Birth year. 1/3 of your kid’s classmates are playing up - no matter what. We are programmed to compare our kids based on other 2005s or 2004s. That’s all wrong. Compare them vs classmates. Look at the grad years. That’s what college coaches will do. |
And college coaches have been doing this regardless of age breakdown. Youth soccer is under no obligation to college soccer coaches to make age groupings convenient for them especially considering the small number of players who continue playing on in college. Player contacts coach, tells them their graduating year, position, number and schedule. Coach goes and watches the game that fits within their schedule. Player signs up for coaches ID camp. Coach asks for graduation year, at said ID camp coach has a list of players based on graduation year and sorts players accordingly. College coaches are just fine. |
| At some point there will be a soccer league that will do what NGLL did and form based on grad year 2021, 2022, 2023, etc. Maybe it will be ECNL or GA or both. College coaches will prefer it. So will players. |
Nonsense. I grew up playing with the old way and hated it. Birth year maximally produces 364 days difference. If you are playing up, so be it. But it's rare and a function of ability. The problem is that if your kid is smart (mine is), advanced by a year (he is), and surrounded by average-intelligence kids whose dumber parents redshirt them in kindergarten so they can go to James Madison instead of community college, your stuck playing with a bunch of dumb big kids. Do you want me to go on? Because I can. |
Must be your wife's genes |
Or they could just continue with the things the way they are...because you know it really is not an issue. I think they will address other pressing issues like the number of eyelets allowed on shoes. |
They don’t hurt - I think it is probably a joint venture genetically unless you reproduce asexually, which sounds like it may be your best option! |
Exactly this. This move originally was done in part to hamstring the college system because US Soccer wants to get colleges out of the high level soccer game, for a variety of reasons (some good, some not good). But unfortunately for US soccer, kids still want to go to college and play college. If you have any interaction with college coaches, they generally want to switch back to school calendar. If you want your kid to play college soccer, switching back is a good idea. |
DP. It is always interesting to see Dunning Kruger in action. |
| It is always amazing that College Coaches recruited HS football players all these years with 4 graduating classes of kids on the same field at the same time. |
I hate to break it to you. But redshirting happens and nothing you can will change it. Do you think that college coaches care that the older graduating senior who was held back and has an extra year of maturity, size and strength is unfairly a better prospect that your kid? They don’t care. Unfair? They don’t care. It happens all the time in football and other sports. You are already competing against your graduating class. And when you get to college it’s kids 3 years older taking your field time. The current system only falsely protects and makes Jan-Jun kids look great until recruiting time. Recruiting happens by class and that’s how the kids should play. |
96% of kids don't get recruited. It just doesn't matter. Colleges figure it out. Youth soccer is under no obligation to arrange cutoff years to suit college recruiting. There are lots of things that actually should be done to mitigate RAE but aren't being done. Changing from birth to graduation year does little to combat RAE. |
| US Soccer is looking into it. The development platform for girls is now college. NCAA soccer system is widely seen as the sole US advantage on the women’s side. Men’s side is different due to the professional money in MLS and international club system. The best men get signed professionally early and don’t go to college. It is all part of the dismantling of DA. It will happen to align with the women’s college development platform. |
US Soccer doesn't care about college soccer. It just doesn't matter if it is slightly easier for college coaches or not. People have this belief that college coaches just go to showcases pull up to a random game and just watch and come up with a list of players to recruit from the game. There is no real reason to cater any age cutoff for the benefit of colleges because the impact is pretty minimal. What US Soccer does care about is their National Team and it is far easier for them to scout players based on international cutoff standards where their kids will be playing. US soccer changed to Birth Year for their benefit and the reasons for that initial change have not changed at all for US Soccer. |
I agree |