ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Guessing they wanted to wait to make a unified decision. Lavers said no, we can do this without you! GA said, “I know you are but what am I?”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not to encourage this roller coaster ride but: https://files.constantcontact.com/faa620c7001/8f1d1a6f-efec-4134-872d-4e995450d16c.pdf?rdr=true

Everyone just do whatever you want. Or let’s delay it a year. Such leadership.

Basically going to switch to SY bc ECNL will switch and GA likely as well.

I know ECNL wants to change this year. Wonder if they do now or wait until 2026.

It just makes too much sense for ECNL/RL to go in fall 2025 with a couple of waivers for Aug-Dec players per team as a way to ease into this while seeming to follow the rules.

No move to 2026. None at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance:

Denial: An early stage where someone might say "BY won't affect us"

Anger: Someone might feel angry because BY won't let them play down for wins

Bargaining: Someone might feel helpless and try to gain a sense of control by focusing on their regrets or personal faults

Depression: A stage of grief

Acceptance: A stage where someone realizes BY is happening and tries to figure out how to move forward

Which stage are all the nutballs holding onto spelling errors as the reason why SY isn't happening.

Hahahahahaha... Free entertainment

Could we get an update?

[Anonymous]

Are these minutes? What does it say? Anybody can copy and paste? What's in this PDF for those who are suspect of these types of links and would rather not click on them?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For club players their last chance to impress is their junior year season. For Trapped players they basically dont have a normal team to play on and have to hope that they have been spotted in their sophomore year.

Trapped players don’t lose their junior season….

Yes they do. Why you ask? Because during their prime recruiting year when they should be at showcases, they are on a team full of seniors who are focussed elsewhere and bail out- especially if they have decided they don’t want to play in college. They don’t want to go to showcases (too busy studying for SAT, applications etc) and they just don’t care by that point. The junior player is at the beck and call of a team of checked out seniors. Could they go find another club. Of course! But it would still be with seniors who in a different life stage with different priorities. They can’t even get the seniors out to practice 3 days a week much less travel to all the showcases-especially those in March- May which should be the prime time for the junior. It’s an albatross being on a senior team when you are not a senior.

Jesus man, listen to yourself. You’re blaming other kids for your kids outcome.

What you’re saying is “they don’t have the team I want them to have, with a focus the benefits my kid.”

Clearly your club doesn’t send teams to nationals or even the consolation nationals, and the kids have nothing to play for (including college). Sounds like a club change is needed, not a universal rule change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Are these minutes? What does it say? Anybody can copy and paste? What's in this PDF for those who are suspect of these types of links and would rather not click on them?

Clearly you want school year! Amirite?!?

[Anonymous]

400 by tomorrow night

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are these minutes? What does it say? Anybody can copy and paste? What's in this PDF for those who are suspect of these types of links and would rather not click on them?

Clearly you want school year! Amirite?!?

No, maybe. Just not for my kid unless it helps them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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!

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.

Yes…

1) They level set the age cutoff to align with the vast majority of the rest of the world so they could benchmark talent and development to age similar peers on a basis that could be narrowed down to the day against a “competition level” x axis.

2) They rolled out the USNT “Futures” program that was explicitly aimed at talent ID that factored in RAE to try to reduce the number of kids missed.

3) They funded numerous studies on RAE with research universities.

4) They developed curriculum and punished numerous tools for coaches and talent ID to assist with heightening the awareness and focus of RAE.

Etc etc etc

I don't see any of that actually happening. The goal should be making great players when they hit 18-21. But, the truth is clubs pick teams to win that year. You generally win with the most athletic/ biggest players. So kids that are late birthdays or late developers (but have high technical/soccer iq) are generally put on the B team, and maybe if they stick with it..will be great once they catch up in athletic ability /size. But they have been told they suck for years, despite training...had lower level of coaching and attention from coaches...so good luck to those kids maintaining confidence/ getting noticed.

If I said you have to keep the same team for 5 years...I am guessing coaches would pick entirely different rosters. Its the main reason US Soccer is so poor. We are filled with athletic kids who have low level of technical ability or soccer iq...because none of those abilities got you noticed. Once everyone catches up athletically to them...they have no answer..bc they only learned to play by being faster or more athletic than the competition.

This isn’t true, this is “made up parade of horribles.”

The vast majority quit at 12/13. So if you’re a parent of an 8-10 year old who was told they suck over and over again from 8-10, you have a parenting problem, not a “US Soccer” problem, you have a club and coach problem, not a “US Soccer” problem.

Where is the personal accountability? This strikes me as the same mindset as the Bethesda parents who are just all in a tizzy because their 15 year old isn’t getting Lamine skills from their 1.5hour 3x a week team practice.

The stats speak for themselves. I have 1 late birthday on my team. Looking at the rosters 90% of the top 2 teams for each age group is Q1Q2 birthdays.

Sorry, RAE is real- your kid is not good- just older than their competition. Put them in a group with kids just 5 months older...and they can no longer compete.

Strawman much? Never said RAE isn’t real….get a grip dude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For club players their last chance to impress is their junior year season. For Trapped players they basically dont have a normal team to play on and have to hope that they have been spotted in their sophomore year.

Trapped players don’t lose their junior season….

Yes they do. Why you ask? Because during their prime recruiting year when they should be at showcases, they are on a team full of seniors who are focussed elsewhere and bail out- especially if they have decided they don’t want to play in college. They don’t want to go to showcases (too busy studying for SAT, applications etc) and they just don’t care by that point. The junior player is at the beck and call of a team of checked out seniors. Could they go find another club. Of course! But it would still be with seniors who in a different life stage with different priorities. They can’t even get the seniors out to practice 3 days a week much less travel to all the showcases-especially those in March- May which should be the prime time for the junior. It’s an albatross being on a senior team when you are not a senior.

Jesus man, listen to yourself. You’re blaming other kids for your kids outcome.

What you’re saying is “they don’t have the team I want them to have, with a focus the benefits my kid.”

Clearly your club doesn’t send teams to nationals or even the consolation nationals, and the kids have nothing to play for (including college). Sounds like a club change is needed, not a universal rule change.

You misread it. They are faulting the calendar year date cutoffs for putting kids in different school grades on the same team.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:400 by tomorrow night

Hey, I found this thread via Google search (I'm not from the DC area) and it has more interesting info than almost anywhere else at this point (save Reddit)!

[Anonymous]

So, ECNL likely to go SY in fall 2026?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For club players their last chance to impress is their junior year season. For Trapped players they basically dont have a normal team to play on and have to hope that they have been spotted in their sophomore year.

Trapped players don’t lose their junior season….

Yes they do. Why you ask? Because during their prime recruiting year when they should be at showcases, they are on a team full of seniors who are focussed elsewhere and bail out- especially if they have decided they don’t want to play in college. They don’t want to go to showcases (too busy studying for SAT, applications etc) and they just don’t care by that point. The junior player is at the beck and call of a team of checked out seniors. Could they go find another club. Of course! But it would still be with seniors who in a different life stage with different priorities. They can’t even get the seniors out to practice 3 days a week much less travel to all the showcases-especially those in March- May which should be the prime time for the junior. It’s an albatross being on a senior team when you are not a senior.

Jesus man, listen to yourself. You’re blaming other kids for your kids outcome.

What you’re saying is “they don’t have the team I want them to have, with a focus the benefits my kid.”

Clearly your club doesn’t send teams to nationals or even the consolation nationals, and the kids have nothing to play for (including college). Sounds like a club change is needed, not a universal rule change.

You misread it. They are faulting the calendar year date cutoffs for putting kids in different school grades on the same team.

Why so serious, guys! You guys must be the life of every party you go to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:But your Q1 and Q2 DDs really are the better players . . . .

Can’t wait to see next year’s rosters.

Dumbest take of the day.

Kids that suck will still suck, kids that ball, will still ball. Age cutoffs won’t change talent.

BUT, some Q4 scrubs that were riding the pine one good teams will likely end up starting on some sucky teams in 2 years. I just wonder who their parents will blame then…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For club players their last chance to impress is their junior year season. For Trapped players they basically dont have a normal team to play on and have to hope that they have been spotted in their sophomore year.

Trapped players don’t lose their junior season….

Yes they do. Why you ask? Because during their prime recruiting year when they should be at showcases, they are on a team full of seniors who are focussed elsewhere and bail out- especially if they have decided they don’t want to play in college. They don’t want to go to showcases (too busy studying for SAT, applications etc) and they just don’t care by that point. The junior player is at the beck and call of a team of checked out seniors. Could they go find another club. Of course! But it would still be with seniors who in a different life stage with different priorities. They can’t even get the seniors out to practice 3 days a week much less travel to all the showcases-especially those in March- May which should be the prime time for the junior. It’s an albatross being on a senior team when you are not a senior.

Jesus man, listen to yourself. You’re blaming other kids for your kids outcome.

What you’re saying is “they don’t have the team I want them to have, with a focus the benefits my kid.”

Clearly your club doesn’t send teams to nationals or even the consolation nationals, and the kids have nothing to play for (including college). Sounds like a club change is needed, not a universal rule change.

You misread it. They are faulting the calendar year date cutoffs for putting kids in different school grades on the same team.

No they got it right. Everything is everyone else's fault. Grow up, actively recruit for your decent player. If your kid is good enough coaches will be interested. Stop blaming everything else under the sun for why a 'younger kid' doesn't make it to whatever you expect them to make. Kids making National teams at 15/16 and the a national team in their late teens should be more than enough to make you fall birthday parents shut up about how unfair the world is to your previous fall babies.

Face facts: your kid isn't as great as you think they are. That's the problem not the birth cut off.