US soccer age change

[Guest]

PSA said they are getting ready for this change. So it has to be in the talks for them to say that.

Our club also did a survey for them to understand what grade kids are in to see the impact on their current rosters

[Guest]

Anyone who has been around long enough to remember the last change can tell you that absolutely no one is prepared for the consequences that come with any change. The last one destroyed an entire age group as 08s tend to have a wide gap in skill levels depending on if they were born before or after the old 8/1 cut off. On top of that, many teams and clubs were torn apart as players moved to their new classification as some had spots available and others were moved down to B teams. It wasn't pretty. Changing back serves 0 purpose, even moving to school year wouldn't work as different schools in different states have different cut offs.

As for different leagues having different cut offs, you must be dumb. The point of doing anything is to streamline and make better. NONE of the leagues would want different age cutoffs between them. ECNL, MLS, and GA clubs all have 2nd/3rd teams that play in different leagues and having different cut offs would cause nightmares for them, the parents, coaches, and players not to mention those inter-league tournaments and showcases would have fewer teams as coaches wouldn't want to have to play up a year and colleges don't want to have to guess which players they can talk to or recruit.

There is a bit of attribution bias on your part with what happened with a lot of 08s. Many of the 4th quarter kids just quit soccer. The difference with the 07s, 08s and 09s is that they still started soccer under the old system. Far more 08s fell out of soccer than 09s because they had to play with older kids NOT in their grade or social circles. This isnt really replicating what happened then. You'll probably have a similar phenomenon for a period with the older birth year vs the younger birth year after the change. But only for a few years in the middle age groups. By the time they get to HS ages, it wont be too noticeable. The fact of the matter is, there are far less 4Q players currently represented on higher level teams than Q1-3, many of the Q4 players have been playing with lower level teams, so its not like they are playing at a much higher level. While it should be around 35%, it seems to average more like 15% on ECNL rosters (just looking at posted grad years). My kids club routinely has the younger A team play the older B team. The younger A team (generally) wins. So i personally dont see some flood of 4Q B team kids coming down and taking roster spots from kids. There will definitely be some movement, but there always is anyway. It generally feels like the bottom 2 or 3 kids on my kids roster get moved down to B team or cut and 2-3 get moved up or replaced with an outside player.

[Guest]

Our club also did a survey for them to understand what grade kids are in to see the impact on their current rosters

Nothing to get ready for? US club will not change as many of their leagues don’t want to deal with it. ECNL already said they won’t do anything without us club.

[Guest]

Nothing to get ready for? US club will not change as many of their leagues don’t want to deal with it. ECNL already said they won’t do anything without us club.

Dumbass - ECNL IS basically US Club. Why would clubs be preparing / doing analysis if there was "nothing to get ready for"

[Guest]

Please change this us soccer!

[Guest]

Dumbass - ECNL IS basically US Club. Why would clubs be preparing / doing analysis if there was "nothing to get ready for"

They are not changing anything. It’s just a dog and pony show at this point to make ECNL feel better.

[Guest]

There is a bit of attribution bias on your part with what happened with a lot of 08s. Many of the 4th quarter kids just quit soccer. The difference with the 07s, 08s and 09s is that they still started soccer under the old system. Far more 08s fell out of soccer than 09s because they had to play with older kids NOT in their grade or social circles. This isnt really replicating what happened then. You'll probably have a similar phenomenon for a period with the older birth year vs the younger birth year after the change. But only for a few years in the middle age groups. By the time they get to HS ages, it wont be too noticeable. The fact of the matter is, there are far less 4Q players currently represented on higher level teams than Q1-3, many of the Q4 players have been playing with lower level teams, so its not like they are playing at a much higher level. While it should be around 35%, it seems to average more like 15% on ECNL rosters (just looking at posted grad years). My kids club routinely has the younger A team play the older B team. The younger A team (generally) wins. So i personally dont see some flood of 4Q B team kids coming down and taking roster spots from kids. There will definitely be some movement, but there always is anyway. It generally feels like the bottom 2 or 3 kids on my kids roster get moved down to B team or cut and 2-3 get moved up or replaced with an outside player.

Do you realize that kids born May, June and July will be the Q4, so nothing will change just different set of kids will have the same issues.

[Guest]

Do you realize that kids born May, June and July will be the Q4, so nothing will change just different set of kids will have the same issues.

That’s not really the same thing. The q4 players right now often don’t enter the sport or quit because they aren’t with their own grade. In the new system at least the Aug/sept kids have the opportunity to play up with their own grade so it does seem like a sound idea in theory. That said it will create a lot of shifts and chaos in middle age groups. Some kids may quit as a result of the upheaval at their clubs.

[Guest]

If they really want to do this (and I'm not sure why because it presents a whole different set of challenges), why not just grandfather the current set of ages in as they are now and start this for the 2018 (or whatever year starts in the fall at a travel age). That will involve the least amount of "disruption" for the current clubs/teams/kids.

[Guest]

That’s not really the same thing. The q4 players right now often don’t enter the sport or quit because they aren’t with their own grade. In the new system at least the Aug/sept kids have the opportunity to play up with their own grade so it does seem like a sound idea in theory. That said it will create a lot of shifts and chaos in middle age groups. Some kids may quit as a result of the upheaval at their clubs.

The point was, there is likely less upheaval than you’d expect because:
- there are fewer 4Q kids playing on the top teams at clubs than what a normal distribution of birthdays would suggest because of RAE
- because many 4Q kids have not been training either at higher level clubs or on higher level teams at clubs, they haven’t developed as much

there likely won’t be a mass displacement of Q1-Q3 kids because of the lack of high level Q4 kids relative to the percentage of births in q4 (25.3%)

for example- on my daughters u13 team, 2 of 18 are trapped 11%). On the B team, 6 of 19 are trapped (32%). That’s still like 22% trapped. I doubt more than 1 or 2 B team kids would make the U12 A team. They haven’t been playing or training at the same speed. Every age group will have kids move down and there will be some anomalies, but all in, i doubt it will really the disruption people are claiming.

[Guest]

That’s not really the same thing. The q4 players right now often don’t enter the sport or quit because they aren’t with their own grade. In the new system at least the Aug/sept kids have the opportunity to play up with their own grade so it does seem like a sound idea in theory. That said it will create a lot of shifts and chaos in middle age groups. Some kids may quit as a result of the upheaval at their clubs.

The never playing with kids in her grade is my daughters issue.

[Guest]

“The point of doing anything is to streamline and make better”. Wouldn’t going to SY streamline with college recruiting and make that better? Or streamline with kids playing with kids their same grade or from their class? Wouldn’t that be better.
wouldn’t getting rid of trapped players who have to sit out for months why some of their teammates play high school be better?

If your argument is this will really be disruptive I will agree with that but nothing about BY streamlines anything for the majority of youth soccer. Isn’t a short term disruption worth getting back to something that is better for the majority?

Let’s assume my kid does suck at soccer and doesn’t like to work hard so no need to bring that up. Stick to the facts. Outside of national team play how does BY help streamline anything.

The move was done to align with the rest of the world not for the betterment of the multitude of rec players. Any change, as evident from the last one isn't short term. You will always have people that will complain either way and you will have that 1 age group (the youngest) that will be forever hurt the most. As I said, the 08s were the ones hit hardest during the last change as those Aug-Dec babies went from rec ball to facing players with 1+ years of exp in travel which is huge at that age. If you haven't noticed, the 08s have a very large cap still between the top and bottom on teams and an even wider gap between top level club teams vs even USYS level teams.

Everyone also loves bringing up trapped players...Those trapped players generally have been allowed to train with the club while the older ones play HS if the HS ages don't train during HS. I know several that have added them to the younger teams for fall tournaments and played up an age and ECNL and RL allow 2 trapped players to play during the fall season per game. They don't miss out on anything with their own team as their seasons don't start until after HS has finished and if anything get the bonus of being at showcases a year earlier then players in there grade. While you complain about trapped players, why isn't their more towards the clubs for not having teams or events, even small sided, for them? Why don't these clubs allow players to play on outside teams during the fall? Everyone just wants to whine about it but no one seems to want to do anything about it other then change it back. Plus, even if they did change back, you would still have trapped players. If it went back to Aug 1st cut off then every Aug-Oct baby would now be trapped instead of those Oct-Dec ones.

You can't do school year simple because every state has a different start period and even within that state you have different cut offs. On top of that, if you did it strictly on grad year, how do you handle players that reclassify once or even twice before HS? You would have all of the negative issues like basketball does with out any benefits. Imagine the current 2011s, in 8th grade now, facing against teams with reclassed players that could be a year or 2 older but in 8th grade. About the only thing BY has done is kept clubs/teams on a level playing field based on relative age. You know if your kid steps on the pitch the other team's kids have been training as long as yours and they are the same age. You can move up if able but there is no moving down while a school year classification would allow kids to play down. This was why bio-banding was being looked into but even that had drawbacks as it emphasized physical characteristics over actual skill.

There isn't any perfect solution, I was against the change the 1st time even though my kid benefited because her team stayed together and played up the year for a few years until her team folded and every upper level club decided that kids would play on teams in their own age group. I am against this change because I've seen 1st hand the problems major changes like this cause and the lasting effects.

[Guest]

The point was, there is likely less upheaval than you’d expect because:
- there are fewer 4Q kids playing on the top teams at clubs than what a normal distribution of birthdays would suggest because of RAE
- because many 4Q kids have not been training either at higher level clubs or on higher level teams at clubs, they haven’t developed as much

there likely won’t be a mass displacement of Q1-Q3 kids because of the lack of high level Q4 kids relative to the percentage of births in q4 (25.3%)

for example- on my daughters u13 team, 2 of 18 are trapped 11%). On the B team, 6 of 19 are trapped (32%). That’s still like 22% trapped. I doubt more than 1 or 2 B team kids would make the U12 A team. They haven’t been playing or training at the same speed. Every age group will have kids move down and there will be some anomalies, but all in, i doubt it will really the disruption people are claiming.

Again, now you are screwing kids born in May June and July, just because your kid was born in October , November or December. Also, the school argument doesn't hold the water since there is a ton of kids that are born in June and July that are trapped players (we have 4 of 6 on our team).
Is there any official statement from any youth soccer organization or league that they area considering change or is just two guys talking on soccer podcast? And what is MLS and NWSL stand on the issue?

[Guest]

That’s not really the same thing. The q4 players right now often don’t enter the sport or quit because they aren’t with their own grade. In the new system at least the Aug/sept kids have the opportunity to play up with their own grade so it does seem like a sound idea in theory. That said it will create a lot of shifts and chaos in middle age groups. Some kids may quit as a result of the upheaval at their clubs.

Opportunity does not equal ability. Relatively few clubs, starting at the middle school ages, allow players to play up. So your opportunity does not mean availability. You can't base major changes off presumed opportunities as they rarely ever materialize.

[Guest]

Opportunity does not equal ability. Relatively few clubs, starting at the middle school ages, allow players to play up. So your opportunity does not mean availability. You can't base major changes off presumed opportunities as they rarely ever materialize.

The key difference is that right now a third or more kids are not allowed to play with their grade. With an Aug. 1 cutoff, the Aug/Sep kids are allowed to play up with grade. Whether they are offered a spot on their preferred team is up to them and their club, as always.