Trapped Players in ECNL

[Anonymous]

If you didn't believe the odds were stacked against this player population let's just take the most recent TDS rankings for boys. How many 'trapped' players can be found in the 2026/2027/2028 MA rankings? How is it possible that there isn't a single traped player in any graduating year when they represent 25% of the player population?

The trapped players have been playing 'up' relative to their ranked peers for 6-8 years with older bigger players--if they made their team at all, it's because they could compete with players a year older on their club team. Most of these trapped players are 3-9 months 'older' than those who dominate the rankings for their actual graduating class. There is no physical disadvantage for a trapped player that would make them statistically any 'worse' (or any better) than those in their grad year and yet they underrepresent their population by 25%. Trapped players are a segment overlooked until U-19- when they are seniors and after the recruiting cycle is pretty much done. Let's hope ECNL gets rid of the trapped player problem once and for all. It's a dumb problem that can be fixed without hurting others.

[Anonymous]

US soccer needs to fix the problem.

[Anonymous]

Did we get tired of the ecnl moving to school year thread? You just had to go and start a new thread to read the same arguments over again. BTW, my ECNL insider says they are not moving to school year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did we get tired of the ecnl moving to school year thread? You just had to go and start a new thread to read the same arguments over again. BTW, my ECNL insider says they are not moving to school year.

+1 it’s funny, people are posting their cases on here like this is a legitimate way to communicate with anyone in charge lol