will play middle school soccer. Will do a ton of agility. Play on a trapped town team. Practice with club ECNL 2011 team etc. It’s one season and let’s be real our kids are playing right up to mid July with playoffs etc. We can dial back this fall and focus on fitness. If her club creates a trapped team to play weekends we will do that. We might do some privates or go to the field ourselves. Our trapped players will come in very healthy in the winter when high school has wrecked her teammates bodies

[Guest]

Where I live there were kids turning 7 in kindergarten because their parents red shirted them for competitive advantage back when it was by grade not by birth year. So you had at times full year or two development gap between kids on the same team and it knocked all right-age kids out of sports early. It was actually pretty sad to see those kids as huge, athletic high schoolers on no teams because they tapped out in elementary school.

That only helps for school sports, not club. Club is done by age brackets, not grade. Using an Aug 1 cutoff for age is still an age bracket, not a grade bracket.

there is no advantage of using birth year over Aug 1 cutoff for club soccer.

[Guest]

Enter the private schools. You have juniors who are 19. Sophomores who are born in 2006. Reclassification is so prominent….. you are gonna end up with 21 year olds playing because they are still in high school. Stupid.

[Guest]

Enter the private schools. You have juniors who are 19. Sophomores who are born in 2006. Reclassification is so prominent….. you are gonna end up with 21 year olds playing because they are still in high school. Stupid.

Reclassifying is only relevant to school sports. Has absolutely zero to do with club sport carding and age brackets. A 19 year old junior is still going to be on a U19 club team.

[Guest]

Listen birth year sucks. Totally dumb move. But as a parent of a 2010 trapped player we are not seeing it as all bad. This fall our kid will play middle school soccer. Will do a ton of agility. Play on a trapped town team. Practice with club ECNL 2011 team etc. It’s one season and let’s be real our kids are playing right up to mid July with playoffs etc. We can dial back this fall and focus on fitness. If her club creates a trapped team to play weekends we will do that. We might do some privates or go to the field ourselves. Our trapped players will come in very healthy in the winter when high school has wrecked her teammates bodies

Well wait until recruiting begins… you’ll have a different vision.

[Guest]

The world will not end if they keep birth year as the carding system. But no one seems to be able to give a reason why it is better than using Aug 1 cut-off other than "birth year aligns with the rest of the world for YNT competition", whereas there are some clear improvements of using Aug 1 cut-off.

[Guest]

Parent of 2013 player who will be trapped the whole situation in 8th grade and 13th grade demand a change. So much unnecessary carnage that can be avoided with August 1 or September 1 cut off date.

I’m huge supporter of this change glad to hear the ECNL president get it.

[Guest]

Well wait until recruiting begins… you’ll have a different vision.

Help me to understand why being a trapped player is a bad thing for recruiting.

1. You get an extra year of understanding how recruiting works.
2. From a coaches/recruiters perspective you'd be considered a player playing up. This translates to transitioning to college play much faster.

If I was a recruiter / coach looking for talent I'd prioritize trapped players over similar players that are of age.

[Guest]

Parent of 2013 player who will be trapped the whole situation in 8th grade and 13th grade demand a change. So much unnecessary carnage that can be avoided with August 1 or September 1 cut off date.

I’m huge supporter of this change glad to hear the ECNL president get it.

Oh god stop it. You’re so dramatic. You’re like 3 years away from any impact to your little Mia. It’s not a huge deal. Youre kid has a lot of options. I’m glad you’re ok impacting other kids so you’re Mia is ok. Typical selfish human being. And just fyi, my kid isn’t impacted either way. This is about the selfish parents promoting this so their kid is helped:

[Guest]

Help me to understand why being a trapped player is a bad thing for recruiting.

1. You get an extra year of understanding how recruiting works.
2. From a coaches/recruiters perspective you'd be considered a player playing up. This translates to transitioning to college play much faster.

If I was a recruiter / coach looking for talent I'd prioritize trapped players over similar players that are of age.

This is absolutely true and the commitment lists each year prove your points.

[Guest]

Help me to understand why being a trapped player is a bad thing for recruiting.

1. You get an extra year of understanding how recruiting works.
2. From a coaches/recruiters perspective you'd be considered a player playing up. This translates to transitioning to college play much faster.

If I was a recruiter / coach looking for talent I'd prioritize trapped players over similar players that are of age.

Being a trapped player is a bad thing for recruiting because:

1. When you are a high school junior (the most important age group to be seen at showcases for college recruiting), the majority of your club team (at U18/19) will be high school seniors, and as most of those seniors will already be committed, their motivation to attend showcases will be low (especially in the spring). So your chances for attending showcases as a junior with a motivated team is reduced. Most U18/19 teams deal with availability/turnout issues even for league games, especially in leagues like ECNL that require a lot of travel for games.
2. Many college showcases don't even have a U18/19 bracket at their events in the spring.
3. College coaches attending showcases will prioritize going to watch games where they can see the most players they are interested in for a particular graduating class. If you are a trapped player, the games you play in at showcases will mostly be players in a graduating class ahead of you. This may enable you to get on a college's radar a year early as a sophomore, but ultimately the college coach is most interested in seeing you as a junior which will be more representative of what they will be getting when you arrive at college.

[Guest]

Are they talking about changing from 1/1 to 8/1 age cutoff? Or truly doing it by grade? Do it by grade and it's reclass hell. Change to 8/1 and you will have the same amount of banding except now it will align to school years.

Nobody should want youth soccer to be like lacrosse with the crazy reclassing.

[Guest]

Seems simple:

If you are less than ten years old, you can play on a U10 team. Birth date be damned. No worry about when your school starts or what schedule it is or if your area plays in fall or spring.

K-I-S-S