ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If Lavers had any stones, he would mandate that ECNL goes school year for 25/26. It rips the bandaid off of something that is coming any way AND it gives first mover advantage for recruiting the top Q3/Q4 kids to the ECNL platform.

Will he do it, probably not, but maybe he should.

I dont think US Soccer really has enough of a stick to punish the ECNL for moving that direction. What are they going to do, limit ID Camp invites? Good luck with 70%+ of all national teams being made up of ECNL players. And I dont think there is much funding from US Soccer. Maybe tournament restrictions or something but who really cares.

Regardless of what US Soccer could, or couldn't do to ECNL, going against the grain for one year of a possible advantage at the expense of ostracizing yourself from the rest of soccer, makes zero sense.

Doesnt Rory Dames still own a club in ECNL? That kind of shows you that ECNL doesnt really care about being ostracized!

accusations shouldn't get you disqualified for anything.

You must not have daughters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a SOCAL Board Member

Now as leagues and clubs we are likely going to be faced with a decision. From the information that has been circulating it is unlikely that US Soccer will remove the birth year mandate which will not be a return to a school year mandate as soon have mentioned. It will open the door for leagues, clubs and national organizations (US Club, USYS, AYSO, USSSA, MLS) to make their own determinations on what format they would like to participate in. This has the overt ability to divide the already extremely divided US Soccer landscape even further and with US Club, USYS and AYSO coming out with a joint statement that they will work together to implement a joint decision based on what US Soccer decides, this decision should really be coming from the very top and mandated all the way down. MLS will apparently not change their birth year structure as they are too tightly aligned with the national teams and with MLS' known integration with US Soccer, this is likely the reason that they will not be mandating this change. Whilst US Soccer knows school year is the best way forward, MLS is too ingrained in the fabric of the association's decision making so will always push to have their way even though it may not be best every the greater growth and development of the game. The majority of youth club level play around the world is school year and all national teams are birth year, so why does MLS feel the need to stay on the birth year track?

If this is true?.. This probably does mean US Club, USYS, AYSO will all goto some type of SY cutoffs and the vast majority will be SY. I like the idea of GA staying BY to give families additional options as well. If MLSN is staying BY clubs are going to have to manage separate systems one way or the other. I dont see why ECNL would not rip off the band-aid and start a year early or get into the semantics game and allow biobanding for all Aug-Dec kids or just have all the ECNL teams play up a year. With U18 vacant they can do it without problems.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a SOCAL Board Member

Now as leagues and clubs we are likely going to be faced with a decision. From the information that has been circulating it is unlikely that US Soccer will remove the birth year mandate which will not be a return to a school year mandate as soon have mentioned. It will open the door for leagues, clubs and national organizations (US Club, USYS, AYSO, USSSA, MLS) to make their own determinations on what format they would like to participate in. This has the overt ability to divide the already extremely divided US Soccer landscape even further and with US Club, USYS and AYSO coming out with a joint statement that they will work together to implement a joint decision based on what US Soccer decides, this decision should really be coming from the very top and mandated all the way down. MLS will apparently not change their birth year structure as they are too tightly aligned with the national teams and with MLS' known integration with US Soccer, this is likely the reason that they will not be mandating this change. Whilst US Soccer knows school year is the best way forward, MLS is too ingrained in the fabric of the association's decision making so will always push to have their way even though it may not be best every the greater growth and development of the game. The majority of youth club level play around the world is school year and all national teams are birth year, so why does MLS feel the need to stay on the birth year track?

If this is true?.. This probably does mean US Club, USYS, AYSO will all goto some type of SY cutoffs and the vast majority will be SY. I like the idea of GA staying BY to give families additional options as well. If MLSN is staying BY clubs are going to have to manage separate systems one way or the other. I dont see why ECNL would not rip off the band-aid and start a year early or get into the semantics game and allow biobanding for all Aug-Dec kids or just have all the ECNL teams play up a year. With U18 vacant they can do it without problems.

I just hope US Club, USYS, and AYSO pick one single birthday cutoff to use nationwide

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a SOCAL Board Member

Now as leagues and clubs we are likely going to be faced with a decision. From the information that has been circulating it is unlikely that US Soccer will remove the birth year mandate which will not be a return to a school year mandate as soon have mentioned. It will open the door for leagues, clubs and national organizations (US Club, USYS, AYSO, USSSA, MLS) to make their own determinations on what format they would like to participate in. This has the overt ability to divide the already extremely divided US Soccer landscape even further and with US Club, USYS and AYSO coming out with a joint statement that they will work together to implement a joint decision based on what US Soccer decides, this decision should really be coming from the very top and mandated all the way down. MLS will apparently not change their birth year structure as they are too tightly aligned with the national teams and with MLS' known integration with US Soccer, this is likely the reason that they will not be mandating this change. Whilst US Soccer knows school year is the best way forward, MLS is too ingrained in the fabric of the association's decision making so will always push to have their way even though it may not be best every the greater growth and development of the game. The majority of youth club level play around the world is school year and all national teams are birth year, so why does MLS feel the need to stay on the birth year track?

If this is true?.. This probably does mean US Club, USYS, AYSO will all goto some type of SY cutoffs and the vast majority will be SY. I like the idea of GA staying BY to give families additional options as well. If MLSN is staying BY clubs are going to have to manage separate systems one way or the other. I dont see why ECNL would not rip off the band-aid and start a year early or get into the semantics game and allow biobanding for all Aug-Dec kids or just have all the ECNL teams play up a year. With U18 vacant they can do it without problems.

I just hope US Club, USYS, and AYSO pick one single birthday cutoff to use nationwide

This seems most likely. The fear of fragmentation will probably be unfounded. The "flexibility" is really just so MLS doesn't have to go along with what everyone else wants.

[Anonymous]

podcast uploaded

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a SOCAL Board Member

Now as leagues and clubs we are likely going to be faced with a decision. From the information that has been circulating it is unlikely that US Soccer will remove the birth year mandate which will not be a return to a school year mandate as soon have mentioned. It will open the door for leagues, clubs and national organizations (US Club, USYS, AYSO, USSSA, MLS) to make their own determinations on what format they would like to participate in. This has the overt ability to divide the already extremely divided US Soccer landscape even further and with US Club, USYS and AYSO coming out with a joint statement that they will work together to implement a joint decision based on what US Soccer decides, this decision should really be coming from the very top and mandated all the way down. MLS will apparently not change their birth year structure as they are too tightly aligned with the national teams and with MLS' known integration with US Soccer, this is likely the reason that they will not be mandating this change. Whilst US Soccer knows school year is the best way forward, MLS is too ingrained in the fabric of the association's decision making so will always push to have their way even though it may not be best every the greater growth and development of the game. The majority of youth club level play around the world is school year and all national teams are birth year, so why does MLS feel the need to stay on the birth year track?

If this is true?.. This probably does mean US Club, USYS, AYSO will all goto some type of SY cutoffs and the vast majority will be SY. I like the idea of GA staying BY to give families additional options as well. If MLSN is staying BY clubs are going to have to manage separate systems one way or the other. I dont see why ECNL would not rip off the band-aid and start a year early or get into the semantics game and allow biobanding for all Aug-Dec kids or just have all the ECNL teams play up a year. With U18 vacant they can do it without problems.

GA is already getting left behind. there are only about 20 decent clubs in GA left. the rest of GA=RL. GA is getting left behind if they are still able to stay afloat in a few years. those top 20 will eventually merge to ECNL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was posted by a SOCAL Board Member

Now as leagues and clubs we are likely going to be faced with a decision. From the information that has been circulating it is unlikely that US Soccer will remove the birth year mandate which will not be a return to a school year mandate as soon have mentioned. It will open the door for leagues, clubs and national organizations (US Club, USYS, AYSO, USSSA, MLS) to make their own determinations on what format they would like to participate in. This has the overt ability to divide the already extremely divided US Soccer landscape even further and with US Club, USYS and AYSO coming out with a joint statement that they will work together to implement a joint decision based on what US Soccer decides, this decision should really be coming from the very top and mandated all the way down. MLS will apparently not change their birth year structure as they are too tightly aligned with the national teams and with MLS' known integration with US Soccer, this is likely the reason that they will not be mandating this change. Whilst US Soccer knows school year is the best way forward, MLS is too ingrained in the fabric of the association's decision making so will always push to have their way even though it may not be best every the greater growth and development of the game. The majority of youth club level play around the world is school year and all national teams are birth year, so why does MLS feel the need to stay on the birth year track?

If this is true?.. This probably does mean US Club, USYS, AYSO will all goto some type of SY cutoffs and the vast majority will be SY. I like the idea of GA staying BY to give families additional options as well. If MLSN is staying BY clubs are going to have to manage separate systems one way or the other. I dont see why ECNL would not rip off the band-aid and start a year early or get into the semantics game and allow biobanding for all Aug-Dec kids or just have all the ECNL teams play up a year. With U18 vacant they can do it without problems.

GA is already getting left behind. there are only about 20 decent clubs in GA left. the rest of GA=RL. GA is getting left behind if they are still able to stay afloat in a few years. those top 20 will eventually merge to ECNL

This is the plan for the clubs that think they are at the top of GA. Stay at the top -- get an ecnl slot as GA falls apart or when ecnl wants to strike. Clubs with MLSNext will face a tough choice. favors the girls side or favor the boys side.

[Anonymous]

And wait to next podcast:

Speaker 4: 31:58
Let me ask you this I I will tell you that everybody is on the edge of their seat for this question. Christian, the birth year update. I don't know if we can put the drum roll in post-production, but yes, we do have an update we're getting into this a little bit yeah, we're going to get into this a little bit more next podcast, but just to to give us an update, what do you? Yeah, so worst kept secret.

Speaker 3: 32:19
It's out there as various statements being made by people press releases press releases.

Speaker 3: 32:25
We always love that votes cut to the bottom line no change for this coming fall of 2025, but for fall of 2026, there will be. Technically, I think what they call it is a relaxing of the mandate or removal of the mandate of birth year. We could argue whether the mandate really had any power anyway or was more influential. But US soccer had a meeting, decided that doing it at this time is a little too short notice. Not going to mandate that it goes to school year, it sounds like Just going to remove a mandate that it goes to birth year, so people can do what they think is best.

Speaker 3: 33:03
They did a bunch of surveys on this and I think the short answer in the survey is that, you know, shockingly, people don't like change. That's one thing. So, even if they acknowledge the problems with birth year, there are people that just don't want to change because change bad. I guess you take that with a grain of salt. More people preferred school year than birth year. Majority of people say they have players being negatively impacted by the birth year age change.

Speaker 3: 33:28
One interesting thing that's come out of it is if going back to school year because, again, to make it very, very clear, what we expect is the mandate removed for the fall of 26. At that point most states determine school age by a cutoff of August 31, or September one or later. There's 50 states and there's there's some states that are, I think, as late as even October and how they calculate a school year. But there's more that are in that not 831, 91 cutoff than there are 81. And if the goal is to align more and more kids in grade level, I would think that that will become the more likely cutoff of September 1.

Speaker 4: 34:23
Not completely unexpected, right? Weren't sure what the timing kind of would be Not completely unexpected, so we will get into that deeper. On our next podcast We'll talk about it and how it may look and how it may be implemented and all those kinds of things.

[Anonymous]

Let me ask you this I I will tell you that everybody is on the edge of their seat for this question. Christian, the birth year update. I don't know if we can put the drum roll in post-production, but yes, we do have an update we're getting into this a little bit yeah, we're going to get into this a little bit more next podcast, but just to to give us an update, what do you? Yeah, so worst kept secret.

Speaker 3: 32:19
It's out there as various statements being made by people press releases press releases.

Speaker 3: 32:25
We always love that votes cut to the bottom line no change for this coming fall of 2025, but for fall of 2026, there will be. Technically, I think what they call it is a relaxing of the mandate or removal of the mandate of birth year. We could argue whether the mandate really had any power anyway or was more influential. But US soccer had a meeting, decided that doing it at this time is a little too short notice. Not going to mandate that it goes to school year, it sounds like Just going to remove a mandate that it goes to birth year, so people can do what they think is best.

Speaker 3: 33:03
They did a bunch of surveys on this and I think the short answer in the survey is that, you know, shockingly, people don't like change. That's one thing. So, even if they acknowledge the problems with birth year, there are people that just don't want to change because change bad. I guess you take that with a grain of salt. More people preferred school year than birth year. Majority of people say they have players being negatively impacted by the birth year age change.

Speaker 3: 33:28
One interesting thing that's come out of it is if going back to school year because, again, to make it very, very clear, what we expect is the mandate removed for the fall of 26. At that point most states determine school age by a cutoff of August 31, or September one or later. There's 50 states and there's there's some states that are, I think, as late as even October and how they calculate a school year. But there's more that are in that not 831, 91 cutoff than there are 81. And if the goal is to align more and more kids in grade level, I would think that that will become the more likely cutoff of September 1.

Speaker 4: 34:23
Not completely unexpected, right? Weren't sure what the timing kind of would be Not completely unexpected, so we will get into that deeper. On our next podcast We'll talk about it and how it may look and how it may be implemented and all those kinds of things.

Speaker 3: 34:42
One of the interesting parts just to say this and we'll talk about this in more detail, I'll have a guest on, I think, next podcast to talk about this is really kind of an acknowledgement that there is no developmental benefit for one or the other in terms of the cutoff itself. Makes a change in a player's trajectory, a player's ambition.

Speaker 3: 35:01
The level of play all of that stuff is is hogwash to put it scientifically, and that really this is about what people think is best for the player overall the biggest hurdle is disruption yeah and you know, I think we all understand because we've talked about it ad nauseum, but the disruption of listen the reason I say that is because you still have so many of these people who say, well, if you're, if you're aspiring to be a top level pro or a national team player, you have to play birth year. It's just complete garbage. Um, it has actually nothing to do with that. That's just an attempt to weaponize age groups.

[Anonymous]

9/1.....

[Anonymous]

Such a tease

"Finally, a tease for the next episode of Breaking the Line. US Club Soccer announced changes to birth year restrictions in 2026, and the crew gives their initial thoughts while looking forward to Episode 109, which will feature a much more in-depth discussion with US Club Soccer and more. "

[Anonymous]

Who was speaker 3?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Such a tease

"Finally, a tease for the next episode of Breaking the Line. US Club Soccer announced changes to birth year restrictions in 2026, and the crew gives their initial thoughts while looking forward to Episode 109, which will feature a much more in-depth discussion with US Club Soccer and more. "

This is the same as never having brought it up. Which is great. They are saying no one is ready. The whole 8/31 or 9/1 or later still needs a lot of work. We are 6-9 months out from real guidance.

[Anonymous]

9/1 makes no sense. C’mon US Club Soccer! We need you to put out your own mandate!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:9/1 makes no sense. C’mon US Club Soccer! We need you to put out your own mandate!

What they are saying is that there is no date that makes sense over any other date. In other words they would delete about 250 pages of this thread where people are making arguments for specific dates. They are saying it does not matter.