ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how clubs could start this earlier? Right not in ECNL trapped players are not allowed to play down except for half the season and even then only two are allowed to be rostered for a game. How could individual clubs “start early” if ECNL doesn’t allow for that?

I think the assumption is US Club/ECNL will allow some form of biobanding for this spring and possibly next year if they decide not to poke the bear. They have stated they would like to address the trapped player situation asap, hence the noise for the last part of a year. Having clubs and teams sit on their hands for a year and half seems like a nightmare, I am sure some will want to get ahead of it and start combining teams soon, those teams would need to play up, but that is easy enough.

In some areas there is no ECNL season in the spring to allow for HS soccer. But for 25-26 are you suggesting that clubs should play every team up a year? Is this really realistic? Why would competitive clubs that usually have multiple teams qualifying for nationals for example, compromise this without even a definitive idea of changes for 2 years from now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine graduates in 2026. Glad his team will be unaffected. They play well together and support one another. I’d have hated to see them broken up. Just my unpopular opinion.

It's not unpopular. The only people pushing for this are fall birthday families, which is maybe a quarter of the players at best as they are low birth months to start with. Everyone else is fine with it the way it is. Hold your kid back in school if you are so bent out if shape. Problem solved.

This doesn't make sense though, according to US Soccer only 41% of respondents were in support of birth year; compared to 47% in support of school year. If fall months have the lowest birth rates, where did all of the support come from?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Mine graduates in 2026. Glad his team will be unaffected. They play well together and support one another. I’d have hated to see them broken up. Just my unpopular opinion.

Not an unpopular opinion at all. You didn't setup the system. You just played in it and did well. Nothing wrong with that and you get to largely avoid most of the upcoming chaos. That's great! Your sons path is largely determined by now. If he's a Q1 kid, he got lucky during some crucial years and had an advantage that played out well. If he's a Q4 kid you gotta wonder what coulda been if he'd been allowed to compete with this grade. Either way its all in the past and you're almost done. Congrats!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine graduates in 2026. Glad his team will be unaffected. They play well together and support one another. I’d have hated to see them broken up. Just my unpopular opinion.

It's not unpopular. The only people pushing for this are fall birthday families, which is maybe a quarter of the players at best as they are low birth months to start with. Everyone else is fine with it the way it is. Hold your kid back in school if you are so bent out if shape. Problem solved.

This doesn't make sense though, according to US Soccer only 41% of respondents were in support of birth year; compared to 47% in support of school year. If fall months have the lowest birth rates, where did all of the support come from?

Did you say sense? lol. Now why would you expect that here? September has the highest rate of births worldwide....but that's just letting facts get in the way of a good rant. We'll never get to 400 if you keep getting in the way with things like common sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how clubs could start this earlier? Right not in ECNL trapped players are not allowed to play down except for half the season and even then only two are allowed to be rostered for a game. How could individual clubs “start early” if ECNL doesn’t allow for that?

I think the assumption is US Club/ECNL will allow some form of biobanding for this spring and possibly next year if they decide not to poke the bear. They have stated they would like to address the trapped player situation asap, hence the noise for the last part of a year. Having clubs and teams sit on their hands for a year and half seems like a nightmare, I am sure some will want to get ahead of it and start combining teams soon, those teams would need to play up, but that is easy enough.

In some areas there is no ECNL season in the spring to allow for HS soccer. But for 25-26 are you suggesting that clubs should play every team up a year? Is this really realistic? Why would competitive clubs that usually have multiple teams qualifying for nationals for example, compromise this without even a definitive idea of changes for 2 years from now?

You are operating under the assumption that there is a chance that they will never change to BY and in that case, caution would be warranted. But...we know that ECNL will making this change asap, it is a foregone conclusion unless something catastrophic happens. This is all hypothetical until we here from US Club so take it for what its worth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine graduates in 2026. Glad his team will be unaffected. They play well together and support one another. I’d have hated to see them broken up. Just my unpopular opinion.

It's not unpopular. The only people pushing for this are fall birthday families, which is maybe a quarter of the players at best as they are low birth months to start with. Everyone else is fine with it the way it is. Hold your kid back in school if you are so bent out if shape. Problem solved.

Did you happen to see the survey results?!

You are wrong. SY is more popular than BY in the soccer community at large.

BYers slowly getting more unhinged.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The announcement ignored the elephant in the room which is ECNL.

ECNL is US Club

ECNL will wait until clear in 26/27

Some clubs are already communicating to their members that they will make no changes next year as recommended.

[Anonymous]

If MLS allows 3 biobanding players to play down a year in the current BY system without offending US Soccer, I do not see any reason why ECNL can not let up to 3 Q3/Q4 players play down in their grade. This will smooth the transition and better college recruiting exposure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine graduates in 2026. Glad his team will be unaffected. They play well together and support one another. I’d have hated to see them broken up. Just my unpopular opinion.

It's not unpopular. The only people pushing for this are fall birthday families, which is maybe a quarter of the players at best as they are low birth months to start with. Everyone else is fine with it the way it is. Hold your kid back in school if you are so bent out if shape. Problem solved.

This doesn't make sense though, according to US Soccer only 41% of respondents were in support of birth year; compared to 47% in support of school year. If fall months have the lowest birth rates, where did all of the support come from?

Did you say sense? lol. Now why would you expect that here? September has the highest rate of births worldwide....but that's just letting facts get in the way of a good rant. We'll never get to 400 if you keep getting in the way with things like common sense.

Of course the majority wants SY
The majority of players aren't aiming for top tier status

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:According to the “release” by US Soccer a majority of members agree that SY is the way to go. What is even more telling is the members who want to stick with BY the driving factor was dealing with the change, specifically the tech platforms. Wow, so a few lines of code in Got Soccer, league apps, PlayMetrics, etc. are the major obstacles? Further, they thank everyone but ECNL, which is also very telling and open to a lot of speculation.

Plurality at best. Not sure what the 12% other think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If MLS allows 3 biobanding players to play down a year in the current BY system without offending US Soccer, I do not see any reason why ECNL can not let up to 3 Q3/Q4 players play down in their grade. This will smooth the transition and better college recruiting exposure.

This is the solution. I'd be shocked if there is ever another trapped player in ECNL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The announcement ignored the elephant in the room which is ECNL.

ECNL is US Club

ECNL will wait until clear in 26/27

Some clubs are already communicating to their members that they will make no changes next year as recommended.

I think most will wait to see what US Club has to say, if they allow waivers or "biobanding" to take care of the trapped players now; there will be movement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine graduates in 2026. Glad his team will be unaffected. They play well together and support one another. I’d have hated to see them broken up. Just my unpopular opinion.

It's not unpopular. The only people pushing for this are fall birthday families, which is maybe a quarter of the players at best as they are low birth months to start with. Everyone else is fine with it the way it is. Hold your kid back in school if you are so bent out if shape. Problem solved.

Did you happen to see the survey results?!

You are wrong. SY is more popular than BY in the soccer community at large.

BYers slowly getting more unhinged.

I think PP is saying BY is more popular with parents still in the system. Remember BY makes 8 months relatively older by a smaller amount, and 4 months get relatively younger by a larger amount. Also, a higher portion of the younger month kids already quit soccer, so they are no longer around to be tallied in the popularity contest. Read through this thread and you'll see that many parents would selfishly vote others off the island in a heartbeat to get a leg up (all while declaring everyone else "selfish" with total self-unawareness). Clubs and leagues do care about overall participation and satisfaction though, so SY was more popular with them. In light of this, it is surprising that this change most likely will happen, as the leaders are doing the right thing over the objection of the majority of the parents.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone explain how clubs could start this earlier? Right not in ECNL trapped players are not allowed to play down except for half the season and even then only two are allowed to be rostered for a game. How could individual clubs “start early” if ECNL doesn’t allow for that?

I think the assumption is US Club/ECNL will allow some form of biobanding for this spring and possibly next year if they decide not to poke the bear. They have stated they would like to address the trapped player situation asap, hence the noise for the last part of a year. Having clubs and teams sit on their hands for a year and half seems like a nightmare, I am sure some will want to get ahead of it and start combining teams soon, those teams would need to play up, but that is easy enough.

In some areas there is no ECNL season in the spring to allow for HS soccer. But for 25-26 are you suggesting that clubs should play every team up a year? Is this really realistic? Why would competitive clubs that usually have multiple teams qualifying for nationals for example, compromise this without even a definitive idea of changes for 2 years from now?

You are operating under the assumption that there is a chance that they will never change to BY and in that case, caution would be warranted. But...we know that ECNL will making this change asap, it is a foregone conclusion unless something catastrophic happens. This is all hypothetical until we here from US Club so take it for what its worth.

No, this is with the assumption that there is likely to be change in some form in 26-27 as understood. But the part about changing things in the spring or next year and having all clubs play their teams up a year makes little sense and seems very unrealistic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Mine graduates in 2026. Glad his team will be unaffected. They play well together and support one another. I’d have hated to see them broken up. Just my unpopular opinion.

Not an unpopular opinion at all. You didn't setup the system. You just played in it and did well. Nothing wrong with that and you get to largely avoid most of the upcoming chaos. That's great! Your son’s path is largely determined by now. If he's a Q1 kid, he got lucky during some crucial years and had an advantage that played out well. If he's a Q4 kid you gotta wonder what coulda been if he'd been allowed to compete with this grade. Either way it’s all in the past and you're almost done. Congrats!

And if it’s SY…this flip flops, Q4 got lucky, and Q1 wonders what could have been according to this heuristic. It’s a stupid point of view.