ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

https://www.reddit.com/r/youthsoccer/comments/1gpwdji/proposed_age_changes/

Not sure which league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you aren't worried or concerned about a cutoff date change, then you and your kid are doing things right.

If you aren't worried or concerned about a cutoff date change, then you aren't paying attention or don't have the capacity to understand the primary and secondary effects. No worries, everybody is paying attention.

If your kid is disciplined, focused, putting in the right work consistently in and outside team practices and is currently performing above average against their peers, then the administrative date change to cutoffs doesn't affect them.

It's just noise.

Nope, relative age effect is real. Some kids will essentially be 6 months older in their respective age bracket and some kids will essentially be 6 months younger. It will effect everyone, even the ones that try to play up.

Isn't there age cutoffs today?

If you have the qualities stated by PP above, you will be fine.
Nothing you can do about size and maturity regardless of cutoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry if discussed on the previous 239 pages but what if an October Q4 kid and a March Q1 kid are in the same grade? Does the Q4 kid have the option of playing a grade/year lower?

Not enough information here. Is the October birthday in the proper grade, or started school early effectively skipping a grade? I.e., is the October birthday 5 months older than the March birthday, or 7 months younger?

If the October birthday is older, they have no option to play down. If the October birthday is younger, yes, they would be able to play down with the grade lower because that is his/her proper grade according to the cutoffs. In that case, the October birthday would have to try to play up if he/she wanted to play with grade level due to choosing to start school a year early.

Both in the 7th grade and born the same year. The march kid is older than the October kid by 7 months.

It will still have a birth year anchor, but the dates will move. So, if you have a 3/2012 7th grader and a 10/2012 7th grader, the 10/2012 7th grader will be playing with a grade below them the next year. So that 10/2012 8th grader will be playing with mostly* 7th graders whose birthdays fall between 8/1/2012 - 7/31/2013. So in your example, the Q4 kid (here the Oct. birthday) would be playing "down" (we are defining "down" using the old system of birth year) with the 7th graders because of the cutoff. Whether or not the Q4 kid has the option to play "up" can continuing to play with their March 2012 friend, will likely depend on the club.

So fast forward to 2029 when that kid is a junior but playing on mostly sophomore year level teams, wouldn’t that hurt them when most scouts are attending junior year level events and showcases?

[Anonymous]

Scouts will still only care about the same things.

How old is he/she?
When do they graduate?
What's their current performance and future potential?

SY means nothing.
Scouts aren't comparing players against their classmates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry if discussed on the previous 239 pages but what if an October Q4 kid and a March Q1 kid are in the same grade? Does the Q4 kid have the option of playing a grade/year lower?

Not enough information here. Is the October birthday in the proper grade, or started school early effectively skipping a grade? I.e., is the October birthday 5 months older than the March birthday, or 7 months younger?

If the October birthday is older, they have no option to play down. If the October birthday is younger, yes, they would be able to play down with the grade lower because that is his/her proper grade according to the cutoffs. In that case, the October birthday would have to try to play up if he/she wanted to play with grade level due to choosing to start school a year early.

Both in the 7th grade and born the same year. The march kid is older than the October kid by 7 months.

It will still have a birth year anchor, but the dates will move. So, if you have a 3/2012 7th grader and a 10/2012 7th grader, the 10/2012 7th grader will be playing with a grade below them the next year. So that 10/2012 8th grader will be playing with mostly* 7th graders whose birthdays fall between 8/1/2012 - 7/31/2013. So in your example, the Q4 kid (here the Oct. birthday) would be playing "down" (we are defining "down" using the old system of birth year) with the 7th graders because of the cutoff. Whether or not the Q4 kid has the option to play "up" can continuing to play with their March 2012 friend, will likely depend on the club.

So fast forward to 2029 when that kid is a junior but playing on mostly sophomore year level teams, wouldn’t that hurt them when most scouts are attending junior year level events and showcases?

It will. Those kids that are young for their grade (think Aug-Sept depending on school cutoff) will be disadvantaged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you aren't worried or concerned about a cutoff date change, then you and your kid are doing things right.

If you aren't worried or concerned about a cutoff date change, then you aren't paying attention or don't have the capacity to understand the primary and secondary effects. No worries, everybody is paying attention.

If your kid is disciplined, focused, putting in the right work consistently in and outside team practices and is currently performing above average against their peers, then the administrative date change to cutoffs doesn't affect them.

It's just noise.

Nope, relative age effect is real. Some kids will essentially be 6 months older in their respective age bracket and some kids will essentially be 6 months younger. It will effect everyone, even the ones that try to play up.

Isn't there age cutoffs today?

If you have the qualities stated by PP above, you will be fine.
Nothing you can do about size and maturity regardless of cutoff.

Everybody will be fine, it is youth soccer. But on a relative basis about half of the players will gain an age advantage and about half will lose an age advantage. So everyone will be effected hence why everyone has a side.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Scouts will still only care about the same things.

How old is he/she?
When do they graduate?
What's their current performance and future potential?

SY means nothing.
Scouts aren't comparing players against their classmates.

Maybe not, but college scouts with limited resources are not going to go to tournaments, or watch games, until those teams are in their peak recruiting years. So if you have a kid who is a junior, but playing on a team with a bunch of sophomores, and the sophomore year is when scouts are really paying attention, then that junior will have essentially missed out on one year of recruiting because they would’ve been the only sophomore on a team full of freshman. College scouts are not going to watch a bunch of freshman games, even if there are one or two sophomores on those teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scouts will still only care about the same things.

How old is he/she?
When do they graduate?
What's their current performance and future potential?

SY means nothing.
Scouts aren't comparing players against their classmates.

Maybe not, but college scouts with limited resources are not going to go to tournaments, or watch games, until those teams are in their peak recruiting years. So if you have a kid who is a junior, but playing on a team with a bunch of sophomores, and the sophomore year is when scouts are really paying attention, then that junior will have essentially missed out on one year of recruiting because they would’ve been the only sophomore on a team full of freshman. College scouts are not going to watch a bunch of freshman games, even if there are one or two sophomores on those teams.

If a kid can't make the team with his/her class, are they seriously going to be recruited for a college team? Yes, a kid could play club with the class behind him/her, but college coaches will (probably correctly) assume that if a kid is playing below class at high school ages he/she isn't worth recruiting. This sounds like such an impossible scenario that it wouldn't be worth pumping the brakes on improving the experience of many thousands of other kids to prevent it from happening.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Scouts will still only care about the same things.

How old is he/she?
When do they graduate?
What's their current performance and future potential?

SY means nothing.
Scouts aren't comparing players against their classmates.

Maybe not, but college scouts with limited resources are not going to go to tournaments, or watch games, until those teams are in their peak recruiting years. So if you have a kid who is a junior, but playing on a team with a bunch of sophomores, and the sophomore year is when scouts are really paying attention, then that junior will have essentially missed out on one year of recruiting because they would’ve been the only sophomore on a team full of freshman. College scouts are not going to watch a bunch of freshman games, even if there are one or two sophomores on those teams.

If a kid can't make the team with his/her class, are they seriously going to be recruited for a college team? Yes, a kid could play club with the class behind him/her, but college coaches will (probably correctly) assume that if a kid is playing below class at high school ages he/she isn't worth recruiting. This sounds like such an impossible scenario that it wouldn't be worth pumping the brakes on improving the experience of many thousands of other kids to prevent it from happening.

Def not worth pumping the breaks but the scenario is certainly possible. And you’re also assuming they would be allowed to play with their grade if they don’t meet the age cutoff, which isn’t a guarantee especially if they’re with a competitive club with large numbers. And they wouldn’t be playing “below class”, they’d be playing with their peer age group, just not the same school grade. Again, just discussing the outliers and how they could be affected. Still much better than the large number of trapped players in the current system. I’m all for changing it.

[Anonymous]

My player is October bday, but same school grade than a player born in Jan - Aug. How is this a trapped player? It seems that going forward, he could miss the senior recruiting years, because he will be playing on a junior year team, while being a senior already. It does not make any sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My player is October bday, but same school grade than a player born in Jan - Aug. How is this a trapped player? It seems that going forward, he could miss the senior recruiting years, because he will be playing on a junior year team, while being a senior already. It does not make any sense.

I don't know why people struggled with this. Your player is not trapped now obviously and in the hypothetical future he can play up to play with his grade which is allowed by every league everywhere. So he's not trapped and will not be. If his club wont let him play up find one that will.

My player is an October bday in the grade below all his teammates. He is trapped because he cannot play down with his grade, because that is not allowed by any league anywhere except in rare case with ECNL. In the hypothetical future he will not be trapped.

Then neither of our kids will be trapped! Great day for us!

[Anonymous]

Your October bday in the same school grade as Jan -Aug needs to find a club that allows him to play up with his grade. So that he doesn't miss senior recruiting. To a previous poster's point, unfortunately if he can't play up on a team with his grade he may not be good enough to be recruited anyway.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My player is October bday, but same school grade than a player born in Jan - Aug. How is this a trapped player? It seems that going forward, he could miss the senior recruiting years, because he will be playing on a junior year team, while being a senior already. It does not make any sense.

For boy, if he is not good enough to play up to be in his grade, you can give up the hope to be recruited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:https://www.reddit.com/r/youthsoccer/comments/1gpwdji/proposed_age_changes/

Not sure which league.

What does this mean?

[Anonymous]

Just to clarify for people the age groups changing is a done deal as the governing bodies have already had their vote to change things up, the vote on the 22nd will decide what cut offs will be used 8/1 or 9/1.

This is what is still being worked on and they will present a various roll out plans for 8/1 and 9/1 and US soccer will approve one of them and that’s what it will be.

For example this will possibly start being phased in spring 25 with teams allowed X amount of players to join the team rules will be in place to limit the chaos. With this fully being implemented by Fall 26 for ALL clubs and leagues under the US soccer umbrella.

Another phase plan is no change for spring 25 but a full on start for all teams in Fall 25 however clubs will have the option to play up if they do not want to rip teams apart and start from scratch.

ECNL is waiting for this all to be approved and they have a master plan they will start and announce by January. Im told they will have slightly different age groupings but won’t be drastically different from the plan approved.

Which even they are not sure which it will be 8/1 or 9/1.