ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people get so offended when people are talking about realities?

Why is the ECNL pushing this? They're doing so because this benefits THEIR platform and what they push, collegiate soccer.

What was the goal of the initial change years ago? To align with how the world works, and FIFA.

Everybody wants to give reasons to change this, but the primary reason to change it is for collegiate play, that system is changing. Roster numbers aren't going to be what they used to be, therefore the population of players getting selected to play in college goes down. This argument of trying to benefit trapped players so they can be seen for less spots is wild. If a player is good enough, they'll be seen if college is what they want to do. Making changes for an end goal that is going to be even harder to obtain than it already is and not knowing what the real future holds for collegiate soccer is wild.

Yet your rationale includes college soccer changing. Did you purposely leave out that if roster sizes reduce especially on the girls side the number of available scholarships could greatly increase! Wow think about how that marketing changes. Spend all this $$ for ECNL and the number of full scholarships available goes through the roof.

Not PP, but lets get real.

This is an ECNL thread, with a lot of parents that aren't ECNL parents in here complaining about their "trapped player" and how they want the structure to be for their kid because they believe its the birth month that is holding their kid back from being top-dog. Inherent in their argument is that their kid is not one of the best.

Those ECNL parents that ARE in here and have Q3/4 kids that are ballers, the top-half of their team at least, the 12th-grade trap doesn't apply to them - their kids will have a spot on a college roster if that is one of the things they're playing for - and most likely they'll know this by the beginning of 11th grade.

So that means the ECNL parents who have kids that are bottom half AND Q3/4 are trying to advocate for this change because of a few reasons (any combination of which); 1) their kids are bottom bubble kids (bottom 1/4 to bottom 1/3) and are not getting looks or playing time, 2) they want to create an advantage for their own child based on a factor largely out of control (birth month) - the corollary to this is that they want to DISADVANTAGE children that they currently feel have an unfair (albeit out of everyone's control) advantage of RAE (or "accumulated advantage") based on a birth year cutoff opposed to school year cut-off. and 3) excuse-making for why their child is not as good as other children - this is again based on accumulated advantage - but note that it's a retrospective issue because it blames the present for the missed opportunities of the past, meaning that they could have started earlier, trained more, etc. to counterbalance the accumulated advantage of age and size. What gets lost in all of this is that there are plenty of "late bloomers" in Q1/2 that are not subject to the "BY/SY" "trapped" argument - and this is what makes argument #3 particularly pernicious. While looking at the entire youth soccer landscape, a bubble Q3/4 kid on an ECNL team would be considered elite, in their relative pool, they are not - so in the relative pool, this too is an inherent argument that their child is not good enough - and the only and fairest solution is to change the structure of the age matrix for ECNL.

The alignment advocating SY in order to better align with the graduation year argument for the school year has not been an issue. It sounds like it's "helpful" as an argument, but there are no issues with colleges finding players. This argument is solely based on people who believe they are not getting found, as opposed to being rejected. Its a solution without a problem.

The relative age argument has been discussed ad nauseum - it just moves the window - and as far as an argument "change who gets hurt by RAE so my kid has the same teammates in 12th grade" is pretty awful. Especially considering it's based on a counterfactual of "my kid would be the top half of their team as opposed to the bottom half if only the age cut-off were different" AND "my kid would be the top of the team if the team was made up of different players."

The "play with friends" argument, while sounds nice, doesn't really apply to ECNL or top competitive programs like MLSN and GA.

And lastly, the "only 10% of the kids go to YNT ID sessions, and only 1% every play on a YNT so we don't need to align better for international play" argument is also a bit of a logical mystery. It sort of defeats the whole "elite" aspect of play, and lays bare the rationale for the decision. It suggests "My kid is good enough to get a scholarship only if this change in age cutoff is made, but of course, my child is not good enough to play on the national teams, so we don't really need to worry about aligning better with FIFA, just NCAA." This is where pretty much any parent or player should see clearly the trapped parent argument is not for the betterment of anyone except themselves and their goals. While of course not all kids will be on the YNT, (US or elsewhere) the fact that trapped parents glibly reject that argument informs everyone about their motivations, helping their own little Chad or Karen. It's not about enjoying soccer more. It's not about including more kids and reducing the 12-14y/o dropout zone (Which applies to all youth sports and is not a US phenomenon, but global, and related to age alone, not cut-offs). Its not about RAE. Its not about playing HS and ECNL. It's not about having the same teammates for 6 years. It's not even about ALL trapped kids - August through December - it's about trying to find a way to make their kid who ISNT shining, shine.

So, if all these assumptions are true, can't we also assume that the only people arguing AGAINST the change are parents of 1Q kids who may lose their chance to shine?

🤦‍♂️ no

If you’re a parent of a Q3 or Q4 star player who is probably a P4 commit, why in the heck would you want to change your current pool?

Q1 through Q4 star players and parents should all be very happy with their current pool.

Changing the pool would introduce chaos, which doesn’t make a crappy player better, it could certainly harm a star’s opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people get so offended when people are talking about realities?

Why is the ECNL pushing this? They're doing so because this benefits THEIR platform and what they push, collegiate soccer.

What was the goal of the initial change years ago? To align with how the world works, and FIFA.

Everybody wants to give reasons to change this, but the primary reason to change it is for collegiate play, that system is changing. Roster numbers aren't going to be what they used to be, therefore the population of players getting selected to play in college goes down. This argument of trying to benefit trapped players so they can be seen for less spots is wild. If a player is good enough, they'll be seen if college is what they want to do. Making changes for an end goal that is going to be even harder to obtain than it already is and not knowing what the real future holds for collegiate soccer is wild.

Yet your rationale includes college soccer changing. Did you purposely leave out that if roster sizes reduce especially on the girls side the number of available scholarships could greatly increase! Wow think about how that marketing changes. Spend all this $$ for ECNL and the number of full scholarships available goes through the roof.

Not PP, but lets get real.

This is an ECNL thread, with a lot of parents that aren't ECNL parents in here complaining about their "trapped player" and how they want the structure to be for their kid because they believe its the birth month that is holding their kid back from being top-dog. Inherent in their argument is that their kid is not one of the best.

Those ECNL parents that ARE in here and have Q3/4 kids that are ballers, the top-half of their team at least, the 12th-grade trap doesn't apply to them - their kids will have a spot on a college roster if that is one of the things they're playing for - and most likely they'll know this by the beginning of 11th grade.

So that means the ECNL parents who have kids that are bottom half AND Q3/4 are trying to advocate for this change because of a few reasons (any combination of which); 1) their kids are bottom bubble kids (bottom 1/4 to bottom 1/3) and are not getting looks or playing time, 2) they want to create an advantage for their own child based on a factor largely out of control (birth month) - the corollary to this is that they want to DISADVANTAGE children that they currently feel have an unfair (albeit out of everyone's control) advantage of RAE (or "accumulated advantage") based on a birth year cutoff opposed to school year cut-off. and 3) excuse-making for why their child is not as good as other children - this is again based on accumulated advantage - but note that it's a retrospective issue because it blames the present for the missed opportunities of the past, meaning that they could have started earlier, trained more, etc. to counterbalance the accumulated advantage of age and size. What gets lost in all of this is that there are plenty of "late bloomers" in Q1/2 that are not subject to the "BY/SY" "trapped" argument - and this is what makes argument #3 particularly pernicious. While looking at the entire youth soccer landscape, a bubble Q3/4 kid on an ECNL team would be considered elite, in their relative pool, they are not - so in the relative pool, this too is an inherent argument that their child is not good enough - and the only and fairest solution is to change the structure of the age matrix for ECNL.

The alignment advocating SY in order to better align with the graduation year argument for the school year has not been an issue. It sounds like it's "helpful" as an argument, but there are no issues with colleges finding players. This argument is solely based on people who believe they are not getting found, as opposed to being rejected. Its a solution without a problem.

The relative age argument has been discussed ad nauseum - it just moves the window - and as far as an argument "change who gets hurt by RAE so my kid has the same teammates in 12th grade" is pretty awful. Especially considering it's based on a counterfactual of "my kid would be the top half of their team as opposed to the bottom half if only the age cut-off were different" AND "my kid would be the top of the team if the team was made up of different players."

The "play with friends" argument, while sounds nice, doesn't really apply to ECNL or top competitive programs like MLSN and GA.

And lastly, the "only 10% of the kids go to YNT ID sessions, and only 1% every play on a YNT so we don't need to align better for international play" argument is also a bit of a logical mystery. It sort of defeats the whole "elite" aspect of play, and lays bare the rationale for the decision. It suggests "My kid is good enough to get a scholarship only if this change in age cutoff is made, but of course, my child is not good enough to play on the national teams, so we don't really need to worry about aligning better with FIFA, just NCAA." This is where pretty much any parent or player should see clearly the trapped parent argument is not for the betterment of anyone except themselves and their goals. While of course not all kids will be on the YNT, (US or elsewhere) the fact that trapped parents glibly reject that argument informs everyone about their motivations, helping their own little Chad or Karen. It's not about enjoying soccer more. It's not about including more kids and reducing the 12-14y/o dropout zone (Which applies to all youth sports and is not a US phenomenon, but global, and related to age alone, not cut-offs). Its not about RAE. Its not about playing HS and ECNL. It's not about having the same teammates for 6 years. It's not even about ALL trapped kids - August through December - it's about trying to find a way to make their kid who ISNT shining, shine.

This demonstrates how we ended up changing to BY in the first place. A few people got together at the top, said, "F all those peons across the youth soccer landscape, we only care about building tomorrow's pros and national teams." A couple other aholes applauded, and they issued the mandate while dismissing all the concerns raised as just coming from people/leagues who aren't good enough. Now, years later, participation is down and the youth landscape is in potential rebellion questioning whether they have to listen to US Soccer anymore.

That is not what happened. 😂

And that certainly isn’t why ECNL and GA exist today. You’re starting and ending at “once upon a time.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people get so offended when people are talking about realities?

Why is the ECNL pushing this? They're doing so because this benefits THEIR platform and what they push, collegiate soccer.

What was the goal of the initial change years ago? To align with how the world works, and FIFA.

Everybody wants to give reasons to change this, but the primary reason to change it is for collegiate play, that system is changing. Roster numbers aren't going to be what they used to be, therefore the population of players getting selected to play in college goes down. This argument of trying to benefit trapped players so they can be seen for less spots is wild. If a player is good enough, they'll be seen if college is what they want to do. Making changes for an end goal that is going to be even harder to obtain than it already is and not knowing what the real future holds for collegiate soccer is wild.

Yet your rationale includes college soccer changing. Did you purposely leave out that if roster sizes reduce especially on the girls side the number of available scholarships could greatly increase! Wow think about how that marketing changes. Spend all this $$ for ECNL and the number of full scholarships available goes through the roof.

Not PP, but lets get real.

This is an ECNL thread, with a lot of parents that aren't ECNL parents in here complaining about their "trapped player" and how they want the structure to be for their kid because they believe its the birth month that is holding their kid back from being top-dog. Inherent in their argument is that their kid is not one of the best.

Those ECNL parents that ARE in here and have Q3/4 kids that are ballers, the top-half of their team at least, the 12th-grade trap doesn't apply to them - their kids will have a spot on a college roster if that is one of the things they're playing for - and most likely they'll know this by the beginning of 11th grade.

So that means the ECNL parents who have kids that are bottom half AND Q3/4 are trying to advocate for this change because of a few reasons (any combination of which); 1) their kids are bottom bubble kids (bottom 1/4 to bottom 1/3) and are not getting looks or playing time, 2) they want to create an advantage for their own child based on a factor largely out of control (birth month) - the corollary to this is that they want to DISADVANTAGE children that they currently feel have an unfair (albeit out of everyone's control) advantage of RAE (or "accumulated advantage") based on a birth year cutoff opposed to school year cut-off. and 3) excuse-making for why their child is not as good as other children - this is again based on accumulated advantage - but note that it's a retrospective issue because it blames the present for the missed opportunities of the past, meaning that they could have started earlier, trained more, etc. to counterbalance the accumulated advantage of age and size. What gets lost in all of this is that there are plenty of "late bloomers" in Q1/2 that are not subject to the "BY/SY" "trapped" argument - and this is what makes argument #3 particularly pernicious. While looking at the entire youth soccer landscape, a bubble Q3/4 kid on an ECNL team would be considered elite, in their relative pool, they are not - so in the relative pool, this too is an inherent argument that their child is not good enough - and the only and fairest solution is to change the structure of the age matrix for ECNL.

The alignment advocating SY in order to better align with the graduation year argument for the school year has not been an issue. It sounds like it's "helpful" as an argument, but there are no issues with colleges finding players. This argument is solely based on people who believe they are not getting found, as opposed to being rejected. Its a solution without a problem.

The relative age argument has been discussed ad nauseum - it just moves the window - and as far as an argument "change who gets hurt by RAE so my kid has the same teammates in 12th grade" is pretty awful. Especially considering it's based on a counterfactual of "my kid would be the top half of their team as opposed to the bottom half if only the age cut-off were different" AND "my kid would be the top of the team if the team was made up of different players."

The "play with friends" argument, while sounds nice, doesn't really apply to ECNL or top competitive programs like MLSN and GA.

And lastly, the "only 10% of the kids go to YNT ID sessions, and only 1% every play on a YNT so we don't need to align better for international play" argument is also a bit of a logical mystery. It sort of defeats the whole "elite" aspect of play, and lays bare the rationale for the decision. It suggests "My kid is good enough to get a scholarship only if this change in age cutoff is made, but of course, my child is not good enough to play on the national teams, so we don't really need to worry about aligning better with FIFA, just NCAA." This is where pretty much any parent or player should see clearly the trapped parent argument is not for the betterment of anyone except themselves and their goals. While of course not all kids will be on the YNT, (US or elsewhere) the fact that trapped parents glibly reject that argument informs everyone about their motivations, helping their own little Chad or Karen. It's not about enjoying soccer more. It's not about including more kids and reducing the 12-14y/o dropout zone (Which applies to all youth sports and is not a US phenomenon, but global, and related to age alone, not cut-offs). Its not about RAE. Its not about playing HS and ECNL. It's not about having the same teammates for 6 years. It's not even about ALL trapped kids - August through December - it's about trying to find a way to make their kid who ISNT shining, shine.

So, if all these assumptions are true, can't we also assume that the only people arguing AGAINST the change are parents of 1Q kids who may lose their chance to shine?

Absolutely!!!

Always need an enemy, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people get so offended when people are talking about realities?

Why is the ECNL pushing this? They're doing so because this benefits THEIR platform and what they push, collegiate soccer.

What was the goal of the initial change years ago? To align with how the world works, and FIFA.

Everybody wants to give reasons to change this, but the primary reason to change it is for collegiate play, that system is changing. Roster numbers aren't going to be what they used to be, therefore the population of players getting selected to play in college goes down. This argument of trying to benefit trapped players so they can be seen for less spots is wild. If a player is good enough, they'll be seen if college is what they want to do. Making changes for an end goal that is going to be even harder to obtain than it already is and not knowing what the real future holds for collegiate soccer is wild.

Yet your rationale includes college soccer changing. Did you purposely leave out that if roster sizes reduce especially on the girls side the number of available scholarships could greatly increase! Wow think about how that marketing changes. Spend all this $$ for ECNL and the number of full scholarships available goes through the roof.

Not PP, but lets get real.

This is an ECNL thread, with a lot of parents that aren't ECNL parents in here complaining about their "trapped player" and how they want the structure to be for their kid because they believe its the birth month that is holding their kid back from being top-dog. Inherent in their argument is that their kid is not one of the best.

Those ECNL parents that ARE in here and have Q3/4 kids that are ballers, the top-half of their team at least, the 12th-grade trap doesn't apply to them - their kids will have a spot on a college roster if that is one of the things they're playing for - and most likely they'll know this by the beginning of 11th grade.

So that means the ECNL parents who have kids that are bottom half AND Q3/4 are trying to advocate for this change because of a few reasons (any combination of which); 1) their kids are bottom bubble kids (bottom 1/4 to bottom 1/3) and are not getting looks or playing time, 2) they want to create an advantage for their own child based on a factor largely out of control (birth month) - the corollary to this is that they want to DISADVANTAGE children that they currently feel have an unfair (albeit out of everyone's control) advantage of RAE (or "accumulated advantage") based on a birth year cutoff opposed to school year cut-off. and 3) excuse-making for why their child is not as good as other children - this is again based on accumulated advantage - but note that it's a retrospective issue because it blames the present for the missed opportunities of the past, meaning that they could have started earlier, trained more, etc. to counterbalance the accumulated advantage of age and size. What gets lost in all of this is that there are plenty of "late bloomers" in Q1/2 that are not subject to the "BY/SY" "trapped" argument - and this is what makes argument #3 particularly pernicious. While looking at the entire youth soccer landscape, a bubble Q3/4 kid on an ECNL team would be considered elite, in their relative pool, they are not - so in the relative pool, this too is an inherent argument that their child is not good enough - and the only and fairest solution is to change the structure of the age matrix for ECNL.

The alignment advocating SY in order to better align with the graduation year argument for the school year has not been an issue. It sounds like it's "helpful" as an argument, but there are no issues with colleges finding players. This argument is solely based on people who believe they are not getting found, as opposed to being rejected. Its a solution without a problem.

The relative age argument has been discussed ad nauseum - it just moves the window - and as far as an argument "change who gets hurt by RAE so my kid has the same teammates in 12th grade" is pretty awful. Especially considering it's based on a counterfactual of "my kid would be the top half of their team as opposed to the bottom half if only the age cut-off were different" AND "my kid would be the top of the team if the team was made up of different players."

The "play with friends" argument, while sounds nice, doesn't really apply to ECNL or top competitive programs like MLSN and GA.

And lastly, the "only 10% of the kids go to YNT ID sessions, and only 1% every play on a YNT so we don't need to align better for international play" argument is also a bit of a logical mystery. It sort of defeats the whole "elite" aspect of play, and lays bare the rationale for the decision. It suggests "My kid is good enough to get a scholarship only if this change in age cutoff is made, but of course, my child is not good enough to play on the national teams, so we don't really need to worry about aligning better with FIFA, just NCAA." This is where pretty much any parent or player should see clearly the trapped parent argument is not for the betterment of anyone except themselves and their goals. While of course not all kids will be on the YNT, (US or elsewhere) the fact that trapped parents glibly reject that argument informs everyone about their motivations, helping their own little Chad or Karen. It's not about enjoying soccer more. It's not about including more kids and reducing the 12-14y/o dropout zone (Which applies to all youth sports and is not a US phenomenon, but global, and related to age alone, not cut-offs). Its not about RAE. Its not about playing HS and ECNL. It's not about having the same teammates for 6 years. It's not even about ALL trapped kids - August through December - it's about trying to find a way to make their kid who ISNT shining, shine.

So, if all these assumptions are true, can't we also assume that the only people arguing AGAINST the change are parents of 1Q kids who may lose their chance to shine?

Absolutely!!!

Always need an enemy, right?

Just a logic tree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people get so offended when people are talking about realities?

Why is the ECNL pushing this? They're doing so because this benefits THEIR platform and what they push, collegiate soccer.

What was the goal of the initial change years ago? To align with how the world works, and FIFA.

Everybody wants to give reasons to change this, but the primary reason to change it is for collegiate play, that system is changing. Roster numbers aren't going to be what they used to be, therefore the population of players getting selected to play in college goes down. This argument of trying to benefit trapped players so they can be seen for less spots is wild. If a player is good enough, they'll be seen if college is what they want to do. Making changes for an end goal that is going to be even harder to obtain than it already is and not knowing what the real future holds for collegiate soccer is wild.

Yet your rationale includes college soccer changing. Did you purposely leave out that if roster sizes reduce especially on the girls side the number of available scholarships could greatly increase! Wow think about how that marketing changes. Spend all this $$ for ECNL and the number of full scholarships available goes through the roof.

Not PP, but lets get real.

This is an ECNL thread, with a lot of parents that aren't ECNL parents in here complaining about their "trapped player" and how they want the structure to be for their kid because they believe its the birth month that is holding their kid back from being top-dog. Inherent in their argument is that their kid is not one of the best.

Those ECNL parents that ARE in here and have Q3/4 kids that are ballers, the top-half of their team at least, the 12th-grade trap doesn't apply to them - their kids will have a spot on a college roster if that is one of the things they're playing for - and most likely they'll know this by the beginning of 11th grade.

So that means the ECNL parents who have kids that are bottom half AND Q3/4 are trying to advocate for this change because of a few reasons (any combination of which); 1) their kids are bottom bubble kids (bottom 1/4 to bottom 1/3) and are not getting looks or playing time, 2) they want to create an advantage for their own child based on a factor largely out of control (birth month) - the corollary to this is that they want to DISADVANTAGE children that they currently feel have an unfair (albeit out of everyone's control) advantage of RAE (or "accumulated advantage") based on a birth year cutoff opposed to school year cut-off. and 3) excuse-making for why their child is not as good as other children - this is again based on accumulated advantage - but note that it's a retrospective issue because it blames the present for the missed opportunities of the past, meaning that they could have started earlier, trained more, etc. to counterbalance the accumulated advantage of age and size. What gets lost in all of this is that there are plenty of "late bloomers" in Q1/2 that are not subject to the "BY/SY" "trapped" argument - and this is what makes argument #3 particularly pernicious. While looking at the entire youth soccer landscape, a bubble Q3/4 kid on an ECNL team would be considered elite, in their relative pool, they are not - so in the relative pool, this too is an inherent argument that their child is not good enough - and the only and fairest solution is to change the structure of the age matrix for ECNL.

The alignment advocating SY in order to better align with the graduation year argument for the school year has not been an issue. It sounds like it's "helpful" as an argument, but there are no issues with colleges finding players. This argument is solely based on people who believe they are not getting found, as opposed to being rejected. Its a solution without a problem.

The relative age argument has been discussed ad nauseum - it just moves the window - and as far as an argument "change who gets hurt by RAE so my kid has the same teammates in 12th grade" is pretty awful. Especially considering it's based on a counterfactual of "my kid would be the top half of their team as opposed to the bottom half if only the age cut-off were different" AND "my kid would be the top of the team if the team was made up of different players."

The "play with friends" argument, while sounds nice, doesn't really apply to ECNL or top competitive programs like MLSN and GA.

And lastly, the "only 10% of the kids go to YNT ID sessions, and only 1% every play on a YNT so we don't need to align better for international play" argument is also a bit of a logical mystery. It sort of defeats the whole "elite" aspect of play, and lays bare the rationale for the decision. It suggests "My kid is good enough to get a scholarship only if this change in age cutoff is made, but of course, my child is not good enough to play on the national teams, so we don't really need to worry about aligning better with FIFA, just NCAA." This is where pretty much any parent or player should see clearly the trapped parent argument is not for the betterment of anyone except themselves and their goals. While of course not all kids will be on the YNT, (US or elsewhere) the fact that trapped parents glibly reject that argument informs everyone about their motivations, helping their own little Chad or Karen. It's not about enjoying soccer more. It's not about including more kids and reducing the 12-14y/o dropout zone (Which applies to all youth sports and is not a US phenomenon, but global, and related to age alone, not cut-offs). Its not about RAE. Its not about playing HS and ECNL. It's not about having the same teammates for 6 years. It's not even about ALL trapped kids - August through December - it's about trying to find a way to make their kid who ISNT shining, shine.

The part you missed is all the people arguing for birth year is better is not because it’s true because no system is “better” when kids are at various ages and development.

I agree with everything you said I have a 2010 December ECNL player who does so much to just play half a game compared to other kids who are just naturally bigger and faster because of their age.

But you are correct people just want to see their kid shine which if they change to SY some kids Jan to May won’t be shining so being anymore.

My daughter trains one day a week with the 2011 to get extra training and if you go by rankings they are a substantially better team top 10 nationally while our team hovers around 50-60 nationally.

But guess what when she plays with kids 1-4 months younger she is definitely their most aggressive and plays balls quicker than everyone else. So she goes from split time on one team to a definite starter on a top 10 team.

But the long winded answer is yes I want the change so my kid doesn’t have to be the one at the wrongs side of RAE.
Just like anyone who’s against the change back.

[Anonymous]

ECNL will make the change. It serves them best for their brand. They don't care if other leagues follow or not. ECNL teams already play the majority of games against only ECNL teams in the league and showcase. The other tournament will not give money to ECNL. I suspect ECNL will let the clubs go to extra showcases to make up the outside tournaments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people get so offended when people are talking about realities?

Why is the ECNL pushing this? They're doing so because this benefits THEIR platform and what they push, collegiate soccer.

What was the goal of the initial change years ago? To align with how the world works, and FIFA.

Everybody wants to give reasons to change this, but the primary reason to change it is for collegiate play, that system is changing. Roster numbers aren't going to be what they used to be, therefore the population of players getting selected to play in college goes down. This argument of trying to benefit trapped players so they can be seen for less spots is wild. If a player is good enough, they'll be seen if college is what they want to do. Making changes for an end goal that is going to be even harder to obtain than it already is and not knowing what the real future holds for collegiate soccer is wild.

Yet your rationale includes college soccer changing. Did you purposely leave out that if roster sizes reduce especially on the girls side the number of available scholarships could greatly increase! Wow think about how that marketing changes. Spend all this $$ for ECNL and the number of full scholarships available goes through the roof.

Not PP, but lets get real.

This is an ECNL thread, with a lot of parents that aren't ECNL parents in here complaining about their "trapped player" and how they want the structure to be for their kid because they believe its the birth month that is holding their kid back from being top-dog. Inherent in their argument is that their kid is not one of the best.

Those ECNL parents that ARE in here and have Q3/4 kids that are ballers, the top-half of their team at least, the 12th-grade trap doesn't apply to them - their kids will have a spot on a college roster if that is one of the things they're playing for - and most likely they'll know this by the beginning of 11th grade.

So that means the ECNL parents who have kids that are bottom half AND Q3/4 are trying to advocate for this change because of a few reasons (any combination of which); 1) their kids are bottom bubble kids (bottom 1/4 to bottom 1/3) and are not getting looks or playing time, 2) they want to create an advantage for their own child based on a factor largely out of control (birth month) - the corollary to this is that they want to DISADVANTAGE children that they currently feel have an unfair (albeit out of everyone's control) advantage of RAE (or "accumulated advantage") based on a birth year cutoff opposed to school year cut-off. and 3) excuse-making for why their child is not as good as other children - this is again based on accumulated advantage - but note that it's a retrospective issue because it blames the present for the missed opportunities of the past, meaning that they could have started earlier, trained more, etc. to counterbalance the accumulated advantage of age and size. What gets lost in all of this is that there are plenty of "late bloomers" in Q1/2 that are not subject to the "BY/SY" "trapped" argument - and this is what makes argument #3 particularly pernicious. While looking at the entire youth soccer landscape, a bubble Q3/4 kid on an ECNL team would be considered elite, in their relative pool, they are not - so in the relative pool, this too is an inherent argument that their child is not good enough - and the only and fairest solution is to change the structure of the age matrix for ECNL.

The alignment advocating SY in order to better align with the graduation year argument for the school year has not been an issue. It sounds like it's "helpful" as an argument, but there are no issues with colleges finding players. This argument is solely based on people who believe they are not getting found, as opposed to being rejected. Its a solution without a problem.

The relative age argument has been discussed ad nauseum - it just moves the window - and as far as an argument "change who gets hurt by RAE so my kid has the same teammates in 12th grade" is pretty awful. Especially considering it's based on a counterfactual of "my kid would be the top half of their team as opposed to the bottom half if only the age cut-off were different" AND "my kid would be the top of the team if the team was made up of different players."

The "play with friends" argument, while sounds nice, doesn't really apply to ECNL or top competitive programs like MLSN and GA.

And lastly, the "only 10% of the kids go to YNT ID sessions, and only 1% every play on a YNT so we don't need to align better for international play" argument is also a bit of a logical mystery. It sort of defeats the whole "elite" aspect of play, and lays bare the rationale for the decision. It suggests "My kid is good enough to get a scholarship only if this change in age cutoff is made, but of course, my child is not good enough to play on the national teams, so we don't really need to worry about aligning better with FIFA, just NCAA." This is where pretty much any parent or player should see clearly the trapped parent argument is not for the betterment of anyone except themselves and their goals. While of course not all kids will be on the YNT, (US or elsewhere) the fact that trapped parents glibly reject that argument informs everyone about their motivations, helping their own little Chad or Karen. It's not about enjoying soccer more. It's not about including more kids and reducing the 12-14y/o dropout zone (Which applies to all youth sports and is not a US phenomenon, but global, and related to age alone, not cut-offs). Its not about RAE. Its not about playing HS and ECNL. It's not about having the same teammates for 6 years. It's not even about ALL trapped kids - August through December - it's about trying to find a way to make their kid who ISNT shining, shine.

So, if all these assumptions are true, can't we also assume that the only people arguing AGAINST the change are parents of 1Q kids who may lose their chance to shine?

🤦‍♂️ no

If you’re a parent of a Q3 or Q4 star player who is probably a P4 commit, why in the heck would you want to change your current pool?

Q1 through Q4 star players and parents should all be very happy with their current pool.

Changing the pool would introduce chaos, which doesn’t make a crappy player better, it could certainly harm a star’s opportunities.

nope. the entire lengthy tirade above was predicated on the age groupings don't matter for star players. So . . . . if it doesn't matter, why would a star player's parent argue either way? Chaos? Not if everybody knows who the star players are, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ECNL will make the change. It serves them best for their brand. They don't care if other leagues follow or not. ECNL teams already play the majority of games against only ECNL teams in the league and showcase. The other tournament will not give money to ECNL. I suspect ECNL will let the clubs go to extra showcases to make up the outside tournaments.

They can't move without others. They will not want to cross that line. This is not going to happen anytime soon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people get so offended when people are talking about realities?

Why is the ECNL pushing this? They're doing so because this benefits THEIR platform and what they push, collegiate soccer.

What was the goal of the initial change years ago? To align with how the world works, and FIFA.

Everybody wants to give reasons to change this, but the primary reason to change it is for collegiate play, that system is changing. Roster numbers aren't going to be what they used to be, therefore the population of players getting selected to play in college goes down. This argument of trying to benefit trapped players so they can be seen for less spots is wild. If a player is good enough, they'll be seen if college is what they want to do. Making changes for an end goal that is going to be even harder to obtain than it already is and not knowing what the real future holds for collegiate soccer is wild.

Yet your rationale includes college soccer changing. Did you purposely leave out that if roster sizes reduce especially on the girls side the number of available scholarships could greatly increase! Wow think about how that marketing changes. Spend all this $$ for ECNL and the number of full scholarships available goes through the roof.

Not PP, but lets get real.

This is an ECNL thread, with a lot of parents that aren't ECNL parents in here complaining about their "trapped player" and how they want the structure to be for their kid because they believe its the birth month that is holding their kid back from being top-dog. Inherent in their argument is that their kid is not one of the best.

Those ECNL parents that ARE in here and have Q3/4 kids that are ballers, the top-half of their team at least, the 12th-grade trap doesn't apply to them - their kids will have a spot on a college roster if that is one of the things they're playing for - and most likely they'll know this by the beginning of 11th grade.

So that means the ECNL parents who have kids that are bottom half AND Q3/4 are trying to advocate for this change because of a few reasons (any combination of which); 1) their kids are bottom bubble kids (bottom 1/4 to bottom 1/3) and are not getting looks or playing time, 2) they want to create an advantage for their own child based on a factor largely out of control (birth month) - the corollary to this is that they want to DISADVANTAGE children that they currently feel have an unfair (albeit out of everyone's control) advantage of RAE (or "accumulated advantage") based on a birth year cutoff opposed to school year cut-off. and 3) excuse-making for why their child is not as good as other children - this is again based on accumulated advantage - but note that it's a retrospective issue because it blames the present for the missed opportunities of the past, meaning that they could have started earlier, trained more, etc. to counterbalance the accumulated advantage of age and size. What gets lost in all of this is that there are plenty of "late bloomers" in Q1/2 that are not subject to the "BY/SY" "trapped" argument - and this is what makes argument #3 particularly pernicious. While looking at the entire youth soccer landscape, a bubble Q3/4 kid on an ECNL team would be considered elite, in their relative pool, they are not - so in the relative pool, this too is an inherent argument that their child is not good enough - and the only and fairest solution is to change the structure of the age matrix for ECNL.

The alignment advocating SY in order to better align with the graduation year argument for the school year has not been an issue. It sounds like it's "helpful" as an argument, but there are no issues with colleges finding players. This argument is solely based on people who believe they are not getting found, as opposed to being rejected. Its a solution without a problem.

The relative age argument has been discussed ad nauseum - it just moves the window - and as far as an argument "change who gets hurt by RAE so my kid has the same teammates in 12th grade" is pretty awful. Especially considering it's based on a counterfactual of "my kid would be the top half of their team as opposed to the bottom half if only the age cut-off were different" AND "my kid would be the top of the team if the team was made up of different players."

The "play with friends" argument, while sounds nice, doesn't really apply to ECNL or top competitive programs like MLSN and GA.

And lastly, the "only 10% of the kids go to YNT ID sessions, and only 1% every play on a YNT so we don't need to align better for international play" argument is also a bit of a logical mystery. It sort of defeats the whole "elite" aspect of play, and lays bare the rationale for the decision. It suggests "My kid is good enough to get a scholarship only if this change in age cutoff is made, but of course, my child is not good enough to play on the national teams, so we don't really need to worry about aligning better with FIFA, just NCAA." This is where pretty much any parent or player should see clearly the trapped parent argument is not for the betterment of anyone except themselves and their goals. While of course not all kids will be on the YNT, (US or elsewhere) the fact that trapped parents glibly reject that argument informs everyone about their motivations, helping their own little Chad or Karen. It's not about enjoying soccer more. It's not about including more kids and reducing the 12-14y/o dropout zone (Which applies to all youth sports and is not a US phenomenon, but global, and related to age alone, not cut-offs). Its not about RAE. Its not about playing HS and ECNL. It's not about having the same teammates for 6 years. It's not even about ALL trapped kids - August through December - it's about trying to find a way to make their kid who ISNT shining, shine.

So, if all these assumptions are true, can't we also assume that the only people arguing AGAINST the change are parents of 1Q kids who may lose their chance to shine?

Nailed it, lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL will make the change. It serves them best for their brand. They don't care if other leagues follow or not. ECNL teams already play the majority of games against only ECNL teams in the league and showcase. The other tournament will not give money to ECNL. I suspect ECNL will let the clubs go to extra showcases to make up the outside tournaments.

They can't move without others. They will not want to cross that line. This is not going to happen anytime soon.

They have people on their side? Not everyone but they have the majority of us club which is all they need. Now will they get USYS to agree? Also I’m not for the change as it will be a mess but if you listen to what’s been said it sounds like they are getting more and more club operators. Not all which they said they don’t need all just most.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL will make the change. It serves them best for their brand. They don't care if other leagues follow or not. ECNL teams already play the majority of games against only ECNL teams in the league and showcase. The other tournament will not give money to ECNL. I suspect ECNL will let the clubs go to extra showcases to make up the outside tournaments.

They can't move without others. They will not want to cross that line. This is not going to happen anytime soon.

They’ve already said us soccer doesn’t have real authority. Just that it’s better for people to be on the same page. Which ECNL is governed my US Club who will do whatever ECNL wants. They don’t seem to be listening to anyone who says no because it’s going to be chaos or because groups like birth year.

Really listen to the words they say. To them and people they talk to it’s worth a short period of madness to them for what they and club operators have decided is the overall good of youth soccer. Not saying they are right. But if the ECNL president said it’s more likely to happen then not that means a lot more than random people saying their thoughts and feelings.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL will make the change. It serves them best for their brand. They don't care if other leagues follow or not. ECNL teams already play the majority of games against only ECNL teams in the league and showcase. The other tournament will not give money to ECNL. I suspect ECNL will let the clubs go to extra showcases to make up the outside tournaments.

They can't move without others. They will not want to cross that line. This is not going to happen anytime soon.

US Club will allow them to cross that line. Either ECNL goes to grad year in 25/26 and all other leagues in 26/27 or everybody goes to 25/26. We can make a bet here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ECNL will make the change. It serves them best for their brand. They don't care if other leagues follow or not. ECNL teams already play the majority of games against only ECNL teams in the league and showcase. The other tournament will not give money to ECNL. I suspect ECNL will let the clubs go to extra showcases to make up the outside tournaments.

This is well trodden:

1) ECNL cannot make the change, it has to come from USCS or higher.
2) USCS wants to defer to US Soccer
3) ECNL knows it cannot go it alone, or it will become a girls only league. And possibly cede ground to GA as it comes to YNT, which is a major college placement factor. ID sessions alone. And even tho the head of USCS is an ECNL club president, ECNL has been told that US Soccer is going to require all or nothing (all leagues agree).
5) MLSN will not agree.
6) GA will not agree because it potentially erodes their existing position in college placement (20-30%), especially when GA just won a seat at the table with USSoccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why do people get so offended when people are talking about realities?

Why is the ECNL pushing this? They're doing so because this benefits THEIR platform and what they push, collegiate soccer.

What was the goal of the initial change years ago? To align with how the world works, and FIFA.

Everybody wants to give reasons to change this, but the primary reason to change it is for collegiate play, that system is changing. Roster numbers aren't going to be what they used to be, therefore the population of players getting selected to play in college goes down. This argument of trying to benefit trapped players so they can be seen for less spots is wild. If a player is good enough, they'll be seen if college is what they want to do. Making changes for an end goal that is going to be even harder to obtain than it already is and not knowing what the real future holds for collegiate soccer is wild.

Yet your rationale includes college soccer changing. Did you purposely leave out that if roster sizes reduce especially on the girls side the number of available scholarships could greatly increase! Wow think about how that marketing changes. Spend all this $$ for ECNL and the number of full scholarships available goes through the roof.

Not PP, but lets get real.

This is an ECNL thread, with a lot of parents that aren't ECNL parents in here complaining about their "trapped player" and how they want the structure to be for their kid because they believe its the birth month that is holding their kid back from being top-dog. Inherent in their argument is that their kid is not one of the best.

Those ECNL parents that ARE in here and have Q3/4 kids that are ballers, the top-half of their team at least, the 12th-grade trap doesn't apply to them - their kids will have a spot on a college roster if that is one of the things they're playing for - and most likely they'll know this by the beginning of 11th grade.

So that means the ECNL parents who have kids that are bottom half AND Q3/4 are trying to advocate for this change because of a few reasons (any combination of which); 1) their kids are bottom bubble kids (bottom 1/4 to bottom 1/3) and are not getting looks or playing time, 2) they want to create an advantage for their own child based on a factor largely out of control (birth month) - the corollary to this is that they want to DISADVANTAGE children that they currently feel have an unfair (albeit out of everyone's control) advantage of RAE (or "accumulated advantage") based on a birth year cutoff opposed to school year cut-off. and 3) excuse-making for why their child is not as good as other children - this is again based on accumulated advantage - but note that it's a retrospective issue because it blames the present for the missed opportunities of the past, meaning that they could have started earlier, trained more, etc. to counterbalance the accumulated advantage of age and size. What gets lost in all of this is that there are plenty of "late bloomers" in Q1/2 that are not subject to the "BY/SY" "trapped" argument - and this is what makes argument #3 particularly pernicious. While looking at the entire youth soccer landscape, a bubble Q3/4 kid on an ECNL team would be considered elite, in their relative pool, they are not - so in the relative pool, this too is an inherent argument that their child is not good enough - and the only and fairest solution is to change the structure of the age matrix for ECNL.

The alignment advocating SY in order to better align with the graduation year argument for the school year has not been an issue. It sounds like it's "helpful" as an argument, but there are no issues with colleges finding players. This argument is solely based on people who believe they are not getting found, as opposed to being rejected. Its a solution without a problem.

The relative age argument has been discussed ad nauseum - it just moves the window - and as far as an argument "change who gets hurt by RAE so my kid has the same teammates in 12th grade" is pretty awful. Especially considering it's based on a counterfactual of "my kid would be the top half of their team as opposed to the bottom half if only the age cut-off were different" AND "my kid would be the top of the team if the team was made up of different players."

The "play with friends" argument, while sounds nice, doesn't really apply to ECNL or top competitive programs like MLSN and GA.

And lastly, the "only 10% of the kids go to YNT ID sessions, and only 1% every play on a YNT so we don't need to align better for international play" argument is also a bit of a logical mystery. It sort of defeats the whole "elite" aspect of play, and lays bare the rationale for the decision. It suggests "My kid is good enough to get a scholarship only if this change in age cutoff is made, but of course, my child is not good enough to play on the national teams, so we don't really need to worry about aligning better with FIFA, just NCAA." This is where pretty much any parent or player should see clearly the trapped parent argument is not for the betterment of anyone except themselves and their goals. While of course not all kids will be on the YNT, (US or elsewhere) the fact that trapped parents glibly reject that argument informs everyone about their motivations, helping their own little Chad or Karen. It's not about enjoying soccer more. It's not about including more kids and reducing the 12-14y/o dropout zone (Which applies to all youth sports and is not a US phenomenon, but global, and related to age alone, not cut-offs). Its not about RAE. Its not about playing HS and ECNL. It's not about having the same teammates for 6 years. It's not even about ALL trapped kids - August through December - it's about trying to find a way to make their kid who ISNT shining, shine.

So, if all these assumptions are true, can't we also assume that the only people arguing AGAINST the change are parents of 1Q kids who may lose their chance to shine?

🤦‍♂️ no

If you’re a parent of a Q3 or Q4 star player who is probably a P4 commit, why in the heck would you want to change your current pool?

Q1 through Q4 star players and parents should all be very happy with their current pool.

Changing the pool would introduce chaos, which doesn’t make a crappy player better, it could certainly harm a star’s opportunities.

nope. the entire lengthy tirade above was predicated on the age groupings don't matter for star players. So . . . . if it doesn't matter, why would a star player's parent argue either way? Chaos? Not if everybody knows who the star players are, right?

Clearly your kid isn’t a star. You don’t understand the different struggles. Chasing is very different from leading. Much easier to chase, chaos is good. Leading, chaos is bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL will make the change. It serves them best for their brand. They don't care if other leagues follow or not. ECNL teams already play the majority of games against only ECNL teams in the league and showcase. The other tournament will not give money to ECNL. I suspect ECNL will let the clubs go to extra showcases to make up the outside tournaments.

This is well trodden:

1) ECNL cannot make the change, it has to come from USCS or higher.
2) USCS wants to defer to US Soccer
3) ECNL knows it cannot go it alone, or it will become a girls only league. And possibly cede ground to GA as it comes to YNT, which is a major college placement factor. ID sessions alone. And even tho the head of USCS is an ECNL club president, ECNL has been told that US Soccer is going to require all or nothing (all leagues agree).
5) MLSN will not agree.
6) GA will not agree because it potentially erodes their existing position in college placement (20-30%), especially when GA just won a seat at the table with USSoccer.

You are really smart and know a lot about youth soccer. It must be awesome to know how everything is going to turn out.