ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:> A "Trapped Player" is any eighth grader who is a member of a U15 team, which typically consists of 9th graders. The player is called a "trapped" player because U15 club teams do not have a fall season, due to the fact that most players on a U15 team play high school soccer their freshman year

So is this really only a problem for 8th graders in travel playing up a year?

They aren't playing up. they play on age but they are younger side for soccer and older side for school. So think of a kid that's born between August and December of the year.

august to december are the youngest at school tho

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]For those who have boys in MLS Next, how much international play do those teams actually do? What benefit does that league particularly get by being aligned with international play?

I feel like for every domestic youth league (leaving out national teams for the moment) except MLS Next, school year cutoff is the clear winner. For MLS Next, I could see why they would resist if they play a lot of international matches or are sending players to Europe as pros when they turn 18. [/quote]

Winner at what? What's the real measurable benefit? [/quote]

Measurable benefits favoring school year alignment: higher overall participation rates, higher overall retention rates, improved relative age effect profile, decreased club operations workload (after year 1), decreased college recruiter workload, decreased time off training for the trapped subset and/or decreased cost for private training during that time, decreased team disruption at U18-19.

Have there been any measurable benefits from the switch to calendar year with increased international alignment? I'm willing to entertain even the most remotely plausible theory of a measurable benefit. No one seems willing to attempt to articulate one. It would seem that if there were some measurable benefit, the easiest place to identify it would be MLS Next.

[/quote]

reduces manipulation

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:> A "Trapped Player" is any eighth grader who is a member of a U15 team, which typically consists of 9th graders. The player is called a "trapped" player because U15 club teams do not have a fall season, due to the fact that most players on a U15 team play high school soccer their freshman year

So is this really only a problem for 8th graders in travel playing up a year?

They aren't playing up. they play on age but they are younger side for soccer and older side for school. So think of a kid that's born between August and December of the year.

august to december are the youngest at school tho

Not in most places in the US. August and maybe September. Some places start school earlier though. For FCPS "A child may enter kindergarten if he or she turns five on or before September 30 of the year he or she enters school. " my October child is the oldest in her class and the youngest on her soccer team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who have boys in MLS Next, how much international play do those teams actually do? What benefit does that league particularly get by being aligned with international play?

I feel like for every domestic youth league (leaving out national teams for the moment) except MLS Next, school year cutoff is the clear winner. For MLS Next, I could see why they would resist if they play a lot of international matches or are sending players to Europe as pros when they turn 18.

Winner at what? What's the real measurable benefit?

Measurable benefits favoring school year alignment: higher overall participation rates, higher overall retention rates, improved relative age effect profile, decreased club operations workload (after year 1), decreased college recruiter workload, decreased time off training for the trapped subset and/or decreased cost for private training during that time, decreased team disruption at U18-19.

Have there been any measurable benefits from the switch to calendar year with increased international alignment? I'm willing to entertain even the most remotely plausible theory of a measurable benefit. No one seems willing to attempt to articulate one. It would seem that if there were some measurable benefit, the easiest place to identify it would be MLS Next.

Saying measurable benefits and proving measurable benefits are two different things.
You're doing a lot of 'sounds nice' not based on facts and reality.

There's a lack of participation issue because of BY?
Won't there still be kids who are the youngest if you move from Jan1 to September 1? (August becomes the new December)

If you reject the circumstantial nature of the participation, retention, and RAE studies over the last 8 years, fine. The trends are indeed "facts and reality," but the cause cannot be said to be birth year cutoffs with certainty. In the face of those though, you'd think someone would be floating some alternative explanations.

Hypothetically, if I'm a US Soccer decision-maker about to go into a meeting on this issue, what are my arguments in favor of birth year? Scouring this thread, I only can find (1) saying 2010 is simpler than saying 2028, (2) that birth year is the status quo, and (3) a blanket denial of proposed benefits to school year. International alignment for the sake of itself, without a proposed benefit, is unlikely to convince those in favor of the change. Is there anything more convincing I should take into that meeting?

So you solution to RAE is shift the late developers from Dec, Nov, Oct to June, July, August?

RAE has gotten worse since the change. Q4 is less represented in youth club soccer than it was prior to the change. RAE profiles as kids age up are no longer being evened out as they age. Participation and retention rates are also down since the change, with Q4 accounting for an outsized portion of that decrease. Hypothesis presented is that this is a result of the change to birth year. Is there an alternative explanation? The reasoning for the hypothesis is that introducing the social and operational challenges of being across grade level are causing the permanent departure of Q4 kids from organized soccer. They are no longer sticking with it while waiting for their physical maturity to catch up. If there is no alternative explanation, are there countervailing benefits that should be weighed against this?

RAE is not getting better/worse since the change. It exists and will exist regardless of where you draw the cutoff. If Aug 1 becomes the cutoff, then RAE will impact may/June/July birthdays and they will become underrepresented because they are 10-12 months behind others in the age group developmentally.

You can make an argument about retention rates and using birth year, but RAE in itself doesn't change depending on where you draw the line - someone will always be the oldest in a 12 month window and someone will have to be the youngest.

It's hard to find an exact apples-to-apples RAE comparison before and after the switch. But comparing girls ECNL before the switch with all female club soccer and female talent ID centers after the switch, Q4 representation before the switch started HS ages at about 15% and went up each year, stabilizing at 20%. Now, Q4 representation starts HS ages between 10-15% and bounces up and down, never going above 15% and no upward trend through ages. While RAE strictly "exists" in both sets, I think it's fair to say RAE is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon - it can be "worse" or "better." A steeper negative slope from Q1 percent to Q4 percent could be called "worse." By this definition, it has gotten worse since the change.

At the extreme, if one set showed 94% Q1 and 3/2/1% Q2-4, that would be "worse" than a set showing 35/30/20/15%. If you consider those the same, because they both show RAE, I guess we just agree to disagree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who have boys in MLS Next, how much international play do those teams actually do? What benefit does that league particularly get by being aligned with international play?

I feel like for every domestic youth league (leaving out national teams for the moment) except MLS Next, school year cutoff is the clear winner. For MLS Next, I could see why they would resist if they play a lot of international matches or are sending players to Europe as pros when they turn 18.

Winner at what? What's the real measurable benefit?

Measurable benefits favoring school year alignment: higher overall participation rates, higher overall retention rates, improved relative age effect profile, decreased club operations workload (after year 1), decreased college recruiter workload, decreased time off training for the trapped subset and/or decreased cost for private training during that time, decreased team disruption at U18-19.

Have there been any measurable benefits from the switch to calendar year with increased international alignment? I'm willing to entertain even the most remotely plausible theory of a measurable benefit. No one seems willing to attempt to articulate one. It would seem that if there were some measurable benefit, the easiest place to identify it would be MLS Next.

Saying measurable benefits and proving measurable benefits are two different things.
You're doing a lot of 'sounds nice' not based on facts and reality.

There's a lack of participation issue because of BY?
Won't there still be kids who are the youngest if you move from Jan1 to September 1? (August becomes the new December)

If you reject the circumstantial nature of the participation, retention, and RAE studies over the last 8 years, fine. The trends are indeed "facts and reality," but the cause cannot be said to be birth year cutoffs with certainty. In the face of those though, you'd think someone would be floating some alternative explanations.

Hypothetically, if I'm a US Soccer decision-maker about to go into a meeting on this issue, what are my arguments in favor of birth year? Scouring this thread, I only can find (1) saying 2010 is simpler than saying 2028, (2) that birth year is the status quo, and (3) a blanket denial of proposed benefits to school year. International alignment for the sake of itself, without a proposed benefit, is unlikely to convince those in favor of the change. Is there anything more convincing I should take into that meeting?

So you solution to RAE is shift the late developers from Dec, Nov, Oct to June, July, August?

RAE has gotten worse since the change. Q4 is less represented in youth club soccer than it was prior to the change. RAE profiles as kids age up are no longer being evened out as they age. Participation and retention rates are also down since the change, with Q4 accounting for an outsized portion of that decrease. Hypothesis presented is that this is a result of the change to birth year. Is there an alternative explanation? The reasoning for the hypothesis is that introducing the social and operational challenges of being across grade level are causing the permanent departure of Q4 kids from organized soccer. They are no longer sticking with it while waiting for their physical maturity to catch up. If there is no alternative explanation, are there countervailing benefits that should be weighed against this?

RAE is not getting better/worse since the change. It exists and will exist regardless of where you draw the cutoff. If Aug 1 becomes the cutoff, then RAE will impact may/June/July birthdays and they will become underrepresented because they are 10-12 months behind others in the age group developmentally.

You can make an argument about retention rates and using birth year, but RAE in itself doesn't change depending on where you draw the line - someone will always be the oldest in a 12 month window and someone will have to be the youngest.

It's hard to find an exact apples-to-apples RAE comparison before and after the switch. But comparing girls ECNL before the switch with all female club soccer and female talent ID centers after the switch, Q4 representation before the switch started HS ages at about 15% and went up each year, stabilizing at 20%. Now, Q4 representation starts HS ages between 10-15% and bounces up and down, never going above 15% and no upward trend through ages. While RAE strictly "exists" in both sets, I think it's fair to say RAE is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon - it can be "worse" or "better." A steeper negative slope from Q1 percent to Q4 percent could be called "worse." By this definition, it has gotten worse since the change.

At the extreme, if one set showed 94% Q1 and 3/2/1% Q2-4, that would be "worse" than a set showing 35/30/20/15%. If you consider those the same, because they both show RAE, I guess we just agree to disagree.

RAE will always be the same issue.
Just shifting the order of the start vs finish of range makes no difference.

Your diatribe doesn't erase Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 whether we do January 1st or September 1st

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:> A "Trapped Player" is any eighth grader who is a member of a U15 team, which typically consists of 9th graders. The player is called a "trapped" player because U15 club teams do not have a fall season, due to the fact that most players on a U15 team play high school soccer their freshman year

So is this really only a problem for 8th graders in travel playing up a year?

They aren't playing up. they play on age but they are younger side for soccer and older side for school. So think of a kid that's born between August and December of the year.

august to december are the youngest at school tho

Sept to Dec generally the oldest at school with August being case by case more or less.

[Anonymous]

Why argue like we are making a difference about this both sides will not see it the other way and want what’s best for them. The people who have no dog in the fight will end up making the decision right or wrong.

Forget it Birth Year sucks and so do parents with Q1 kids let the fighting continue!

[Anonymous]

So how would this play out for the late 2008/current Sophomore kids next year? Would they play with an all Junior team (grad 2027) or would they still be combined with seniors (similar to how the 2006/2007 are combined)?

[Anonymous]

They would play with all junior team next year (U-17) - so repeat of U-17 (whereas right now they are playing with juniors in the recruiting window while they are not).

Likely would be ability to continue to
play up with current team (seniors-U-18) if they were a top player on the team

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who have boys in MLS Next, how much international play do those teams actually do? What benefit does that league particularly get by being aligned with international play?

I feel like for every domestic youth league (leaving out national teams for the moment) except MLS Next, school year cutoff is the clear winner. For MLS Next, I could see why they would resist if they play a lot of international matches or are sending players to Europe as pros when they turn 18.

Winner at what? What's the real measurable benefit?

Measurable benefits favoring school year alignment: higher overall participation rates, higher overall retention rates, improved relative age effect profile, decreased club operations workload (after year 1), decreased college recruiter workload, decreased time off training for the trapped subset and/or decreased cost for private training during that time, decreased team disruption at U18-19.

Have there been any measurable benefits from the switch to calendar year with increased international alignment? I'm willing to entertain even the most remotely plausible theory of a measurable benefit. No one seems willing to attempt to articulate one. It would seem that if there were some measurable benefit, the easiest place to identify it would be MLS Next.

Saying measurable benefits and proving measurable benefits are two different things.
You're doing a lot of 'sounds nice' not based on facts and reality.

There's a lack of participation issue because of BY?
Won't there still be kids who are the youngest if you move from Jan1 to September 1? (August becomes the new December)

If you reject the circumstantial nature of the participation, retention, and RAE studies over the last 8 years, fine. The trends are indeed "facts and reality," but the cause cannot be said to be birth year cutoffs with certainty. In the face of those though, you'd think someone would be floating some alternative explanations.

Hypothetically, if I'm a US Soccer decision-maker about to go into a meeting on this issue, what are my arguments in favor of birth year? Scouring this thread, I only can find (1) saying 2010 is simpler than saying 2028, (2) that birth year is the status quo, and (3) a blanket denial of proposed benefits to school year. International alignment for the sake of itself, without a proposed benefit, is unlikely to convince those in favor of the change. Is there anything more convincing I should take into that meeting?

So you solution to RAE is shift the late developers from Dec, Nov, Oct to June, July, August?

RAE has gotten worse since the change. Q4 is less represented in youth club soccer than it was prior to the change. RAE profiles as kids age up are no longer being evened out as they age. Participation and retention rates are also down since the change, with Q4 accounting for an outsized portion of that decrease. Hypothesis presented is that this is a result of the change to birth year. Is there an alternative explanation? The reasoning for the hypothesis is that introducing the social and operational challenges of being across grade level are causing the permanent departure of Q4 kids from organized soccer. They are no longer sticking with it while waiting for their physical maturity to catch up. If there is no alternative explanation, are there countervailing benefits that should be weighed against this?

RAE is not getting better/worse since the change. It exists and will exist regardless of where you draw the cutoff. If Aug 1 becomes the cutoff, then RAE will impact may/June/July birthdays and they will become underrepresented because they are 10-12 months behind others in the age group developmentally.

You can make an argument about retention rates and using birth year, but RAE in itself doesn't change depending on where you draw the line - someone will always be the oldest in a 12 month window and someone will have to be the youngest.

It's hard to find an exact apples-to-apples RAE comparison before and after the switch. But comparing girls ECNL before the switch with all female club soccer and female talent ID centers after the switch, Q4 representation before the switch started HS ages at about 15% and went up each year, stabilizing at 20%. Now, Q4 representation starts HS ages between 10-15% and bounces up and down, never going above 15% and no upward trend through ages. While RAE strictly "exists" in both sets, I think it's fair to say RAE is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon - it can be "worse" or "better." A steeper negative slope from Q1 percent to Q4 percent could be called "worse." By this definition, it has gotten worse since the change.

At the extreme, if one set showed 94% Q1 and 3/2/1% Q2-4, that would be "worse" than a set showing 35/30/20/15%. If you consider those the same, because they both show RAE, I guess we just agree to disagree.

RAE will always be the same issue.
Just shifting the order of the start vs finish of range makes no difference.

Your diatribe doesn't erase Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 whether we do January 1st or September 1st

In the podcast this all goes back to, they don't dispute this. What they do say is keeping kids in their SY cohort helps with participation, which lessens the gap between Q1 to Q4. It will also eliminate trapped players entirely.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who have boys in MLS Next, how much international play do those teams actually do? What benefit does that league particularly get by being aligned with international play?

I feel like for every domestic youth league (leaving out national teams for the moment) except MLS Next, school year cutoff is the clear winner. For MLS Next, I could see why they would resist if they play a lot of international matches or are sending players to Europe as pros when they turn 18.

Winner at what? What's the real measurable benefit?

Measurable benefits favoring school year alignment: higher overall participation rates, higher overall retention rates, improved relative age effect profile, decreased club operations workload (after year 1), decreased college recruiter workload, decreased time off training for the trapped subset and/or decreased cost for private training during that time, decreased team disruption at U18-19.

Have there been any measurable benefits from the switch to calendar year with increased international alignment? I'm willing to entertain even the most remotely plausible theory of a measurable benefit. No one seems willing to attempt to articulate one. It would seem that if there were some measurable benefit, the easiest place to identify it would be MLS Next.

Saying measurable benefits and proving measurable benefits are two different things.
You're doing a lot of 'sounds nice' not based on facts and reality.

There's a lack of participation issue because of BY?
Won't there still be kids who are the youngest if you move from Jan1 to September 1? (August becomes the new December)

If you reject the circumstantial nature of the participation, retention, and RAE studies over the last 8 years, fine. The trends are indeed "facts and reality," but the cause cannot be said to be birth year cutoffs with certainty. In the face of those though, you'd think someone would be floating some alternative explanations.

Hypothetically, if I'm a US Soccer decision-maker about to go into a meeting on this issue, what are my arguments in favor of birth year? Scouring this thread, I only can find (1) saying 2010 is simpler than saying 2028, (2) that birth year is the status quo, and (3) a blanket denial of proposed benefits to school year. International alignment for the sake of itself, without a proposed benefit, is unlikely to convince those in favor of the change. Is there anything more convincing I should take into that meeting?

So you solution to RAE is shift the late developers from Dec, Nov, Oct to June, July, August?

RAE has gotten worse since the change. Q4 is less represented in youth club soccer than it was prior to the change. RAE profiles as kids age up are no longer being evened out as they age. Participation and retention rates are also down since the change, with Q4 accounting for an outsized portion of that decrease. Hypothesis presented is that this is a result of the change to birth year. Is there an alternative explanation? The reasoning for the hypothesis is that introducing the social and operational challenges of being across grade level are causing the permanent departure of Q4 kids from organized soccer. They are no longer sticking with it while waiting for their physical maturity to catch up. If there is no alternative explanation, are there countervailing benefits that should be weighed against this?

RAE is not getting better/worse since the change. It exists and will exist regardless of where you draw the cutoff. If Aug 1 becomes the cutoff, then RAE will impact may/June/July birthdays and they will become underrepresented because they are 10-12 months behind others in the age group developmentally.

You can make an argument about retention rates and using birth year, but RAE in itself doesn't change depending on where you draw the line - someone will always be the oldest in a 12 month window and someone will have to be the youngest.

It's hard to find an exact apples-to-apples RAE comparison before and after the switch. But comparing girls ECNL before the switch with all female club soccer and female talent ID centers after the switch, Q4 representation before the switch started HS ages at about 15% and went up each year, stabilizing at 20%. Now, Q4 representation starts HS ages between 10-15% and bounces up and down, never going above 15% and no upward trend through ages. While RAE strictly "exists" in both sets, I think it's fair to say RAE is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon - it can be "worse" or "better." A steeper negative slope from Q1 percent to Q4 percent could be called "worse." By this definition, it has gotten worse since the change.

At the extreme, if one set showed 94% Q1 and 3/2/1% Q2-4, that would be "worse" than a set showing 35/30/20/15%. If you consider those the same, because they both show RAE, I guess we just agree to disagree.

RAE will always be the same issue.
Just shifting the order of the start vs finish of range makes no difference.

Your diatribe doesn't erase Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 whether we do January 1st or September 1st

In the podcast this all goes back to, they don't dispute this. What they do say is keeping kids in their SY cohort helps with participation, which lessens the gap between Q1 to Q4. It will also eliminate trapped players entirely.

If you voluntarily don't want to play above Rec level because your classmates are one year lower, then Travel isn't mentally for you.
Be content playing in a Grade Rec league.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who have boys in MLS Next, how much international play do those teams actually do? What benefit does that league particularly get by being aligned with international play?

I feel like for every domestic youth league (leaving out national teams for the moment) except MLS Next, school year cutoff is the clear winner. For MLS Next, I could see why they would resist if they play a lot of international matches or are sending players to Europe as pros when they turn 18.

Winner at what? What's the real measurable benefit?

Measurable benefits favoring school year alignment: higher overall participation rates, higher overall retention rates, improved relative age effect profile, decreased club operations workload (after year 1), decreased college recruiter workload, decreased time off training for the trapped subset and/or decreased cost for private training during that time, decreased team disruption at U18-19.

Have there been any measurable benefits from the switch to calendar year with increased international alignment? I'm willing to entertain even the most remotely plausible theory of a measurable benefit. No one seems willing to attempt to articulate one. It would seem that if there were some measurable benefit, the easiest place to identify it would be MLS Next.

Saying measurable benefits and proving measurable benefits are two different things.
You're doing a lot of 'sounds nice' not based on facts and reality.

There's a lack of participation issue because of BY?
Won't there still be kids who are the youngest if you move from Jan1 to September 1? (August becomes the new December)

If you reject the circumstantial nature of the participation, retention, and RAE studies over the last 8 years, fine. The trends are indeed "facts and reality," but the cause cannot be said to be birth year cutoffs with certainty. In the face of those though, you'd think someone would be floating some alternative explanations.

Hypothetically, if I'm a US Soccer decision-maker about to go into a meeting on this issue, what are my arguments in favor of birth year? Scouring this thread, I only can find (1) saying 2010 is simpler than saying 2028, (2) that birth year is the status quo, and (3) a blanket denial of proposed benefits to school year. International alignment for the sake of itself, without a proposed benefit, is unlikely to convince those in favor of the change. Is there anything more convincing I should take into that meeting?

So you solution to RAE is shift the late developers from Dec, Nov, Oct to June, July, August?

RAE has gotten worse since the change. Q4 is less represented in youth club soccer than it was prior to the change. RAE profiles as kids age up are no longer being evened out as they age. Participation and retention rates are also down since the change, with Q4 accounting for an outsized portion of that decrease. Hypothesis presented is that this is a result of the change to birth year. Is there an alternative explanation? The reasoning for the hypothesis is that introducing the social and operational challenges of being across grade level are causing the permanent departure of Q4 kids from organized soccer. They are no longer sticking with it while waiting for their physical maturity to catch up. If there is no alternative explanation, are there countervailing benefits that should be weighed against this?

RAE is not getting better/worse since the change. It exists and will exist regardless of where you draw the cutoff. If Aug 1 becomes the cutoff, then RAE will impact may/June/July birthdays and they will become underrepresented because they are 10-12 months behind others in the age group developmentally.

You can make an argument about retention rates and using birth year, but RAE in itself doesn't change depending on where you draw the line - someone will always be the oldest in a 12 month window and someone will have to be the youngest.

It's hard to find an exact apples-to-apples RAE comparison before and after the switch. But comparing girls ECNL before the switch with all female club soccer and female talent ID centers after the switch, Q4 representation before the switch started HS ages at about 15% and went up each year, stabilizing at 20%. Now, Q4 representation starts HS ages between 10-15% and bounces up and down, never going above 15% and no upward trend through ages. While RAE strictly "exists" in both sets, I think it's fair to say RAE is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon - it can be "worse" or "better." A steeper negative slope from Q1 percent to Q4 percent could be called "worse." By this definition, it has gotten worse since the change.

At the extreme, if one set showed 94% Q1 and 3/2/1% Q2-4, that would be "worse" than a set showing 35/30/20/15%. If you consider those the same, because they both show RAE, I guess we just agree to disagree.

RAE will always be the same issue.
Just shifting the order of the start vs finish of range makes no difference.

Your diatribe doesn't erase Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 whether we do January 1st or September 1st

In the podcast this all goes back to, they don't dispute this. What they do say is keeping kids in their SY cohort helps with participation, which lessens the gap between Q1 to Q4. It will also eliminate trapped players entirely.

You must be a masochist to revive this. That poster very clearly stated that in his/her opinion there was no difference between sizes of the gap between Q1 to Q4. RAE will always exist, so attempting to lessen it is a pointless exercise.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For those who have boys in MLS Next, how much international play do those teams actually do? What benefit does that league particularly get by being aligned with international play?

I feel like for every domestic youth league (leaving out national teams for the moment) except MLS Next, school year cutoff is the clear winner. For MLS Next, I could see why they would resist if they play a lot of international matches or are sending players to Europe as pros when they turn 18.

Winner at what? What's the real measurable benefit?

Measurable benefits favoring school year alignment: higher overall participation rates, higher overall retention rates, improved relative age effect profile, decreased club operations workload (after year 1), decreased college recruiter workload, decreased time off training for the trapped subset and/or decreased cost for private training during that time, decreased team disruption at U18-19.

Have there been any measurable benefits from the switch to calendar year with increased international alignment? I'm willing to entertain even the most remotely plausible theory of a measurable benefit. No one seems willing to attempt to articulate one. It would seem that if there were some measurable benefit, the easiest place to identify it would be MLS Next.

Saying measurable benefits and proving measurable benefits are two different things.
You're doing a lot of 'sounds nice' not based on facts and reality.

There's a lack of participation issue because of BY?
Won't there still be kids who are the youngest if you move from Jan1 to September 1? (August becomes the new December)

If you reject the circumstantial nature of the participation, retention, and RAE studies over the last 8 years, fine. The trends are indeed "facts and reality," but the cause cannot be said to be birth year cutoffs with certainty. In the face of those though, you'd think someone would be floating some alternative explanations.

Hypothetically, if I'm a US Soccer decision-maker about to go into a meeting on this issue, what are my arguments in favor of birth year? Scouring this thread, I only can find (1) saying 2010 is simpler than saying 2028, (2) that birth year is the status quo, and (3) a blanket denial of proposed benefits to school year. International alignment for the sake of itself, without a proposed benefit, is unlikely to convince those in favor of the change. Is there anything more convincing I should take into that meeting?

So you solution to RAE is shift the late developers from Dec, Nov, Oct to June, July, August?

RAE has gotten worse since the change. Q4 is less represented in youth club soccer than it was prior to the change. RAE profiles as kids age up are no longer being evened out as they age. Participation and retention rates are also down since the change, with Q4 accounting for an outsized portion of that decrease. Hypothesis presented is that this is a result of the change to birth year. Is there an alternative explanation? The reasoning for the hypothesis is that introducing the social and operational challenges of being across grade level are causing the permanent departure of Q4 kids from organized soccer. They are no longer sticking with it while waiting for their physical maturity to catch up. If there is no alternative explanation, are there countervailing benefits that should be weighed against this?

RAE is not getting better/worse since the change. It exists and will exist regardless of where you draw the cutoff. If Aug 1 becomes the cutoff, then RAE will impact may/June/July birthdays and they will become underrepresented because they are 10-12 months behind others in the age group developmentally.

You can make an argument about retention rates and using birth year, but RAE in itself doesn't change depending on where you draw the line - someone will always be the oldest in a 12 month window and someone will have to be the youngest.

It's hard to find an exact apples-to-apples RAE comparison before and after the switch. But comparing girls ECNL before the switch with all female club soccer and female talent ID centers after the switch, Q4 representation before the switch started HS ages at about 15% and went up each year, stabilizing at 20%. Now, Q4 representation starts HS ages between 10-15% and bounces up and down, never going above 15% and no upward trend through ages. While RAE strictly "exists" in both sets, I think it's fair to say RAE is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon - it can be "worse" or "better." A steeper negative slope from Q1 percent to Q4 percent could be called "worse." By this definition, it has gotten worse since the change.

At the extreme, if one set showed 94% Q1 and 3/2/1% Q2-4, that would be "worse" than a set showing 35/30/20/15%. If you consider those the same, because they both show RAE, I guess we just agree to disagree.

Statistically the comparison of Q4 representation before and after a switch is not the right comparison. The correct comparison is the representation rates in the last three months of each age group, i.e., how is representation is Oct/Nov/Dec birth dates now versus representation in May/June/July birth dates after a school year switch.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:For those who have boys in MLS Next, how much international play do those teams actually do? What benefit does that league particularly get by being aligned with international play?

I feel like for every domestic youth league (leaving out national teams for the moment) except MLS Next, school year cutoff is the clear winner. For MLS Next, I could see why they would resist if they play a lot of international matches or are sending players to Europe as pros when they turn 18.

Winner at what? What's the real measurable benefit?

Measurable benefits favoring school year alignment: higher overall participation rates, higher overall retention rates, improved relative age effect profile, decreased club operations workload (after year 1), decreased college recruiter workload, decreased time off training for the trapped subset and/or decreased cost for private training during that time, decreased team disruption at U18-19.

Have there been any measurable benefits from the switch to calendar year with increased international alignment? I'm willing to entertain even the most remotely plausible theory of a measurable benefit. No one seems willing to attempt to articulate one. It would seem that if there were some measurable benefit, the easiest place to identify it would be MLS Next.

Saying measurable benefits and proving measurable benefits are two different things.
You're doing a lot of 'sounds nice' not based on facts and reality.

There's a lack of participation issue because of BY?
Won't there still be kids who are the youngest if you move from Jan1 to September 1? (August becomes the new December)

If you reject the circumstantial nature of the participation, retention, and RAE studies over the last 8 years, fine. The trends are indeed "facts and reality," but the cause cannot be said to be birth year cutoffs with certainty. In the face of those though, you'd think someone would be floating some alternative explanations.

Hypothetically, if I'm a US Soccer decision-maker about to go into a meeting on this issue, what are my arguments in favor of birth year? Scouring this thread, I only can find (1) saying 2010 is simpler than saying 2028, (2) that birth year is the status quo, and (3) a blanket denial of proposed benefits to school year. International alignment for the sake of itself, without a proposed benefit, is unlikely to convince those in favor of the change. Is there anything more convincing I should take into that meeting?

So you solution to RAE is shift the late developers from Dec, Nov, Oct to June, July, August?

RAE has gotten worse since the change. Q4 is less represented in youth club soccer than it was prior to the change. RAE profiles as kids age up are no longer being evened out as they age. Participation and retention rates are also down since the change, with Q4 accounting for an outsized portion of that decrease. Hypothesis presented is that this is a result of the change to birth year. Is there an alternative explanation? The reasoning for the hypothesis is that introducing the social and operational challenges of being across grade level are causing the permanent departure of Q4 kids from organized soccer. They are no longer sticking with it while waiting for their physical maturity to catch up. If there is no alternative explanation, are there countervailing benefits that should be weighed against this?

RAE is not getting better/worse since the change. It exists and will exist regardless of where you draw the cutoff. If Aug 1 becomes the cutoff, then RAE will impact may/June/July birthdays and they will become underrepresented because they are 10-12 months behind others in the age group developmentally.

You can make an argument about retention rates and using birth year, but RAE in itself doesn't change depending on where you draw the line - someone will always be the oldest in a 12 month window and someone will have to be the youngest.

It's hard to find an exact apples-to-apples RAE comparison before and after the switch. But comparing girls ECNL before the switch with all female club soccer and female talent ID centers after the switch, Q4 representation before the switch started HS ages at about 15% and went up each year, stabilizing at 20%. Now, Q4 representation starts HS ages between 10-15% and bounces up and down, never going above 15% and no upward trend through ages. While RAE strictly "exists" in both sets, I think it's fair to say RAE is not an all-or-nothing phenomenon - it can be "worse" or "better." A steeper negative slope from Q1 percent to Q4 percent could be called "worse." By this definition, it has gotten worse since the change.

At the extreme, if one set showed 94% Q1 and 3/2/1% Q2-4, that would be "worse" than a set showing 35/30/20/15%. If you consider those the same, because they both show RAE, I guess we just agree to disagree.

Statistically the comparison of Q4 representation before and after a switch is not the right comparison. The correct comparison is the representation rates in the last three months of each age group, i.e., how is representation is Oct/Nov/Dec birth dates now versus representation in May/June/July birth dates after a school year switch.

Yes, if it wasn't clear, that was the comparison - Q4 before switch (May-Jul) against Q4 after switch (Oct-Dec). If you search for the recent study, the one they are discussing in the ECNL podcast, it's "Relative age effect across talent identification process of youth female soccer players in the United States," Finnegan et al., 2024.

Female youth data from before the switch showed a more balanced representation of Q1 (Aug-Oct) and Q4 (May-Jul) across all ability levels. When just looking at a more elite subset (ECNL), Q4 was lower. Q4 would start at about 15% at U13 and tick up 1% each age group, showing that some late-bloomers were moving up to more elite teams. At the very highest level, national senior teams, RAE was gone or even reversed, in what was termed the "underdog effect." The idea was that those who did succeed against the odds during development years were more likely to be among the very best at the end of the journey.

After the switch, the new Q4 (Oct-Dec) is not represented across all club levels near 25%, but rather bouncing around below 15%. That would support the proposition that whereas the old Q4 (May-Jul) girls continued participating at less elite levels during the early years, the new Q4 (Oct-Dec) girls simply quit the sport. Youth national teams have higher Q4 representation than all club, which tends to show that those Q4 (new) girls who do stick with it are more likely to be good. The underdog effect is still most likely there too, but it's hard to see because the senior team's Q1-Q4 don't line up with the younger age groups as they are across the date for the switch in 2017.

Now, this could all be because Q1 participation rate has grown, rather than Q4 participation rate having gone down. But there are other studies showing overall participation rate going down since the change. If it's my job to both grow the game and improve our senior national teams, I'm looking at this study thinking "oh, crap." We have lowered overall participation, and done so mostly through pushing out Q4 girls. Underdog effect would tell me that those girls could be particularly important for the senior team. I'm left hoping that the Q4 girls who are dropping aren't the same ones who are my eventual "underdogs."

[Anonymous]

This makes sense my daughters ECNL 10 team only has 1 kid born in October on the 18 player roster 14 kids from Jan-May. I'm pretty sure the 11 team has 0 q4 players on 18 player roster.