ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So many things to correct in here, not worth the time or effort.

I’ll just focus on RAE. US soccer has nothing to do with how children physically mature. (See genetics, nutrition, and sleep for that).

US soccer has done as solid a job of any at the national team level accounting for RAE. They made it a huge area of focus at all level when they made the change in 2015, as well as when they ran DA.

US soccer also has little to do with the nature of time as it regards to RAE and cutoff dates.

Your issue on this should start in the mirror, and maybe at the club and coach level. Parents are what drive clubs and coaches to make short term decisions. And the clubs and some coaches certainly know better than to dismiss maturation rate differences.

But look, the idea that some sorry of Soviet 5 year top down systemic plan would develop better talent or even keep more kids in sport (in this case soccer) past the age of 12 is just laughable. Kids quit sports, most of them quit just after puberty….

Why? Because it gets harder to be good when the physical playing field changes. Some unathletic kids who survived in sport before, can’t survive anymore. The sorting takes place for more serious competition on bigger fields and tons of kids just don’t want to play if they can’t win now (also a parenting problem I’d argue). This is just such as stupid argument “more kids will play if we make it less competitive” is silly. Competition is how we separate the winners from the losers - nothing more, nothing less. And some people hate losing, but not enough to motivate them to work really hard to not lose. Thats life! Do we do the same thing for non-sport competition? Dating pool? Job market? College admissions? Promotions? Etc? This whole “more kids should play and it should be less serious” is the millennial parent equivalent of the boomer parent participation trophy. Enough of the BS!

Dude you are annoying as hell with the RAE crap. If your kid is good, they are good. That’s it. Nothing more to it.

Good relatively to what? There's always someone better. At another club or in another league or in another state or in another country. The your kid is good or not comments are beyond pointless.

I have the same reaction to the trash talk over who is "good." You would never know reading this thread that 99% of kids are playing youth soccer for fun (or at least should be), because most college commits are to crappy schools with a pittance of athletic aid. People are acting like their kids are headed for full rides at Stanford, Duke, and Harvard.

I think most kids and parents out there are happy to admit someone is better than them at soccer. But I guess those millions of players don't matter to those fighting over who gets $5k/yr in aid to play at Crap U.

If they’re playing for fun, the cutoffs don’t matter.

If they’re playing HS, the cutoffs don’t matter.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the age cutoff is, NO ONE IS PLAYING DOWN. Stop with this BS that any Q4 kid that would change teams/age divisions is doing so to play down. They would simply be playing their age bracket. How hard is this concept to understand. When things changed in 2017, was every Q4 kid now PLAYING UP? No!! They were playing their age division. The only way to play down is to falsify one's age to unfairly play in a league they are not eligible to play in. Good grief.

Won't a 2010 November kid start playing down with 2011's if it goes to SY?

We need to stop the up/down talk because people can't seem to grasp that the "up" and "down" is a relative term. Once you change from BY to SY, the entire reference system changes. A Nov kid wouldn't be playing "down" after the change; he'd just be one of the older kids in his new "true" age grouping. Yes the teammates might change, but that doesn't mean he's all of a sudden playing "down". Crudely speaking, playing DOWN is gaming the system to play >12 months below your age.

According to the rest of the globe and MLS, if you're a 2010 playing with 2011's (not allowed) you are playing down

ECNL world is apparently in a bubble

NO!! Ever hear of school year soccer/football in England and Argentina? Guess all those Q4 kids playing down as well. This is insane logic.

So November 2010 kid been playing with 2010's the past 8 years

They are forced to play with 2011's in SY, how is that not playing down?

If you keep asking, it’s not even worth still trying to explain.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the age cutoff is, NO ONE IS PLAYING DOWN. Stop with this BS that any Q4 kid that would change teams/age divisions is doing so to play down. They would simply be playing their age bracket. How hard is this concept to understand. When things changed in 2017, was every Q4 kid now PLAYING UP? No!! They were playing their age division. The only way to play down is to falsify one's age to unfairly play in a league they are not eligible to play in. Good grief.

Won't a 2010 November kid start playing down with 2011's if it goes to SY?

We need to stop the up/down talk because people can't seem to grasp that the "up" and "down" is a relative term. Once you change from BY to SY, the entire reference system changes. A Nov kid wouldn't be playing "down" after the change; he'd just be one of the older kids in his new "true" age grouping. Yes the teammates might change, but that doesn't mean he's all of a sudden playing "down". Crudely speaking, playing DOWN is gaming the system to play >12 months below your age.

According to the rest of the globe and MLS, if you're a 2010 playing with 2011's (not allowed) you are playing down

ECNL world is apparently in a bubble

NO!! Ever hear of school year soccer/football in England and Argentina? Guess all those Q4 kids playing down as well. This is insane logic.

The two (and only two) go to examples….lame

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the age cutoff is, NO ONE IS PLAYING DOWN. Stop with this BS that any Q4 kid that would change teams/age divisions is doing so to play down. They would simply be playing their age bracket. How hard is this concept to understand. When things changed in 2017, was every Q4 kid now PLAYING UP? No!! They were playing their age division. The only way to play down is to falsify one's age to unfairly play in a league they are not eligible to play in. Good grief.

Won't a 2010 November kid start playing down with 2011's if it goes to SY?

We need to stop the up/down talk because people can't seem to grasp that the "up" and "down" is a relative term. Once you change from BY to SY, the entire reference system changes. A Nov kid wouldn't be playing "down" after the change; he'd just be one of the older kids in his new "true" age grouping. Yes the teammates might change, but that doesn't mean he's all of a sudden playing "down". Crudely speaking, playing DOWN is gaming the system to play >12 months below your age.

According to the rest of the globe and MLS, if you're a 2010 playing with 2011's (not allowed) you are playing down

ECNL world is apparently in a bubble

NO!! Ever hear of school year soccer/football in England and Argentina? Guess all those Q4 kids playing down as well. This is insane logic.

So November 2010 kid been playing with 2010's the past 8 years

They are forced to play with 2011's in SY, how is that not playing down?

--
It was Aug 1- July 31 for the longest time. It is like that in many countries, including England. January kids have simply been playing down. Maybe if the January-June birthday kids were good...this decision wouldn't matter. Unfortunately, most are just RL players, only playing on the ECNL team, because they are playing down an age group with kids almost 12 months and a grade younger.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the age cutoff is, NO ONE IS PLAYING DOWN. Stop with this BS that any Q4 kid that would change teams/age divisions is doing so to play down. They would simply be playing their age bracket. How hard is this concept to understand. When things changed in 2017, was every Q4 kid now PLAYING UP? No!! They were playing their age division. The only way to play down is to falsify one's age to unfairly play in a league they are not eligible to play in. Good grief.

Won't a 2010 November kid start playing down with 2011's if it goes to SY?

We need to stop the up/down talk because people can't seem to grasp that the "up" and "down" is a relative term. Once you change from BY to SY, the entire reference system changes. A Nov kid wouldn't be playing "down" after the change; he'd just be one of the older kids in his new "true" age grouping. Yes the teammates might change, but that doesn't mean he's all of a sudden playing "down". Crudely speaking, playing DOWN is gaming the system to play >12 months below your age.

According to the rest of the globe and MLS, if you're a 2010 playing with 2011's (not allowed) you are playing down

ECNL world is apparently in a bubble

NO!! Ever hear of school year soccer/football in England and Argentina? Guess all those Q4 kids playing down as well. This is insane logic.

The two (and only two) go to examples….lame

Ok but football is school year in England. Not birth year. It starts in September.

[Anonymous]

Did ECNL say anything definitive? Or is this more rumors?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So many things to correct in here, not worth the time or effort.

I’ll just focus on RAE. US soccer has nothing to do with how children physically mature. (See genetics, nutrition, and sleep for that).

US soccer has done as solid a job of any at the national team level accounting for RAE. They made it a huge area of focus at all level when they made the change in 2015, as well as when they ran DA.

US soccer also has little to do with the nature of time as it regards to RAE and cutoff dates.

Your issue on this should start in the mirror, and maybe at the club and coach level. Parents are what drive clubs and coaches to make short term decisions. And the clubs and some coaches certainly know better than to dismiss maturation rate differences.

But look, the idea that some sorry of Soviet 5 year top down systemic plan would develop better talent or even keep more kids in sport (in this case soccer) past the age of 12 is just laughable. Kids quit sports, most of them quit just after puberty….

Why? Because it gets harder to be good when the physical playing field changes. Some unathletic kids who survived in sport before, can’t survive anymore. The sorting takes place for more serious competition on bigger fields and tons of kids just don’t want to play if they can’t win now (also a parenting problem I’d argue). This is just such as stupid argument “more kids will play if we make it less competitive” is silly. Competition is how we separate the winners from the losers - nothing more, nothing less. And some people hate losing, but not enough to motivate them to work really hard to not lose. Thats life! Do we do the same thing for non-sport competition? Dating pool? Job market? College admissions? Promotions? Etc? This whole “more kids should play and it should be less serious” is the millennial parent equivalent of the boomer parent participation trophy. Enough of the BS!

Dude you are annoying as hell with the RAE crap. If your kid is good, they are good. That’s it. Nothing more to it.

Good relatively to what? There's always someone better. At another club or in another league or in another state or in another country. The your kid is good or not comments are beyond pointless.

A kid is good when all the coaches and scouts and opponents recognize them as such.

The best is a different argument.

If you need someone to tell you are rich, you're not rich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the age cutoff is, NO ONE IS PLAYING DOWN. Stop with this BS that any Q4 kid that would change teams/age divisions is doing so to play down. They would simply be playing their age bracket. How hard is this concept to understand. When things changed in 2017, was every Q4 kid now PLAYING UP? No!! They were playing their age division. The only way to play down is to falsify one's age to unfairly play in a league they are not eligible to play in. Good grief.

Won't a 2010 November kid start playing down with 2011's if it goes to SY?

We need to stop the up/down talk because people can't seem to grasp that the "up" and "down" is a relative term. Once you change from BY to SY, the entire reference system changes. A Nov kid wouldn't be playing "down" after the change; he'd just be one of the older kids in his new "true" age grouping. Yes the teammates might change, but that doesn't mean he's all of a sudden playing "down". Crudely speaking, playing DOWN is gaming the system to play >12 months below your age.

According to the rest of the globe and MLS, if you're a 2010 playing with 2011's (not allowed) you are playing down

ECNL world is apparently in a bubble

NO!! Ever hear of school year soccer/football in England and Argentina? Guess all those Q4 kids playing down as well. This is insane logic.

The two (and only two) go to examples….lame

How many games did people's kids play internationally last year? Mine played zero. The very best kids I know all played zero. I'd bet only a tiny few who ever posted to this thread had a kid play internationally over the last year. But for some reason many think it's super important that theoretically their club team could, without having to shuffle some kids from the team above/below for a game. If he/she did play an international game, was it a friendly, or something important where the team really needed the chemistry from playing together all year?

The international angle is so silly when almost all (minus MLSN) club players will, back in reality, play for a school team. International alignment likely helps our youth national teams. Very few are even aware of our finishes. It might also help MLS with transfers. If people actually try to connect the dots of how international alignment benefits their kid, beyond simply placing them at the oldest end of the group, most would almost certainly find it offers no other benefit for them. More people are complaining that we need to travel less around the US, but here we are imposing misalignment issues so everyone could start traveling around the globe for games.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Did ECNL say anything definitive? Or is this more rumors?

None of the organizations involved in the decision making have said anything definitive. I think anything out there right now that hasn't came from US Soccer, US Club or USYS, can be considered false at this point. I am sure we will know something definitive by the end of the year as has been stated previously.

[Anonymous]

The whole thing about being forced to play “down” is real and part of the pushback. Take someone now playing for the top team in their age group at 11v11 for the first time. Now ask them to play with a group currently at 9v9 next season during their first year at 11v11. Sure they could make the most of it and become a better player anyway out of it but all things equal, it’s a step back, especially as the rest of their team moves ahead. From a global perspective, SY might be better match, but not for many within the current system. That’s why a phase-in at younger ages would be the best solution long-term.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No matter what the age cutoff is, NO ONE IS PLAYING DOWN. Stop with this BS that any Q4 kid that would change teams/age divisions is doing so to play down. They would simply be playing their age bracket. How hard is this concept to understand. When things changed in 2017, was every Q4 kid now PLAYING UP? No!! They were playing their age division. The only way to play down is to falsify one's age to unfairly play in a league they are not eligible to play in. Good grief.

Won't a 2010 November kid start playing down with 2011's if it goes to SY?

We need to stop the up/down talk because people can't seem to grasp that the "up" and "down" is a relative term. Once you change from BY to SY, the entire reference system changes. A Nov kid wouldn't be playing "down" after the change; he'd just be one of the older kids in his new "true" age grouping. Yes the teammates might change, but that doesn't mean he's all of a sudden playing "down". Crudely speaking, playing DOWN is gaming the system to play >12 months below your age.

According to the rest of the globe and MLS, if you're a 2010 playing with 2011's (not allowed) you are playing down

ECNL world is apparently in a bubble

NO!! Ever hear of school year soccer/football in England and Argentina? Guess all those Q4 kids playing down as well. This is insane logic.

The two (and only two) go to examples….lame

Ok but football is school year in England. Not birth year. It starts in September.

Yes….and in the rest of Europe it’s CY…your point?

ENT is going backwards if you haven’t noticed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

So many things to correct in here, not worth the time or effort.

I’ll just focus on RAE. US soccer has nothing to do with how children physically mature. (See genetics, nutrition, and sleep for that).

US soccer has done as solid a job of any at the national team level accounting for RAE. They made it a huge area of focus at all level when they made the change in 2015, as well as when they ran DA.

US soccer also has little to do with the nature of time as it regards to RAE and cutoff dates.

Your issue on this should start in the mirror, and maybe at the club and coach level. Parents are what drive clubs and coaches to make short term decisions. And the clubs and some coaches certainly know better than to dismiss maturation rate differences.

But look, the idea that some sorry of Soviet 5 year top down systemic plan would develop better talent or even keep more kids in sport (in this case soccer) past the age of 12 is just laughable. Kids quit sports, most of them quit just after puberty….

Why? Because it gets harder to be good when the physical playing field changes. Some unathletic kids who survived in sport before, can’t survive anymore. The sorting takes place for more serious competition on bigger fields and tons of kids just don’t want to play if they can’t win now (also a parenting problem I’d argue). This is just such as stupid argument “more kids will play if we make it less competitive” is silly. Competition is how we separate the winners from the losers - nothing more, nothing less. And some people hate losing, but not enough to motivate them to work really hard to not lose. Thats life! Do we do the same thing for non-sport competition? Dating pool? Job market? College admissions? Promotions? Etc? This whole “more kids should play and it should be less serious” is the millennial parent equivalent of the boomer parent participation trophy. Enough of the BS!

Dude you are annoying as hell with the RAE crap. If your kid is good, they are good. That’s it. Nothing more to it.

Good relatively to what? There's always someone better. At another club or in another league or in another state or in another country. The your kid is good or not comments are beyond pointless.

A kid is good when all the coaches and scouts and opponents recognize them as such.

The best is a different argument.

If you need someone to tell you are rich, you're not rich.

You have gone completely off the reservation now hahahaha

I've never seen or heard of a good player who isn't acknowledged as such by neutral soccer knowledgeable professionals like coaches and scouts.
Add the opponents who just encountered them

Your analogy to 💰 is asinine

[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.

So many things to correct in here, not worth the time or effort.

I’ll just focus on RAE. US soccer has nothing to do with how children physically mature. (See genetics, nutrition, and sleep for that).

US soccer has done as solid a job of any at the national team level accounting for RAE. They made it a huge area of focus at all level when they made the change in 2015, as well as when they ran DA.

US soccer also has little to do with the nature of time as it regards to RAE and cutoff dates.

Your issue on this should start in the mirror, and maybe at the club and coach level. Parents are what drive clubs and coaches to make short term decisions. And the clubs and some coaches certainly know better than to dismiss maturation rate differences.

But look, the idea that some sorry of Soviet 5 year top down systemic plan would develop better talent or even keep more kids in sport (in this case soccer) past the age of 12 is just laughable. Kids quit sports, most of them quit just after puberty….

Why? Because it gets harder to be good when the physical playing field changes. Some unathletic kids who survived in sport before, can’t survive anymore. The sorting takes place for more serious competition on bigger fields and tons of kids just don’t want to play if they can’t win now (also a parenting problem I’d argue). This is just such as stupid argument “more kids will play if we make it less competitive” is silly. Competition is how we separate the winners from the losers - nothing more, nothing less. And some people hate losing, but not enough to motivate them to work really hard to not lose. Thats life! Do we do the same thing for non-sport competition? Dating pool? Job market? College admissions? Promotions? Etc? This whole “more kids should play and it should be less serious” is the millennial parent equivalent of the boomer parent participation trophy. Enough of the BS!

Can you name one thing US Soccer did to reduce the relative age advantage of older kids relative to younger kids in youth soccer age years during or after they switched to calendar year? Cause if RAE was reasonable reduced, the age date change discussion here might have been less than 50 pages, dare I say fewer than 25 pages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The whole thing about being forced to play “down” is real and part of the pushback. Take someone now playing for the top team in their age group at 11v11 for the first time. Now ask them to play with a group currently at 9v9 next season during their first year at 11v11. Sure they could make the most of it and become a better player anyway out of it but all things equal, it’s a step back, especially as the rest of their team moves ahead. From a global perspective, SY might be better match, but not for many within the current system. That’s why a phase-in at younger ages would be the best solution long-term.

Who would go from 11v11 to 9v9? If a player "repeats" a year, that player would stay in 11v11. If that player is good enough, he can stay with his current team after the re-shuffling.

The birth year was always a dumb choice and it's past time to correct it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The whole thing about being forced to play “down” is real and part of the pushback. Take someone now playing for the top team in their age group at 11v11 for the first time. Now ask them to play with a group currently at 9v9 next season during their first year at 11v11. Sure they could make the most of it and become a better player anyway out of it but all things equal, it’s a step back, especially as the rest of their team moves ahead. From a global perspective, SY might be better match, but not for many within the current system. That’s why a phase-in at younger ages would be the best solution long-term.

Who would go from 11v11 to 9v9? If a player "repeats" a year, that player would stay in 11v11. If that player is good enough, he can stay with his current team after the re-shuffling.

The birth year was always a dumb choice and it's past time to correct it.

What’s dumb is forcing an all or nothing approach. Also dumb, all the talk about clubs and leagues not allowing Q4 kids stay with teams they’ve played for multiple years now on in the interests of fielding the best teams possible. So much for playing with your friends!