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Those who are against this are the ones who like to play in leagues where every kid gets a trophy.

So if I'm against arbitrarily breaking up thousands of teams, driving 10's of thousands of kids from the sport, making thousands of late year 8th graders have to miss a club season at U15 and virtually guaranteeing that every late year senior has to find a new soccer team to play for in their final club season that means I think that every kid should get a trophy?

And why do you think that? Reasons?

[Unregistered]

Do not spend any time looking for the benefit in this change. There are none. Especially on the girl side.

If you chose to not blindly follow this then you are a bad person.

[Unregistered]

If these travel teams are made up of town players that travel then playing with "friends" shouldn't be a big deal. Most of the team will be unchanged by the new rules so they will still be playing with a lot of kids they always played with. And for those displaced, they will still be playing with kids who are from their town, so likely there will be some friends in there. This whole change is a non issue.

True. Statistically, about 41.7% of a team (any Aug- Dec players) will need to move up to the older birth year team. That 41.7% have each other and the remaining 58.3% (Jan-July players) still have each other. No one is in this alone. All the kids will be fine and will still have friends already on their new birth year teams. All premier clubs are changing their teams over so everyone is in the same boat. Only super small clubs that don't have enough teams will be forced to keep teams together and play up vs players up to 1.5yrs older. The teams that stay together will cease to be competitive vs full birth year teams of all the other clubs both in state, and particularly out of state.

Our club is medium sized. All premier teams are going birth year with basically no playups.
More leeway will be given to non-premier level teams - particularly at the older high school ages.

[Unregistered]

Do not spend any time looking for the benefit in this change. There are none. Especially on the girl side.

When our U11 girls teams tours South America for a month of international soccer it will benefit us then.

Other than that I can really think of anything.

[Unregistered]

So if I'm against arbitrarily breaking up thousands of teams, driving 10's of thousands of kids from the sport, making thousands of late year 8th graders have to miss a club season at U15 and virtually guaranteeing that every late year senior has to find a new soccer team to play for in their final club season that means I think that every kid should get a trophy?

And why do you think that? Reasons?

I'm sure all of you were scared of Y2K also.

[Unregistered]

When our U11 girls teams tours South America for a month of international soccer it will benefit us then.

Other than that I can really think of anything.

yes that is when you are going to really be happy about the change.

[Unregistered]

I'm sure all of you were scared of Y2K also.

No, I made a ton of money from Y2K. It was too hard for you actually address any of the points, wasn't it.

[Unregistered]

No, I made a ton of money from Y2K. It was too hard for you actually address any of the points, wasn't it.

The only point that is apparent is that you and your kid are whiny little brats who would be much better served by going to rec soccer where she can play with her friends.

[Unregistered]

The only point that is apparent is that you and your kid are whiny little brats who would be much better served by going to rec soccer where she can play with her friends.

And still you can't address the points being made, only offer insults.

Whatever made you so angry over youth sports?

[Unregistered]

So if I'm against arbitrarily breaking up thousands of teams, driving 10's of thousands of kids from the sport, making thousands of late year 8th graders have to miss a club season at U15 and virtually guaranteeing that every late year senior has to find a new soccer team to play for in their final club season that means I think that every kid should get a trophy?

And why do you think that? Reasons?

The issues with your post are that you want to treat club soccer like rec. Club soccer is supposed to be reserved for the elite soccer nuts who loves the game. It's supposed to be merit based, not circle of friends based. There are supposed to be cuts at tryouts.

All of your complaints are fine at rec soccer level, but don't fit the model of what club soccer is supposed to be. It's ridiculous for the kids who love the game and are open to making new friends to dumb down their club experience so your kid can pay with his/her friends.

[Unregistered]

I've been around youth sports for 30 years and 99.5% of kids playing sports even elite level kids are very invested in the relationships they develop. You get the occasional kid that is tunnel vision but it's is very rare.

Think back to the best part of your youth sports career. Relationships formed are typically what people remember.

[Unregistered]

I've been around youth sports for 30 years and 99.5% of kids playing sports even elite level kids are very invested in the relationships they develop. You get the occasional kid that is tunnel vision but it's is very rare.

Think back to the best part of your youth sports career. Relationships formed are typically what people remember.

Yes, but the birth year changes don't mean that your child will be joining an entirely new team, knowing no one. No! If your child is on the younger side, they will be staying with all their teammates who were born in the same year (probably half the team). And if they were born in the older year, they will be moving up with the older kids on this year's team (again, probably about half the team).

They also probably are a bit familiar with the kids who will be joining them if your club is like ours, with scrimmages between teams a year apart (both older and younger).

Bottom line: it truly is not a big deal that kids will be playing with some kids that are new to them.

[Unregistered]

The issues with your post are that you want to treat club soccer like rec. Club soccer is supposed to be reserved for the elite soccer nuts who loves the game. It's supposed to be merit based, not circle of friends based. There are supposed to be cuts at tryouts.

All of your complaints are fine at rec soccer level, but don't fit the model of what club soccer is supposed to be. It's ridiculous for the kids who love the game and are open to making new friends to dumb down their club experience so your kid can pay with his/her friends.

You just pointed out the problem but have the wrong handle on it. The really "serious" leagues, sure, be as mercenary as you want. Tear the teams apart, demand more from the coaches and ask the kids to sacrifice games and winning for training and exposure.

But most of travel is not made up of serious teams and serious leagues. 95% of the travel kids do love the sport, are on their teams due to merit and have tryouts with cuts. But they overwhelmingly play in their home town for the same club they started intramurals with at U-5 and play with kids that they go to school with and met. And the social bonds that developed over all those years are what keeps them in the sport through the critical U13/U14 years where youth soccer loses so many players. And these social bonds I'm talking about are not their next door neighbor but the kids they progressed with all these years.

These are kids whose skill and dedication are far higher than those of rec players but they want nothing to do with the regional powers and national teams. They need a travel environment to provide the challenge that keeps the game interesting but will likely never kick a soccer ball again after they graduate high school or maybe play some college ball.

To me it makes a lot more sense to create a separate system to the 5% that actually has national aspirations (in ECNL, NPL, USDA, PDP, ODP, USYSA National and Regional leagues, etc) and screw down hard on them all you want to push their progress while leaving the other 95% of the kids alone that want nothing to do with all that.

In short (too late), you would be culling almost the entire club/travel system if you really got rid of all the kids that weren't attempting to make it on the national teams.

[Unregistered]

If you look at why kids join soccer at very young ages, overwhelming it's because school friends are playing. This will reduce that. Drive numbers down. That's ok though. Fees will increase by more than enough to compensate.

We will lose some fees but can offset for that. But we will also lose some future top soccer talent to other sports.

Any there are no known benefits to this change.

[Unregistered]

Yes, but the birth year changes don't mean that your child will be joining an entirely new team, knowing no one. No! If your child is on the younger side, they will be staying with all their teammates who were born in the same year (probably half the team). And if they were born in the older year, they will be moving up with the older kids on this year's team (again, probably about half the team).

They also probably are a bit familiar with the kids who will be joining them if your club is like ours, with scrimmages between teams a year apart (both older and younger).

Bottom line: it truly is not a big deal that kids will be playing with some kids that are new to them.

In many cases it will be entirely new teams. All small clubs, most mid-size clubs and even some large clubs do not have teams in every age group. In many cases there is no team in the age group above or below within the same club to be moved to.

I've said it 100 times now, these changes mostly impact the small and mid-sized clubs, not the big guys.