ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

This is the best advice I can give to parents of young players. Try a different sport, hockey, swimming, lacrosse, other. Playing soccer in college is a hoax, for boys, college spots are filled by internationals. Girls side is now mirroring boys’ now and there are fewer spots. International students pay higher tuition. Avoid trashing your $ and effort and time. When your kid turns 15 it’s going to be late to go back in time. Invest your kids time in different sports or on improving SAT scores this will help more if you are looking for a scholarship.

[Anonymous]

This was not going through the moment Sd Surf posted their tryout dates which are next week.

There is absolutely no way the logistics would work for them to separate 3 or more age groups with such little time.

This was the biggest sign that it would not happen Fall 2025

[Anonymous]

To grab at a share of parents pay to play money, US Soccer pulls in about $10 million from youth soccer registrations and overinflated coach license fees. And US Soccer has the expense of running major pro tournaments in the near future, the cost of moving their headquarters and couldn't even afford to pay there men's national team coach without a donation.

If US Soccer continually sides with a few years youth national teams (say 100 kids) trying to get a couple of relatively meaningless wins at the expense of grass roots soccer plus what I will call mainstream travel soccer plus the youth soccer pathway into the college game (millions of kids), I just can't see a scenario where youth soccer, AYSO, USYS and USCS, doesn't tell US Soccer to pound sand and start their own governance.

Not arguing whether youth soccer should be SY or CY but US Soccer is completely responsible for blindly allowing RAE to thrive and not coming up with any tangible solutions. The crazy thing is that it is in US Soccer's best interest to grow the game and allow the younger half of an age group to be on something close to equal footing with the older half in opportunity but US Soccer has been wholly negligent.

US Soccer would have better senior national teams if they were able to make a dent in RAE as they could have the opportunity to pull from a pool of players up to double the current pool to pick the best players.

The billions of dollars in the youth soccer economy waiting for orders from US Soccer who only pulls in about $150 million a year is too imbalanced to continue. I can't see a scenario where youth soccer doesn't splinter at this point.

So to be clear, US Soccer's failure isn't centered on not listening to youth soccer who want to adjust their age dates, it is on not being a leader in fixing RAE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This was not going through the moment Sd Surf posted their tryout dates which are next week.

There is absolutely no way the logistics would work for them to separate 3 or more age groups with such little time.

This was the biggest sign that it would not happen Fall 2025

100%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To grab at a share of parents pay to play money, US Soccer pulls in about $10 million from youth soccer registrations and overinflated coach license fees. And US Soccer has the expense of running major pro tournaments in the near future, the cost of moving their headquarters and couldn't even afford to pay there men's national team coach without a donation.

If US Soccer continually sides with a few years youth national teams (say 100 kids) trying to get a couple of relatively meaningless wins at the expense of grass roots soccer plus what I will call mainstream travel soccer plus the youth soccer pathway into the college game (millions of kids), I just can't see a scenario where youth soccer, AYSO, USYS and USCS, doesn't tell US Soccer to pound sand and start their own governance.

Not arguing whether youth soccer should be SY or CY but US Soccer is completely responsible for blindly allowing RAE to thrive and not coming up with any tangible solutions. The crazy thing is that it is in US Soccer's best interest to grow the game and allow the younger half of an age group to be on something close to equal footing with the older half in opportunity but US Soccer has been wholly negligent.

US Soccer would have better senior national teams if they were able to make a dent in RAE as they could have the opportunity to pull from a pool of players up to double the current pool to pick the best players.

The billions of dollars in the youth soccer economy waiting for orders from US Soccer who only pulls in about $150 million a year is too imbalanced to continue. I can't see a scenario where youth soccer doesn't splinter at this point.

So to be clear, US Soccer's failure isn't centered on not listening to youth soccer who want to adjust their age dates, it is on not being a leader in fixing RAE.

I think it has more to do with winning over development mentality.

Sure ECNL can break off and do their own thing, but what will that do? Create more college players? There an only a few college programs that play out the back and play a technical style. Same with Club soccer.

Once coaches start coaching, that’s when things will change.

[Anonymous]

ECNL will have to start Pre-ECNL at U9 and build out their league. More for ECNL less for everyone else.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point US Soccer needs to come out and say it’s not happening PERIOD. Please spare everyone with a it’ll be reevaluated next year message. Just give clear direction. If it’s not happening, say it. If it’s not happening this upcoming season but will be implemented in 26/27, say it.

OK. No decision was apparently made to implement or not implement in 26/27 -- do you want them to lie? No change was put in. They may never make an announcement as nothing has changed. What would they announce -- nothing has changed? There is a good post by someone on CST who says that this has been reevaluated every year and this year is just like the last ones except people (like on this board) went overboard based on those comments from ECNL. What I think that psoter was saying is that there was never a serious look at changing.

So a survey is sent out every year regarding a possible age change?

[Anonymous]

Finally. Someone in the comments of that soccer league page has posted their email they received. An official email.

Now let’s talk about how fake that email is too

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At this point US Soccer needs to come out and say it’s not happening PERIOD. Please spare everyone with a it’ll be reevaluated next year message. Just give clear direction. If it’s not happening, say it. If it’s not happening this upcoming season but will be implemented in 26/27, say it.

OK. No decision was apparently made to implement or not implement in 26/27 -- do you want them to lie? No change was put in. They may never make an announcement as nothing has changed. What would they announce -- nothing has changed? There is a good post by someone on CST who says that this has been reevaluated every year and this year is just like the last ones except people (like on this board) went overboard based on those comments from ECNL. What I think that psoter was saying is that there was never a serious look at changing.

So a survey is sent out every year regarding a possible age change?

Probably to clubs and club directors.
But this topic comes up every year. This year was different because the podcast. it caused a lot of ruckus and parents started asking questions.

Very immature for those directors that were sending CST dms with fake information.

[Anonymous]

Things I believe to be true:

1) ECNL did overplay their hand. But we will still switch in 26/27 in all likelihood. But there will be no "official" announcement" of that by the end of the year. The press release will read similarly to what we saw from Michigan, that they will continue to evaluate.

2) The chaos was created by a very vocal MINORITY that thought they were going to be able to push something through unilaterally. I am looking at you Mr Lavers, among others. I get why ECNL was so invested as the change is more impactful to them than any other league but they did not appreciate the inertia and process of US Soccer as a whole.

3) In almost any unbiased review school year makes more sense than birth year for US Youth Soccer and we will make the move back eventually.

4) Soccer parents are absolute wack jobs to have such anxiety over a 7 month change in age groups. For the top players it wont make a bit of difference. For the bottom players it wont make a bit of difference. It is only for the kids on the fringes of the elite teams that should even care at all. But bottom line is a 7 month change wont make your child a Top D1 recruit if they weren't one already.

5) Get your kid on a team that they fit with the system, the coach and they get playing time to develop. The ECNL or GA or bust is so stupid. You should want to play 70 minutes a game on an ECRL team vs playing 15 minutes a game as 5th kid off the bench for an ECNL team.

[Anonymous]

This article did a good job of going over the issues back at the end of October. It was clear that one of the main issues was whether to make the change for Fall 2025 or 2026.


https://www.socceramerica.com/youth-soccer-dilemma-are-calendar-year-age-groups-an-error-worth-fixing/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To grab at a share of parents pay to play money, US Soccer pulls in about $10 million from youth soccer registrations and overinflated coach license fees. And US Soccer has the expense of running major pro tournaments in the near future, the cost of moving their headquarters and couldn't even afford to pay there men's national team coach without a donation.

If US Soccer continually sides with a few years youth national teams (say 100 kids) trying to get a couple of relatively meaningless wins at the expense of grass roots soccer plus what I will call mainstream travel soccer plus the youth soccer pathway into the college game (millions of kids), I just can't see a scenario where youth soccer, AYSO, USYS and USCS, doesn't tell US Soccer to pound sand and start their own governance.

Not arguing whether youth soccer should be SY or CY but US Soccer is completely responsible for blindly allowing RAE to thrive and not coming up with any tangible solutions. The crazy thing is that it is in US Soccer's best interest to grow the game and allow the younger half of an age group to be on something close to equal footing with the older half in opportunity but US Soccer has been wholly negligent.

US Soccer would have better senior national teams if they were able to make a dent in RAE as they could have the opportunity to pull from a pool of players up to double the current pool to pick the best players.

The billions of dollars in the youth soccer economy waiting for orders from US Soccer who only pulls in about $150 million a year is too imbalanced to continue. I can't see a scenario where youth soccer doesn't splinter at this point.

So to be clear, US Soccer's failure isn't centered on not listening to youth soccer who want to adjust their age dates, it is on not being a leader in fixing RAE.

I think it has more to do with winning over development mentality.

Sure ECNL can break off and do their own thing, but what will that do? Create more college players? There an only a few college programs that play out the back and play a technical style. Same with Club soccer.

Once coaches start coaching, that’s when things will change.

Coaches want/need wins, I agree they are at the center of the problem. I don't think this can be fixed, you give them the rules, they are going to try to win. Heck, the kids want to win too, and the parents, and the clubs. We need better rules.

A trial revolutionary solution is needed, something like running fall seasons in ECRL under SY and the spring under CY. Or the spring season stops at the end of April but a summer exhibition season starts under different age dates.

I am amazed at the lack of creative thinking to reduce RAE in all of youth sports.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:ECNL will have to start Pre-ECNL at U9 and build out their league. More for ECNL less for everyone else.

They are almost there already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:New to this thread, and it’s interesting how invested people are in this issue. It seems to me that there will always be a 12 month spread no matter how they place the cut offs. Younger kids will always be at a slight disadvantage. It’s just going to be different kids. So the real issue is “trapped” players? An extra year of exposure doesn’t necessarily seem like a bad thing if your player is strong? So are all the SY advocates parents of smaller August-December players that aren’t getting much playing time? And if we moved to SY we’d have a similar issue with parents of February-July birthdays? Let’s just pick a cut off and live with it instead of upending these teams every 10 years.

“Trapped” doesn’t exist. It’s a crutch parents and kids use to excuse and blame outcomes they don’t like.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To grab at a share of parents pay to play money, US Soccer pulls in about $10 million from youth soccer registrations and overinflated coach license fees. And US Soccer has the expense of running major pro tournaments in the near future, the cost of moving their headquarters and couldn't even afford to pay there men's national team coach without a donation.

If US Soccer continually sides with a few years youth national teams (say 100 kids) trying to get a couple of relatively meaningless wins at the expense of grass roots soccer plus what I will call mainstream travel soccer plus the youth soccer pathway into the college game (millions of kids), I just can't see a scenario where youth soccer, AYSO, USYS and USCS, doesn't tell US Soccer to pound sand and start their own governance.

Not arguing whether youth soccer should be SY or CY but US Soccer is completely responsible for blindly allowing RAE to thrive and not coming up with any tangible solutions. The crazy thing is that it is in US Soccer's best interest to grow the game and allow the younger half of an age group to be on something close to equal footing with the older half in opportunity but US Soccer has been wholly negligent.

US Soccer would have better senior national teams if they were able to make a dent in RAE as they could have the opportunity to pull from a pool of players up to double the current pool to pick the best players.

The billions of dollars in the youth soccer economy waiting for orders from US Soccer who only pulls in about $150 million a year is too imbalanced to continue. I can't see a scenario where youth soccer doesn't splinter at this point.

So to be clear, US Soccer's failure isn't centered on not listening to youth soccer who want to adjust their age dates, it is on not being a leader in fixing RAE.

I think it has more to do with winning over development mentality.

Sure ECNL can break off and do their own thing, but what will that do? Create more college players? There an only a few college programs that play out the back and play a technical style. Same with Club soccer.

Once coaches start coaching, that’s when things will change.

Coaches want/need wins, I agree they are at the center of the problem. I don't think this can be fixed, you give them the rules, they are going to try to win. Heck, the kids want to win too, and the parents, and the clubs. We need better rules.

A trial revolutionary solution is needed, something like running fall seasons in ECRL under SY and the spring under CY. Or the spring season stops at the end of April but a summer exhibition season starts under different age dates.

I am amazed at the lack of creative thinking to reduce RAE in all of youth sports.

That's interesting. But how would that work. 2 tryouts per year? Tryouts already start way too early. Why are we selecting teams that start in late August in April.