US soccer age change

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I’m all for the change

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its official

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makes no sense - parents are gonna hold back their kids in school for an edge in soccer if we move back to school year
seems to me injuries are gonna skyrocket because there will be 16 year olds playing U13 etc. etc.

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What does this mean. Pls explain

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And yet we dominate in those sports. Maybe they are on to something.

Not really - this has more to do with the best athletes play basketball these days.

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It’s not just grade so you won’t be able to hold your kid back like they do in basketball. It’s a certain age by the cutoff date .. whether it’s august 1 or September 1. Not solely grade.

[Guest]

It’s not just grade so you won’t be able to hold your kid back like they do in basketball. It’s a certain age by the cutoff date .. whether it’s august 1 or September 1. Not solely grade.

A lot of people seem to not get this. The cutoffs will be based around the school calendar so teams will be mostly aligned by grade but those cutoffs also mean holding your kid back won’t impact their age group at all

[Guest]

Another person told me that their club is getting ready for the change from birth year to grade with a cut off in September or October. Has anyone else still been hearing this? They would have to announce it before try outs if it’s true …right?

We expect the decision to move BACK to the School Year (Aug 1) vs the current Calendar year to be announced in the next month. The #ECNL supports it but wants a majority of youth leagues to support it as well. We would be pretty surprised if this change is not in place in 2025

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It’s birth year by school year and Not school grade.

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In nj the cut off for many schools is Oct 1 and some even later. So now I suppose these kids on the younger end for their grade would need to be good enough to play up in order to stay with their grade. Is there any sort of transition plan for hs age kids or just a shift that just takes place at a set time?

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In nj the cut off for many schools is Oct 1 and some even later. So now I suppose these kids on the younger end for their grade would need to be good enough to play up in order to stay with their grade. Is there any sort of transition plan for hs age kids or just a shift that just takes place at a set time?

No transition. It will be messy the first year, but the never ending issues with trapped players outweigh the chaos for a year or two.

I've been thinking about my daughters team and we have 1 trapped player year above us that I know of and 1 on our team. The trapped player numbers are relatively low, but I'm assuming there may be some impact players out there who transition down a year.

[Guest]

No transition. It will be messy the first year, but the never ending issues with trapped players outweigh the chaos for a year or two.

I've been thinking about my daughters team and we have 1 trapped player year above us that I know of and 1 on our team. The trapped player numbers are relatively low, but I'm assuming there may be some impact players out there who transition down a year.

every club will probably treat this differently with every kid. I have 2 trapped daughters. If this happens, we've already been told that the older one can keep playing with her team until 8th grade, then drop down (which she'll do anyway for the fall of her 8th grade year) and then see where she is, and what she wants to do at that point. I doubt she'd want to stay with her club if she was forced to move down before then. She's currently the one of 2 or 3 trapped player on her team. The other one would just play with her grade, which is what she would want.

[Guest]

every club will probably treat this differently with every kid. I have 2 trapped daughters. If this happens, we've already been told that the older one can keep playing with her team until 8th grade, then drop down (which she'll do anyway for the fall of her 8th grade year) and then see where she is, and what she wants to do at that point. I doubt she'd want to stay with her club if she was forced to move down before then. She's currently the one of 2 or 3 trapped player on her team. The other one would just play with her grade, which is what she would want.

My daughter is a trapped player. I would move her down when that time comes and put her on a better team with a better coach than she’s with now. It’s all about the quality soccer for us. Plus I think she will be more successful being one of the older kids on the team vs being the youngest all the time! It’s a disadvantage when they are young but probably doesn’t matter after puberty age.

[Guest]

But school cutoff dates are all across the map - how does this factor in? For example NYC, which btw is just across the river, has a 12/31 cutoff for public school. Lots of NYC kids play for NJ based teams.

[Guest]

But school cutoff dates are all across the map - how does this factor in? For example NYC, which btw is just across the river, has a 12/31 cutoff for public school. Lots of NYC kids play for NJ based teams.

Even in NYC, its very common for people elect to keep Sept-Dec birthdays back for social development reasons