ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

assumptions are funny. my kid is not in ECNL and not affected. just trying to follow the logic of the argument.

Then the assumption was right in this case? 🤔🧐

If ECNL were the top level it might be right.

Regardless of level, point is the same. If you had or are a star player, you’d have understood the logic.

right. the logic was if you have a star player you wouldn't care. I definitely don't care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

[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?

Yep- 100%

Trying to claim the moral high ground but it’s all about holding those in their kids head class back to retain advantage

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will also have 10 divisions of pre-ECNL in each state if they want the $$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will attract the weaker player 3, 4

Real ballers with ambition will be focused on their game. Not musical cutoff dates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will attract the weaker player 3, 4

Real ballers with ambition will be focused on their game. Not musical cutoff dates.

ECNL cares less about a "strong player" than the new revenue the change will bring. It will be wonderful news if no other leagues follow.

People are so naive thinking it is about who can have the best players. Under the cover, it is a successful business in the name of youth soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will attract the weaker player 3, 4

Real ballers with ambition will be focused on their game. Not musical cutoff dates.

ECNL cares less about a "strong player" than the new revenue the change will bring. It will be wonderful news if no other leagues follow.

People are so naive thinking it is about who can have the best players. Under the cover, it is a successful business in the name of youth soccer.

Genius!

1-So ECNL moves to school year.
2-ECNL fills RL ranked and has multiple leagues because focus is on revenue (more kids, more mooolahhhh!)
3-ECNL is the new Classic!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will attract the weaker player 3, 4

Real ballers with ambition will be focused on their game. Not musical cutoff dates.

I hope it works out for those little ballers. But maybe the millions of kids who aren't going to go pro shouldn't have to go through the same system as them as if they are going to go pro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will attract the weaker player 3, 4

Real ballers with ambition will be focused on their game. Not musical cutoff dates.

I hope it works out for those little ballers. But maybe the millions of kids who aren't going to go pro shouldn't have to go through the same system as them as if they are going to go pro.

Right? Because that’s what Europe does!

And also, FRFR, there aren’t options for kids that aren’t trying to be the best ballers they can be…so ECNL is the platform for everyone, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will attract the weaker player 3, 4

Real ballers with ambition will be focused on their game. Not musical cutoff dates.

I hope it works out for those little ballers. But maybe the millions of kids who aren't going to go pro shouldn't have to go through the same system as them as if they are going to go pro.

Right? Because that’s what Europe does!

And also, FRFR, there aren’t options for kids that aren’t trying to be the best ballers they can be…so ECNL is the platform for everyone, right?

ECNL could be the platform for everyone (obviously at multiple tiers). ECNL is not designed to be a pro pathway. MLSNext is the only league designed as a pro pathway. Sure, some ECNL girls go pro, but I'm consistently told there is not demand for a girls league that is designed as a pro pathway. Once there was demand, the women's pro leagues can start it and everyone will be happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

😆
You won't have less RAE

You'll just now have RAE impact in more months when Dec, Nov, Oct BY is joined by the new Q4 July, June, May SY

No, birth month distributions wouldn't be random, people would self select away from the disadvantagist situation. Choice has value.

[Anonymous]

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.

Yup, with the way college sports are going through changes in the near future, it makes sense that ECNL is making this push. They are trying to save college soccer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will attract the weaker player 3, 4

Real ballers with ambition will be focused on their game. Not musical cutoff dates.

I hope it works out for those little ballers. But maybe the millions of kids who aren't going to go pro shouldn't have to go through the same system as them as if they are going to go pro.

Right? Because that’s what Europe does!

And also, FRFR, there aren’t options for kids that aren’t trying to be the best ballers they can be…so ECNL is the platform for everyone, right?

ECNL is already leveraging its brand from elite only to cover more tiers. In Southern California, you now have ECNL, ECNL-RL, and ECNL-RL Socal, which are three tiers. Plus Pre-ECNL and Pre-ECNL2, two tiers for younger. I am not surprised that, by changing to grade year, ECNL will continue to expand its market and have a multiple-tier system under its brand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I really hope it splits with US Club being SY and USYS being BY. People can vote with their feet and their dollars. If you are so good you value international alignment, go for it.

I’ve always liked the idea of two separate leagues especially for younger kids. Let parents and families pick best environment and have less kids affected by RAE while they all develop into the high school ages.

It won't be two separate leagues.

It will be everyone BY and ECNL alone SY

If that is the case, ECNL will attract many new players. They will have RL3 and RL4 leagues.

They will attract the weaker player 3, 4

Real ballers with ambition will be focused on their game. Not musical cutoff dates.

I hope it works out for those little ballers. But maybe the millions of kids who aren't going to go pro shouldn't have to go through the same system as them as if they are going to go pro.

Right? Because that’s what Europe does!

And also, FRFR, there aren’t options for kids that aren’t trying to be the best ballers they can be…so ECNL is the platform for everyone, right?

ECNL could be the platform for everyone (obviously at multiple tiers). ECNL is not designed to be a pro pathway. MLSNext is the only league designed as a pro pathway. Sure, some ECNL girls go pro, but I'm consistently told there is not demand for a girls league that is designed as a pro pathway. Once there was demand, the women's pro leagues can start it and everyone will be happy.

You are also forgetting that mls next is path to usmnt and most D1 College when compared to ECNL.