ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Subtle changes in 25, lol. Really? Have you not read the last 300 pages?? This is not a subtle group.

Its not even as simple as intra club transfers. They want the best kids in the are. Where I live, 3 of the top teams in the nation are within a stones throw of each other. You think they are sitting around waiting for another 12 months to start making moves? A mistake in how they handle this could set them back for a generation.

My daughter is the age of the target group. I was nearly assaulted today on the sidelines of an elite workout session. I told one parent my kid is a Q4 baby and I suddenly had tons of new 'friends'. Parents can't wait to kick your kid off the team to add my child and they are going to pull every string to make it happen. We're one day into this madness and things have shifted whether you know it or not. There will be nothing subtle about how this goes down.

Sure…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Let's see if ECNL can address trap players for college recruiting earlier than 26/27. I hope they can do it on 25/26.

Why do they have to? It's been this way before and the kids were fine. Play up or play grade. It's not a big deal. No one needs to ADDRESS anything.

Who thinks colleges have a hard time getting in players because they don't know their graduation year from HS?

I think people like you that struggle with this whole concept never studied statistics. We need to make stats mandatory in HS for everyone. Start with 100 8 year olds that are Q4 playing soccer. They are all college bound kids. The data says most will drop out before HS. Those that stay ride the bench and don't develop very well. And the few that sift through are not in ideal recruiting scenarios. Recruiting is a game of numbers. If a coach knows who you are and wants to recruit you, they'll find you at the showcases. But what if they don't know who you are. Kids get recruited all the time by a coach discovering them by accident or other random means. That's less likely to happen when they aren't there looking for CAM's of your grade.

I know you have plenty of examples from your club of the great Q4 starters that got recruited with no problem. Nobody is arguing that. The numbers are clear, its much harder for Q4 to get recruited. Now the tables will turn and it'll be much harder for Q2. The difference is they'll at least be playing with their grade. Trapped kids have no such luxury which is silly. So now its fixed!

That isn’t what happens.

That’s what some parents of some Q4 players THINK happened to their kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a trapped player and before this started I was wondering how everything would play out. This year got really weird because she's in elementary and all her teammates went to junior high. She's one of the best kids on the team but the social part of this was unnecessary and has definitely affected her development. She'll figure it out and she'll be fine. But its clear CY is a mess and I can see why so few Q4 kids make it through the gauntlet.

That’s a logical leap to “clearly CY is a mess.”

It clearly isn’t a mess (neither was SY save for international benchmarking and NTs) This is all just the US Soccer equivalent of game of thrones.

What IS clear is that this change won’t fix what is actually broken with US Soccer. And complains, excuses and whining will continue ad infinitum.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Our director is talking about forming SY teams and having them play up since 25/26 is now a wash. So the 2012 age group is now Aug 1 2012 to July 31 2013. 2013 is now Aug 1 2013 to July 31 2014

Where do Q3 kids who started school early go under the new approach? For example, October 2013 birthday currently playing U12 and already in 6th grade? The above cutoffs would move them down a soccer year, but that would have them playing with kids a grade below them. Maybe an advantage playing against younger kids, but they’re already used to playing with older kids and moving down would mess up their recruiting cycle.

I don’t feel bad for kids who started school early or late. It’s a problem of your own making.

Did someone ask for your sympathy? I’m just trying to understand if the new system is based on the calendar or actual grade.

Its not based on grade and nobody wants that. They have it in other sports and it quickly incentivizes parents to hold kids back in school by ridiculous amounts. Majority of people want it by school dates either 8/1 or 9/1. If you pushed your kid to start school early then sports is going to suffer big time. I assume most parents know that by know and didn't care back when they were 5 or had tough economic circumstances and needed to start early. I feel bad but in these scenarios, even a very talented kid will struggle to play college ball.

Could they take a gap year between high school and college to get back to the “right” school grade, where they’d compare favorably from an athletic perspective?

Not sure I follow. If they graduate HS and didn't get recruited, then they take a year off, will their chances improved of getting a scholarship? Not in my opinion, no. The damage is done. If you started your kid in school a year early its a bad strategy for sports. Your kid would need to significantly above average in athletics and an early bloomer to outshine older kids. Doesn't mean it won't happen, its just tough. You could repeat a grade now to get them back on track. I don't advocate for manipulating academics for sports but just throwing out options depending on your priorities.

You’re a Q3 kid who is among the youngest on your current BY ECNL team yet are still good enough to start. Next year you’ll be among the oldest and clearly one of the best players on your SY team. Because you started school early, you’re a junior when your teammates are sophomores, but you manage the recruiting process as if you’re a sophomore, get a D-1 offer at the beginning of your senior year (when your teammates are getting their D-1 offers at the beginning of their junior year), but it’s for a full academic year after you graduate from highschool (when your club teammates are seniors). You graduate a year ahead of your teammates, spend a year taking random college classes at a local school and/or doing an internship, while still playing with your same club team and teammates, then start college the following year.

And don't forget to add that Santa Claus is real.

[Anonymous]

Easy matrix:

Q1/Q2 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q3/Q4 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q1/Q2 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Uh Oh
Q3/Q4 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Yipee!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easy matrix:

Q1/Q2 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q3/Q4 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q1/Q2 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Uh Oh
Q3/Q4 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Yipee!

Where is the second group playing, with their current team or “down” a year?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a quick note from a parent of a trapped player (Q4). She is best technical player on her team (top 100 nationally) and one of the most valuable in terms of wins and losses, but she is small. I want the status quo as the other two options are not as good. She can either A) stay on the current team but now there will be even bigger/older girls by an additional 5 months so she could be playing with girls 14/15 months. older or B) drop down and totally outclass her correct grade. Both options worse in my eyes.

Also, I dont think trapped, for recruiting purposes, is a big deal at all. Your club should be advocating for you, you should be advocating for you, you should be attending ID camps, etc. If you use trapped as a recruiting excuse it means you aren't trying hard enough. Period.

For girls it's off. Unless you have a U17 or U19 kid, you have no idea what you're talking about. As a trap youre recruitment window is not the same as the majority of your team. Your coach knows this and will hopefully push the kids in the recruitment window forward because it's their time in showcases. When it is your time, you are on a team of seniors. The colleges you want won't be attending your showcases as a young trap player (a junior) in U19. These colleges are looking for seniors who aren't committed yet, mostly smaller schools. Most U19 can't cobble a team together too because half of them are already committed in ECNL and seniors are busy with school and less committed to their team. We in this situation now. U17 isn't any better.as a trap player. Sure, you're playing with kids in the recruitment window, but you aren't . You have a wait another year. SY is best if the end run is recruitment. And ECNL is all about college. This change needs to happen in spring for tryouts so trapped kids are in their window for recruitment. It's more complicated for trap players.

Two best friends are both college soccer coaches. One on boys side and one on girls side. I asked them about this whole dynamic. They said they 100% know about trapped players because they are usually some of the top players in the recruiting class by virtue of them being good enough to make a top team even though they are on the younger side. So to say they get lost in recruiting is a bit of a fallacy. They both did say it would be easier for them to recruit when all the kids are same recruiting class so they are advocates for the change. They also said ID camps are more important to them for recruiting purposes than watching games (in person or video) because they can control the situation, set up specific match ups, move kids into different positions, run specific drills to determine skills, etc.

And once again! Problem solved. No need for change, lol. 20% of recruited kids are January and 5% are from December because Dec kids just need to try harder. Your buddy knows about the Dec kid but for some reason he's not recruiting them. I wonder why...hmmmmm.

Because they are not good enough I suppose? So now you are arguing RAE, not trapped player dynamics? News flash, RAE doesnt change with an artificial birth date range. So now it will be 20% September and 5% August in the future? Try to follow along. Trapped player is a different thing than RAE. A good player is a good player regardless of when they were born.

Now your catching up...nice job! Your correct...20% of future recruited kids will absolutely be September. Nobody is arguing about RAE. It exists and we need to decide where to put it. So ask yourself, does SY make sense or does CY make sense? Its not even a hard question. The current setup is a joke. Combined senior years, missing 8th grade time, recruiting challenges, social challenges when your whole team moves to junior high or HS. If you don't have a trapped kid you don't get it, its a debacle. And its a debacle that never had an upside. Is our National Team stronger because we switched?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a quick note from a parent of a trapped player (Q4). She is best technical player on her team (top 100 nationally) and one of the most valuable in terms of wins and losses, but she is small. I want the status quo as the other two options are not as good. She can either A) stay on the current team but now there will be even bigger/older girls by an additional 5 months so she could be playing with girls 14/15 months. older or B) drop down and totally outclass her correct grade. Both options worse in my eyes.

Also, I dont think trapped, for recruiting purposes, is a big deal at all. Your club should be advocating for you, you should be advocating for you, you should be attending ID camps, etc. If you use trapped as a recruiting excuse it means you aren't trying hard enough. Period.

For girls it's off. Unless you have a U17 or U19 kid, you have no idea what you're talking about. As a trap youre recruitment window is not the same as the majority of your team. Your coach knows this and will hopefully push the kids in the recruitment window forward because it's their time in showcases. When it is your time, you are on a team of seniors. The colleges you want won't be attending your showcases as a young trap player (a junior) in U19. These colleges are looking for seniors who aren't committed yet, mostly smaller schools. Most U19 can't cobble a team together too because half of them are already committed in ECNL and seniors are busy with school and less committed to their team. We in this situation now. U17 isn't any better.as a trap player. Sure, you're playing with kids in the recruitment window, but you aren't . You have a wait another year. SY is best if the end run is recruitment. And ECNL is all about college. This change needs to happen in spring for tryouts so trapped kids are in their window for recruitment. It's more complicated for trap players.

The SY / Soccer Season issue doesn’t change the opportunity to be seen by college coaches though, in fact it adds extra time. But so many parents are concerned about “which team” their kid is on vs what their kid is doing to stand out. It’s a misunderstanding of how to navigate the recruitment process - it’s passive thinking in an active process. And the colleges WILL be attending the same showcases, unless the club sucks (which is a different problem…but I guess age cutoffs is a magic fix).

To me, it’s really telling that the fight is over an age cutoff, opposed to going to the NCAA and rolling back the recruitment rules (which already are changing!) so that your kid can enter the recruitment process earlier like it used to be. My guess as to why that isn’t the fight, despite the ripe timing, is that the kids really aren’t that good, and are extremely reliant on their team to shine. Good teams hide bad players, just like bad teams hide good players. Makes sense why it’s all about “which team” and aligning recruiting windows for that team.

Nothing like the DMV crowd to find the shortcut, and a way to win despite sucking. It’s been that way since “W” came to town.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easy matrix:

Q1/Q2 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q3/Q4 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q1/Q2 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Uh Oh
Q3/Q4 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Yipee!

Be careful making such succinct accurate posts or else the thread won't make it to 400

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a trapped player and before this started I was wondering how everything would play out. This year got really weird because she's in elementary and all her teammates went to junior high. She's one of the best kids on the team but the social part of this was unnecessary and has definitely affected her development. She'll figure it out and she'll be fine. But its clear CY is a mess and I can see why so few Q4 kids make it through the gauntlet.

That’s a logical leap to “clearly CY is a mess.”

It clearly isn’t a mess (neither was SY save for international benchmarking and NTs) This is all just the US Soccer equivalent of game of thrones.

What IS clear is that this change won’t fix what is actually broken with US Soccer. And complains, excuses and whining will continue ad infinitum.

You'll never please everyone. That should never even be the goal. The goal should be what is right for the majority. BY was a mistake in that it was designed for the minority. Always, always a bad idea and whoever came up with the scheme should be fired. All SY does is put the world back in place for the majority. January babies got a short run of glory but its over.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy matrix:

Q1/Q2 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q3/Q4 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q1/Q2 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Uh Oh
Q3/Q4 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Yipee!

Where is the second group playing, with their current team or “down” a year?

Just saying the current kids reaction to a change to SY..........

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just a quick note from a parent of a trapped player (Q4). She is best technical player on her team (top 100 nationally) and one of the most valuable in terms of wins and losses, but she is small. I want the status quo as the other two options are not as good. She can either A) stay on the current team but now there will be even bigger/older girls by an additional 5 months so she could be playing with girls 14/15 months. older or B) drop down and totally outclass her correct grade. Both options worse in my eyes.

Also, I dont think trapped, for recruiting purposes, is a big deal at all. Your club should be advocating for you, you should be advocating for you, you should be attending ID camps, etc. If you use trapped as a recruiting excuse it means you aren't trying hard enough. Period.

For girls it's off. Unless you have a U17 or U19 kid, you have no idea what you're talking about. As a trap youre recruitment window is not the same as the majority of your team. Your coach knows this and will hopefully push the kids in the recruitment window forward because it's their time in showcases. When it is your time, you are on a team of seniors. The colleges you want won't be attending your showcases as a young trap player (a junior) in U19. These colleges are looking for seniors who aren't committed yet, mostly smaller schools. Most U19 can't cobble a team together too because half of them are already committed in ECNL and seniors are busy with school and less committed to their team. We in this situation now. U17 isn't any better.as a trap player. Sure, you're playing with kids in the recruitment window, but you aren't . You have a wait another year. SY is best if the end run is recruitment. And ECNL is all about college. This change needs to happen in spring for tryouts so trapped kids are in their window for recruitment. It's more complicated for trap players.

Two best friends are both college soccer coaches. One on boys side and one on girls side. I asked them about this whole dynamic. They said they 100% know about trapped players because they are usually some of the top players in the recruiting class by virtue of them being good enough to make a top team even though they are on the younger side. So to say they get lost in recruiting is a bit of a fallacy. They both did say it would be easier for them to recruit when all the kids are same recruiting class so they are advocates for the change. They also said ID camps are more important to them for recruiting purposes than watching games (in person or video) because they can control the situation, set up specific match ups, move kids into different positions, run specific drills to determine skills, etc.

And once again! Problem solved. No need for change, lol. 20% of recruited kids are January and 5% are from December because Dec kids just need to try harder. Your buddy knows about the Dec kid but for some reason he's not recruiting them. I wonder why...hmmmmm.

Because they are not good enough I suppose? So now you are arguing RAE, not trapped player dynamics? News flash, RAE doesnt change with an artificial birth date range. So now it will be 20% September and 5% August in the future? Try to follow along. Trapped player is a different thing than RAE. A good player is a good player regardless of when they were born.

Now your catching up...nice job! You're correct...20% of future recruited kids will absolutely be September. Nobody is arguing about RAE. It exists and we need to decide where to put it. So ask yourself, does SY make sense or does CY make sense? It's not even a hard question. The current setup is a joke. Combined senior years, missing 8th grade time, recruiting challenges, social challenges when your whole team moves to junior high or HS. If you don't have a trapped kid you don't get it, it's a debacle. And it's a debacle that never had an upside. Is our National Team stronger because we switched?

To follow along with this argument then to answer your question then yes, the national team should be stronger, particularly at the earlier years like U15/U17. If the best kids, under a birth year structure, are Q1 and the international basis is birth year then we are equal to our global competition. If, in a school year structure, the best kids are Q3 and the international basis is still birth year, we have a 6 month gap to "make up" right? All goes back to Gadwell.

For the record I am not advocating for birth year but it would seem that it is not without its positives at the YNT level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Easy matrix:

Q1/Q2 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q3/Q4 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q1/Q2 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Uh Oh
Q3/Q4 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Yipee!

Be careful making such succinct accurate posts or else the thread won't make it to 400

I’d venture that it’s more like:
Q1/Q2 Top Half of Pre-ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q3/Q4 Top Half of Pre-ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q1/Q2 Bottom Half of Pre-ECNL Team=Uh Oh
Q3/Q4 Bottom Half of Pre-ECNL Team=Yipee!

This kids this will effect aren’t in ECNL yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Easy matrix:

Q1/Q2 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q3/Q4 Top Half of ECNL Team=Doesnt matter
Q1/Q2 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Uh Oh
Q3/Q4 Bottom Half of ECNL Team=Yipee!

This is very accurate with only exception q3/q4 elite of ECNL can also choose to "move down" at times if younger club team makes top tier playoffs, additional showcase opps, etc

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid is a trapped player and before this started I was wondering how everything would play out. This year got really weird because she's in elementary and all her teammates went to junior high. She's one of the best kids on the team but the social part of this was unnecessary and has definitely affected her development. She'll figure it out and she'll be fine. But its clear CY is a mess and I can see why so few Q4 kids make it through the gauntlet.

That’s a logical leap to “clearly CY is a mess.”

It clearly isn’t a mess (neither was SY save for international benchmarking and NTs) This is all just the US Soccer equivalent of game of thrones.

What IS clear is that this change won’t fix what is actually broken with US Soccer. And complains, excuses and whining will continue ad infinitum.

You'll never please everyone. That should never even be the goal. The goal should be what is right for the majority. BY was a mistake in that it was designed for the minority. Always, always a bad idea and whoever came up with the scheme should be fired. All SY does is put the world back in place for the majority. January babies got a short run of glory but its over.

Huh? Majority? Minority?

The first 7 months of the year have more births than the last 5 months… you’re aware the cutoff is likely 8 or 9….

The cutoff doesn’t matter, you’re arguing RAE. If it’s RAE the system that aligns with international competition is better. If it’s participation, it’s the system the maximizes participation - that isn’t clear from SY or CY. If it’s participation, we’re just starting another experiment.

All that said, aligning the soccer pyramid in order to create the strongest NTs possible seems to work for every country in the world save a few empirical standard countries. If you look at interest in soccer in the US, it has, since the 1996 Olympics, very heavily corresponded with the major international tournaments. I’d venture that creating strong national teams is a better recipe to curating a strong soccer culture than worrying about Kindergarten rec team rosters (which have typically all still been SY).