ECNL wants to switch back to school year from birth year

[Guest]

Completely agree, and that’s why 8/1 makes the most sense. Even 7/1 would be good.

[Guest]

Why the proposed change?

Most of the world uses January 1 as the age cutoff for their youth soccer programs. So, if a kid is born in 2018, at any point in the year, they play youth soccer with kids also born in 2018.
It is a fairly simple system.

Yes, in any date specific system, there are older kids and younger kids - regardless of the cutoff date. Does that make a difference? Yes. There is no doubt that older kids have an advantage. They tend to be bigger, faster, more mature for their age, and this is particularly apparent at younger ages. A kid born on, and turning 9 on January 2 could be playing against a kid turning 9 on December 31. Of course the extra year of growth and maturity matters. But — you will have that regardless of what cutoff date is chosen if you divide things by birth year. If you make your new date cutoff August 1, then a kid born on August 2 will be a year older than kids born on July 31.

Why care then? If you divide kids up in one year increments, does it make a difference what date is chosen as the dividing date? Some kids will benefit and some will be hurt.

You care because of the US soccer system. The huge elephant in the room is college soccer, and to a lesser extent, high school soccer. We play school soccer in the US in a way that no other country does in the world.

Last year, 467,483 boys and 383,895 girls played high school soccer. No other country in the world has anywhere close to those numbers of kids playing school soccer. Those teams are not formed based on age, but by school grade. (Those numbers do not include middle school programs.)

At our higher levels of youth soccer the focus shifts to playing in college. Yes, certainly, as many as 30-40 kids a year look to try their hand at going pro and not play in college, but 3,000 or so look to play in one of the hundreds of college soccer programs that we have in the US. Again, no other country has anything like our college soccer programs.

Those several hundred teams look to get players graduating from high schools in the Spring of their Senior years, and start College a few months later. Those school start and end dates have no relationship to January 1. But, school start and end dates are the key dates for thousands of American youth soccer players.

Simply put - college coaches don’t give a rats ass how old a kid is on January 1 that they are looking to recruit. They want to know when will you graduate high school and can start their college program.

Will it make things harder to put together a youth national team? Yes. Your top u16s more than likely will be born within 3 months of the cutoff date. Oh well. Coaches looking to put together an international team will have to look at birthdates.

Are you seriously entering a 300 page 4500 post thread and asking "Why the change..."? Please just have your kid play lax.

[Guest]

There's a way to make everyone happy and for clubs to make even more money.

Just run 2 concurrent leagues.

League A will be Jan 1st to July 1st
League B will be July 1st to Dec 31st

If players want to play with kids in their grade in school either they'll be forced to (July 1st to Dec 31st) or they'll have the option to play up with their grade (Jan 1st to July 1st)

This solves RAE, lets kids play with their grade in school, and creates more teams for kids to play on. Which means more $$$ for clubs.

[Guest]

Great idea, and I’ve seen that floated around. I just don’t know if all clubs could form teams with this split, although that’s not a bad thing either since there are far too many clubs out there that do absolutely nothing for development. Haha

[Guest]

Great idea, and I’ve seen that floated around. I just don’t know if all clubs could form teams with this split, although that’s not a bad thing either since there are far too many clubs out there that do absolutely nothing for development. Haha

It also gives clubs 2x A teams vs an A and B team. This would keep more players playing longer.

[Guest]

Great idea, and I’ve seen that floated around. I just don’t know if all clubs could form teams with this split, although that’s not a bad thing either since there are far too many clubs out there that do absolutely nothing for development. Haha

At first many clubs would only field 1 team per age group. But other clubs also with only one team would field a team in the opposite half of the year.

In the end it would force clubs to field 2 teams per year + make more $$$.

[Guest]

At first many clubs would only field 1 team per age group. But other clubs also with only one team would field a team in the opposite half of the year.

In the end it would force clubs to field 2 teams per year + make more $$$.

Great idea. So do college coaches have to go to 2 sets of showcases spaced 6 months apart or do they just watch twice as many teams?

[Guest]

Dear Fake USSF Guy,

Since you asked, I'll chime in. There are people in here who are so angry you changed from 8/1 the first time around, and are so bloodthirsty for a change back, they can't see the forest for the trees. What they are missing is that a change back will turn your entire ecosystem on its head. In an effort to correct perceived problems with the ecosystem, you'll be taking a blowtorch to it.

I waited 300 pages of this thread to weigh in, so apologies if it's long, but here's what they are missing: For club soccer, this isn't as simple as a shifting of a few Q4 kids from one age bracket to another. There will be MASSIVE player movement and disruption, with players switching not just from age bracket to age bracket, but from one level to another, from league to league, and from club to club. I'm guessing at least HALF of the kids in club soccer are moved, but regardless of how many move, ALL of them will be impacted. This is not good for the ecosystem. (Local town soccer is a little different story, but that's another topic.)

Let's look at an example. Let's use a U14 boys NAL team (somewhat modeled on my son's team, but also some made up for purposes of the example). NAL is a challenging league. Many players are even good enough to play MLSN but don't for a variety of reasons. Others--at this age--could be good enough once they mature physically. There are 18 on the roster, grouped as follows for purposes of this example:

Group A: 8 kids born 8/1 or later
Group B: 2 July kids
Group C: 1 June kid
Group D: 7 Jan-May kids

Impact on each of these groups:

Group A: None would move forward with the rest of the team and would stay at U14 for another year. Most kids would be thrilled to repeat U14 again next year as the oldest players in NAL and avoid being trapped players. At least 3 of these kids are regular starters on the current U14 team and would prefer to stay with the team if they could. It has been rumored that the club is not planning to have Aug-Dec kids "play up" on any of the NAL teams, but at U15 there isn't really a choice anyway. "Playing up" next fall would just mean these kids would be trapped players so they'll stay at U14 to avoid that (which is the whole point of creating this mess for everyone). In any event, all of these kids are "gone" next year (meaning playing with a different team than they are on this year), whether they wanted to or not.

Groups B&C: None of these kids has matured physically, but they are able to play at this level against bigger/faster developed kids because of very strong technical skills and excellent understanding of the systems of play being used. One of them is probably the most technical player on the team. This year he has found that strong technical skills alone sometimes aren't enough to beat bigger, faster kids who grew early in 1v1 situations. Until this year, he dominated in 1v1 situations. One of these kids also reclassed for private school last year and is a now a July kid 7th grade. So in a SY system he'll STILL be trapped. The only difference is that he'll now be among the youngest and suffering the effects of REA to add insult to injury. All of these kids would be in jeopardy of being displaced on next year's U15 team, whether by losing a roster spot, position, starting spot, or at least significant playing time. I included the June kid as a separate Group because he's physically underdeveloped. He'd be a candidate for biobanding if they gave him that option. A skilled player who could very well be out of luck in a SY system.

Group D: This group runs the gamut from top starters to end of the bench. The best of them would easily make an MLS roster, the worst are probably over their heads at the NAL level. While all would move forward to the U15 age bracket in a SY system, for sure some of them will be displaced on our club's U15 NAL roster next year.

For Groups B-D, the players who might be displaced, wouldn't just be displaced by current Aug-Dec U15 NAL players from our club who would be staying at U15. Rather there is a whole transfer portal-like tidal wave of players who could take a roster spot, position, starting spot, or at least significant playing time from them. Here are just some of the groups who could do that (non-exhaustive, just off the top of my head):

1) The Aug-Dec 2010 kids currently playing for our club's U15 NAL team.
2) The Aug-Dec 2010 kids from other clubs' current U14 teams in other leagues who see this as an opportunity to move up or laterally from their current league to NAL. This could include kids currently playing in leagues like ECNL, ECRL, EDP or even some NECSL players.
3) The Aug-Dec 2010 kids from other clubs' teams in ECNL or ECRL who see this as an opportunity to NAL to get away from the travel involved in ECNL and ECRL.
4) The Jan-Jul 2011 kids from other clubs' current (stronger) U14 NAL teams who get displaced from their current club's U15 NAL team next year, or are worried they will be displaced because of the change to SY or otherwise.
6) The Jan-Jul 2011 kids from our club's current U14 MLS team who get displaced from our club's U15 MLS team next year.
7) The Jan-Jul 2011 kids from other clubs' current U14 MLS teams who get displaced from their current club's U15 MLS team next year, or are worried they will be displaced because of the change to SY or otherwise.

I'm sure there are plenty of others I missed. In addition to the players displaced, other players will choose to leave for another team (thereby displacing someone in that club!) Across the ecosystem, pretty much every kid could either be displaced or choose to leave because of the change to SY. At a minimum, the team in the example would lose 8 of 18 and at least half of the other 10 will be displaced or leave for another team. Multiply this by the number of other teams out there and by the different age groups, and you have an absolute tsunami of player movement on your hands. Every team currently together, often after years of development, will be torn apart. Sure, there are changes every year. The movement from a change to SY is entirely different just on volume alone. But also, evaluations are far from perfect, even by a coach who has coached a kid for years. Evaluations based on seeing a kid at a few practices or even just a tryout will be much worse. There will be rampant misevaluations in what will be far from a "perfect market" of player movement. None of this is good for your ecosystem.

As an early October, my kid would be one of the so-called "winners" of the birthday lottery in a change to a SY system. He's also a kid who happened to grow already and isn't affected by RAE much anymore. We'd much rather stay BY and have him keep playing with his current team. Yes, he'll be a trapped eighth grader next year and he'll deal with issues again as a junior. All of that is so overblown. We already have a plan in place for how he'll deal with next fall as a "trapped" 8th and they don't actually "miss" any games so we're not that worried about it. College soccer isn't really in his plans, but if he changes his mind we're not concerned about connecting with coaches so they know about him. He's not going to fall off the radar because he's one of almost half the roster in that situation.

Thanks for listening.

very helpful

doesn't this make the case for starting the SY change at the early age groups only (U8??) and grandfathering in the older age groups with kids that are already very deep into the soccer journey?

[Guest]

Seems like it would weaken teams but cutting the year in half and assembling teams composed of A and B teams?

[Guest]

Seems like it would weaken teams but cutting the year in half and assembling teams composed of A and B teams?

We shouldn’t keep score in games or leagues and everyone should get a trophy too!! These are the worst ideas ever. Make the chage life will go on!!!!

[Guest]

Seems like it would weaken teams but cutting the year in half and assembling teams composed of A and B teams?

Everyone would be equally weakened.

And it wouldn't be an A and B team it would be 2x A teams.

[Guest]

We shouldn’t keep score in games or leagues and everyone should get a trophy too!! These are the worst ideas ever. Make the chage life will go on!!!!

I never said clubs wouldn't keep score.

You will end up with more players participating because there would be two A teams per year.

It gives everyone what they want and clubs make more $$$

[Guest]

Great idea. So do college coaches have to go to 2 sets of showcases spaced 6 months apart or do they just watch twice as many teams?

Just have both groups do the same showcases.

But league A only plays league A teams and vice versa.

[Guest]

There's a way to make everyone happy and for clubs to make even more money.

Just run 2 concurrent leagues.

League A will be Jan 1st to July 1st
League B will be July 1st to Dec 31st

If players want to play with kids in their grade in school either they'll be forced to (July 1st to Dec 31st) or they'll have the option to play up with their grade (Jan 1st to July 1st)

This solves RAE, lets kids play with their grade in school, and creates more teams for kids to play on. Which means more $$$ for clubs.

This is a good idea.

Jan 1 to July 1 birthdays could play down for wins but by the time the get to HS they'll want to play up to get noticed by recruiters at showcases.

[Guest]

Kudos to the new guy offering up an idea that hasn't been covered in the last 303 pages.