ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is the exact date of the US Club Soccer meeting where decisions will be made? What is the exact date of the USYS meeting where decisions will be made?

There is no date when a decision will be made. Could be today. May not be well into 2025. May never happen. This is a concept not a plan. It will take six months to put a plan together after they think they have the votes. So the decision will not decide when it happens.

Did you listen to the latest podcast from ECNL? They need to make the decision this month. It will happen and is not a concept.

That’s not what they said.

So why did cst retract and say that they are now hearing that US Soccer has no interest in moving back lol

Not sure I follow the thread or the reference to the podcast to how you’re getting to the fact that US Soccer doesn’t want to make a change.

I’m just saying the podcast didn’t say they had to make a decision this month, nor did they say “it will happen.”

Fall 2025 pal

Fall 2025 ship already sailed. That needed to have been changed in July (at the same time as nationals). The concept of a plan that everyone is buzzing about now as at best 2026.

If this change does occur, the smart (and this is not being driven by smart but by feels) action would be to wait about 3 years for the NCAA rosters to shake out. It will take at least 2-3 seasons. THEN create the chaos of BY / SY change. Doing it prior to waiting for the roster change landscape to normalize is going to see the exact same parents of trapped kids screaming louder about how Billy and Mary are being screwed over by ECNL (or insert whatever external factor they choose...US Soccer, NCAA, Q1 parents, Q1 children, NIL, Instagram and Social Media, a butterfly in Africa, etc.) because they're competing with three years of kids for fewer roster spots (when right now they're only competing with two).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

To be honest I think it would be easier to just let ECNL do what they want and leave everyone else alone. Which maybe was on the table until US soccer said we want the majority to agree to get them on board.

But doesn’t sound easier to just let a private league decide what’s best for their business?

If ECNL goes rogue, I would expect they lose some business from parents that can’t handle change. There are 100s and hundreds of parents who aren’t yet affected by BY yet and they won’t like the idea of having a new team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

If it's fake, respond to his challenge and make your argument.

"I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it."

Connect the dots for us - how has birth year benefited player experience or development? Why is it worth the problems everyone has been pointing out?

To be honest I don’t think anyone has complained about birth year in real life lol

I think ECNL president said it’s one of their biggest issues is the trapped 8th grader and what the majority of trapped player face. I would say for most it is an issue of concern but when you have a system against you sometimes you just have to go along with it or quit and do something else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

The world is a big place and no not everyone goes off of birth year. That is only for national teams. Many countries in Europe for their non academy teams play school year. Also many have bio banding which is for everyone but often it’s the later born kids who are the smaller players.

If the change to grad year we can still put together a team and bring them to an International competition.

Also not many teams outside of mls next go play internationally again the system can’t just favor the 1% of team and players or even 25% if it’s that high which it isn’t when you think about every single team in the US Rec to Academy level.

Yes...And there are many rec teams, school teams, etc in the US that do not go by birth year too. "Thats for the national teams...oh and also the non-academy teams." Come-on dude...you're mixing around tiers and levels to suit your argument.

There are tons of tournaments in Europe for soccer. This is probably one of the better-known ones to the US. It features tons of teams from academies in Europe, South America, Asia, the US.... its U9-U14...but you know what it uses for age cutoffs? Birth year!

https://mundialito.org/mundialito_informacion_general.php

The desire to just dismiss the international aspect because it is inconvenient is revealing to how emotional and narrow this debate really is. Its like the PP showed in the podcast, they ask for just 1 good reason, and they get a fantastic one, and then just say "well that one doesn't count."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

The world is a big place and no not everyone goes off of birth year. That is only for national teams. Many countries in Europe for their non academy teams play school year. Also many have bio banding which is for everyone but often it’s the later born kids who are the smaller players.

If the change to grad year we can still put together a team and bring them to an International competition.

Also not many teams outside of mls next go play internationally again the system can’t just favor the 1% of team and players or even 25% if it’s that high which it isn’t when you think about every single team in the US Rec to Academy level.

Name the countries and provide links to their associations where they state the age cut-off process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

If it's fake, respond to his challenge and make your argument.

"I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it."

Connect the dots for us - how has birth year benefited player experience or development? Why is it worth the problems everyone has been pointing out?

To be honest I don’t think anyone has complained about birth year in real life lol

I think ECNL president said it’s one of their biggest issues is the trapped 8th grader and what the majority of trapped player face. I would say for most it is an issue of concern but when you have a system against you sometimes you just have to go along with it or quit and do something else.

A system against you?! What are you talking about? So you switch to SY, and now the "system" is against July babies?! This is such a shallow argument. Because someone FEELS disadvantaged because of their birth month and gives up, they system should change to make some other kid FEEL that way?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

The world is a big place and no not everyone goes off of birth year. That is only for national teams. Many countries in Europe for their non academy teams play school year. Also many have bio banding which is for everyone but often it’s the later born kids who are the smaller players.

If the change to grad year we can still put together a team and bring them to an International competition.

Also not many teams outside of mls next go play internationally again the system can’t just favor the 1% of team and players or even 25% if it’s that high which it isn’t when you think about every single team in the US Rec to Academy level.

Name the countries and provide links to their associations where they state the age cut-off process.

Not PP, and I agree with your sentiment. But England's non-competitive / academy / "club" leagues are all SY until U14. At which point they branch into two tracks, basically equivalent to Rec and Classic with the classic / semi-competitive track going BY - largely due to tournament play.

But the whole "not everywhere" does it and then point to the non-elite track is an argument they make in bad faith to dismiss the FIFA alignment argument. I agree. Lets see the apples to apples / Academy to Academy comparison.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

The world is a big place and no not everyone goes off of birth year. That is only for national teams. Many countries in Europe for their non academy teams play school year. Also many have bio banding which is for everyone but often it’s the later born kids who are the smaller players.

If the change to grad year we can still put together a team and bring them to an International competition.

Also not many teams outside of mls next go play internationally again the system can’t just favor the 1% of team and players or even 25% if it’s that high which it isn’t when you think about every single team in the US Rec to Academy level.

Name the countries and provide links to their associations where they state the age cut-off process.

Not PP, and I agree with your sentiment. But England's non-competitive / academy / "club" leagues are all SY until U14. At which point they branch into two tracks, basically equivalent to Rec and Classic with the classic / semi-competitive track going BY - largely due to tournament play.

But the whole "not everywhere" does it and then point to the non-elite track is an argument they make in bad faith to dismiss the FIFA alignment argument. I agree. Lets see the apples to apples / Academy to Academy comparison.

Their non-competitive (NOT academy / club) rather.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

To be honest I think it would be easier to just let ECNL do what they want and leave everyone else alone. Which maybe was on the table until US soccer said we want the majority to agree to get them on board.

But doesn’t sound easier to just let a private league decide what’s best for their business?

If ECNL goes rogue, I would expect they lose some business from parents that can’t handle change. There are 100s and hundreds of parents who aren’t yet affected by BY yet and they won’t like the idea of having a new team.

Changing from CY to SY would not force any player to change teams or force any new teams.

Programs/parents could slide a kid or 2 down a year if desired. There is so much player movement year to year already that this might not even be noticeable.

As pointed out ECNL business (programs, age categories) is going up and up the last few years anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sense of entitlement is funny

All these people fighting to change everything except the work, sacrifice and discipline required by the kid to make it.

Funny to see an adult commenting without putting in the work to understand the issues

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

To be honest I think it would be easier to just let ECNL do what they want and leave everyone else alone. Which maybe was on the table until US soccer said we want the majority to agree to get them on board.

But doesn’t sound easier to just let a private league decide what’s best for their business?

If ECNL goes rogue, I would expect they lose some business from parents that can’t handle change. There are 100s and hundreds of parents who aren’t yet affected by BY yet and they won’t like the idea of having a new team.

Changing from CY to SY would not force any player to change teams or force any new teams.

Programs/parents could slide a kid or 2 down a year if desired. There is so much player movement year to year already that this might not even be noticeable.

As pointed out ECNL business (programs, age categories) is going up and up the last few years anyway.

So for arguments sake, it switches to SY, and the team stays the same, so now trapped kids (Q3/4 kids) are “playing up a year” but the landscape didn’t change.

What will be the reason then that their kid is losing out?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

The world is a big place and no not everyone goes off of birth year. That is only for national teams. Many countries in Europe for their non academy teams play school year. Also many have bio banding which is for everyone but often it’s the later born kids who are the smaller players.

If the change to grad year we can still put together a team and bring them to an International competition.

Also not many teams outside of mls next go play internationally again the system can’t just favor the 1% of team and players or even 25% if it’s that high which it isn’t when you think about every single team in the US Rec to Academy level.

You think mls cares about college and clubs that aren’t mls academies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

To be honest I think it would be easier to just let ECNL do what they want and leave everyone else alone. Which maybe was on the table until US soccer said we want the majority to agree to get them on board.

But doesn’t sound easier to just let a private league decide what’s best for their business?

If ECNL goes rogue, I would expect they lose some business from parents that can’t handle change. There are 100s and hundreds of parents who aren’t yet affected by BY yet and they won’t like the idea of having a new team.

Changing from CY to SY would not force any player to change teams or force any new teams.

Programs/parents could slide a kid or 2 down a year if desired. There is so much player movement year to year already that this might not even be noticeable.

As pointed out ECNL business (programs, age categories) is going up and up the last few years anyway.

So for arguments sake, it switches to SY, and the team stays the same, so now trapped kids (Q3/4 kids) are “playing up a year” but the landscape didn’t change.

What will be the reason then that their kid is losing out?

If your kid can't make the college team with BY, they can't make it with SY

Their graduation year hasn't changed
Their talent and skills hasn't changed

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL said they don’t want to go alone (they can’t) because it would create a real mess. But ECNL wants everyone else to create chaos and align with them so that it’s less messy for ECNL. This whole thing is so dumb.

Then you get the fake “give me good reason not to change” thing, and then when they get a pretty darn good reason, they just dismiss it as “not good enough.”

From the Podcast:
“And it doesn't have to be everybody, but it's got to be the greater majority of organizations. I've challenged people and I said, come back with one positive reason for birth year in terms of player experience or player development. I'm still waiting for the one positive reason to support birth year beyond the proverbial other people in the world do it. So we keep falling back on that argument.”

This is just an entire movement, that is going to end in another mistake by US Soccer, because it’s all about a few loud parents who thing their kids are better than they are, and the birth month is holding them back at 17/18 years old…. Who could foresee consequences of getting out of alignment with the rest of the u15+ world? The rest of the world must be doing it all wrong…and emotionally reactive trap parents have it all figured out with their middling but poorly planned birth month kids….

The world is a big place and no not everyone goes off of birth year. That is only for national teams. Many countries in Europe for their non academy teams play school year. Also many have bio banding which is for everyone but often it’s the later born kids who are the smaller players.

If the change to grad year we can still put together a team and bring them to an International competition.

Also not many teams outside of mls next go play internationally again the system can’t just favor the 1% of team and players or even 25% if it’s that high which it isn’t when you think about every single team in the US Rec to Academy level.

Yes...And there are many rec teams, school teams, etc in the US that do not go by birth year too. "Thats for the national teams...oh and also the non-academy teams." Come-on dude...you're mixing around tiers and levels to suit your argument.

There are tons of tournaments in Europe for soccer. This is probably one of the better-known ones to the US. It features tons of teams from academies in Europe, South America, Asia, the US.... its U9-U14...but you know what it uses for age cutoffs? Birth year!

https://mundialito.org/mundialito_informacion_general.php

The desire to just dismiss the international aspect because it is inconvenient is revealing to how emotional and narrow this debate really is. Its like the PP showed in the podcast, they ask for just 1 good reason, and they get a fantastic one, and then just say "well that one doesn't count."

He called this reason "proverbial" because it is often repeated but the benefit is never actually explained. You're going to have to explain how it benefits youth soccer development or the experience if you want to call that reason "fantastic." For instance, start with how many US teams are playing in international tournaments? How often? Is it a key part of their development or experience? Is it a large part of their play, or rare enough that they could form special tournament teams for these? If this is a very small portion of youth players, how does that benefit translate to the larger portion who never play internationally?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sense of entitlement is funny

All these people fighting to change everything except the work, sacrifice and discipline required by the kid to make it.

Funny to see an adult commenting without putting in the work to understand the issues

I understand that if my October kid wakes up tomorrow and is in the Q1 versus Q4 age group because ECNL changed to School Year, their game is still the same and college scouts still see what kinda player they are.