ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Why would any parent want their kid to play 2 years down based on some of these scenarios being painted?
You definitely couldn't take a club or coach seriously who wanted that.

[Anonymous]

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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?

As the old saying goes, the Devil is in the details. What I can figure is we won't know until a clear policy is written to discuss these details.
1.) We don't know for sure this will be voted on an approved. (But yes, most rumors indicate this will occur.)
2.) The policy would have to specify what the grouping is based on exactly:
---a.) Will it be the actual grade year (i.e. Graduation Year) the kid is in or...
---b.) Will it be birth dates that generally align with the school year (i.e. 1 August to 31 July)

In scenario a.) All kids in the game grade (regardless of actual birthday or birth year) are grouped together on a team.
In scenario b.) All kids born in specific date range 1 August year 2024 to 31 July 2025 (for example) will be on a team.

In either scenario, there are problems. We are trading a current set of problems for a new set of problems, this is why some people are wondering if the current birth year grouping will actually be changed with widespread approval. We shall see.

Will the kid have an option of playing a grade/ year lower? A guess by the uninformed is almost as good a guess by the most informed. That is to say who knows what waivers and exceptions they will allow for, if any at all. Generally speaking, kids are not allowed to play down (except in MLS next with Bio-Banding), they are only allowed to play up if good enough.

9 days left!

And then We find out who’s Jan-March kids are good at soccer or just benefited from RAE. The truth is coming for many people very soon.

Does RAE try out for teams? Is it a shoe that makes them better, but now they cant wear it anymore?

This is so dumb.

If kids are good they are good. RAE benefits aren’t taken away from Jan 2009 baby and then given to October 2009 baby…the benefits are baked in already.

Depending on the date, RAE will be reduced for kids born from Jan-July and increased for those from August-December. About 6 months of growth and maturity is better than some shiny shoe of course.

This isn't just some January vs December kid thing. January goes from front of line to middle of line, not the back. And December goes from back of line to middle of the line not the front.

Sure, might take say 2 years for the age change to show impact at the oldest age group so Jan 2009 kid essentially dodged this as they could be in the oldest age group when implemented.

New rule.
Actually read and understand research on Relative Age Effect and Bio-banding before talking about it randomly and incorrectly.

Please illustrated where biobanding is mentioned and relative age effect is used incorrectly.

All over this thread

It's hard to read through these threads anymore. So many girl dads that don't understand anything beyond girls youth soccer but try to apply what they think they know to everything else.

Things like MLS Acadamies and 100k+ signing bonuses and kickbacks to clubs if players go pro don't exist (yet) for girls.

Biobanding doesn't exist at MLS Acadamies 99% of the time. You do see it at MLSN club teams and yes it can be "exploited" for wins. But, none of this matters because it's just a variation on playing up for the players that might actually be considered for playing on an Academy team. The players who are participating in biobanding are screwing themselves and their opportunity to get noticed and playing on an Academy team.

See how MLSN works and how it's different from the girls game? Everything funnels up into Acadamies. Individual scores don't mean as much because all teams playing in the league aren't equal.

[Anonymous]

So which kids now have the advantage? Which months are we talking about?

Previously using calendar which birth years had the advantage?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So which kids now have the advantage? Which months are we talking about?

Previously using calendar which birth years had the advantage?

The ones that are better at soccer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why would any parent want their kid to play 2 years down based on some of these scenarios being painted?
You definitely couldn't take a club or coach seriously who wanted that.

In a league like MLS next the primary goal is to identify talent and get it onto an academy team. From there the goal is to go pro. In this situation playing down doesn't matter because the players who are participating in biobanding don't matter. They're crash test dummies for the other players that are playing up and being considered for the Academy team.

Since ECNL doesn't have the same concepts of going pro it shifts the focus on individual games. In this case playing down dramatically affects who goes onto the next level (college). This is also why it's not allowed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So which kids now have the advantage? Which months are we talking about?

Previously using calendar which birth years had the advantage?

"Depending on the date, RAE will be reduced for kids born from Jan-July and increased for those from August-December."

So now Jan-June has a sliding scale of age advantage and July-August has a sliding scale of disadvantage.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So which kids now have the advantage? Which months are we talking about?

Previously using calendar which birth years had the advantage?

"Depending on the date, RAE will be reduced for kids born from Jan-July and increased for those from August-December."

So now Jan-June has a sliding scale of age advantage and July-August has a sliding scale of disadvantage.

But the theory is with SY is players can play with kids in their grade at school that it will somehow make RAE go away?

Does not compute.

[Anonymous]

They are not trying to reduce RAE! That will always exist in any system that doesn’t allow biobanding. They are trying to reduce the systemic disadvantages for the trapped player that exist because our current system does not correlate birthdates with school start dates! It’s the date issue, not a size issue! How do people not understand that?

[Anonymous]

Exactly, this is all to eliminate the trap player, which reduced enrollment and that means less $$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So which kids now have the advantage? Which months are we talking about?

Previously using calendar which birth years had the advantage?

The ones that are better at soccer.

if 2 players are very close in sills coaches will use any other criteria they can to pick one of them such as size and age so they can justify the selection. So changing date ranges will impact players selection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They are not trying to reduce RAE! That will always exist in any system that doesn’t allow biobanding. They are trying to reduce the systemic disadvantages for the trapped player that exist because our current system does not correlate birthdates with school start dates! It’s the date issue, not a size issue! How do people not understand that?

Ok so SY does don't address RAE.

I know this as well just being annoying to make it more clear for the newbies.

[Anonymous]

It’s easy to be annoying when it’s anonymous

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So which kids now have the advantage? Which months are we talking about?

Previously using calendar which birth years had the advantage?

"Depending on the date, RAE will be reduced for kids born from Jan-July and increased for those from August-December."

So now Jan-June has a sliding scale of age advantage and July-August has a sliding scale of disadvantage.

But the theory is with SY is players can play with kids in their grade at school that it will somehow make RAE go away?

Does not compute.

The theory is not that RAE goes away completely under SY or BY. One of the theories of the switch to BY was that it would combat RAE because it would be easier to see via the simplicity of "month X is later in the year than month Y." Once noticed, coaches were assumed to be able to take it into account for team placements and development tracks. The problem is that our youth system prioritizes winning too much from an early age, so coaches just don't care about mitigating RAE. What clearly wasn't anticipated by US Soccer, but was by many others, was that RAE would also get worse under BY due to choices by players in light of new social dynamics. By compounding the disadvantage of being the youngest with trapped player issues and playing above their social tier (especially at elementary school ages), more late birthdays quit early or never transitioned to club soccer. These late birthdays, and potential late bloomers, lost a reason (social relationships) which might have motivated them to have some resiliency while their growth caught up.

Under neither system does RAE go away, but it can get worse or better. While some may have honestly thought BY would make it better, it actually got worse. And now, many now think SY is actually the system which makes RAE better.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Exactly, this is all to eliminate the trap player, which reduced enrollment and that means less $$.

There's no proof that more players will join teams if you get rid of trapped players. Many patents have talked themselves into thinking that this is true but its not been proven.

The only thing SY is proven to do is get rid of the trapped player 8th grade issue when they're in middle school but their teammates are in High School and on the HS team.

SY groups players in the same grade at games which might make things easier for recruiters. But they're going to find top talent either way so it's negligible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Exactly, this is all to eliminate the trap player, which reduced enrollment and that means less $$.

There's no proof that more players will join teams if you get rid of trapped players. Many patents have talked themselves into thinking that this is true but its not been proven.

The only thing SY is proven to do is get rid of the trapped player 8th grade issue when they're in middle school but their teammates are in High School and on the HS team.

SY groups players in the same grade at games which might make things easier for recruiters. But they're going to find top talent either way so it's negligible.

Rumor is that USA Softball moved to SY (August 31) because the college coaches said it would make their life easier on the recruiting trail.