ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

I was reading up a little bit on Klinsmann, I didn't realize that he had a son that was in the DA from 2011-2014. Interesting that the last registration change was the year after. Klinsmann gone in 2016.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why doesn’t ECNL just come out and say it then?

Because they have made no decisions whatsoever. There is no secret plan. They have not decided. Will not soon. Nothing will be said without ecnl board approval. And nothing will be taken to the board for a while.

That is because US Club makes the decision....

[Anonymous]

Q3/Q4 GA Players are waiting for the announcement.

[Anonymous]

Did US Club actually meet yesterday?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is all just silly. Next week will be like this week. Well it could look like this or maybe we will go in this direction. Real answers are deep into 2025.

Didn't US Soccer say that we would know more by the end of the year and have a directive by March of 25'?

Did they say directive or say guidance? I think they will publish some parameters not mandates and then let everyone go from there -- so on that timetable ecnl would get it in March and it will take a fair amount of time to come up with what they want to do. Tryouts start in April (really earlier like January where kids start practicing with ecnl clubs) so that is not enough time to do anything.

You definitely could be right, assuming US Club had no foresight if this would pass/fail. The debate has been argued ad nauseum for 7 yrs, surely someone, somewhere has thought about what it would look like if they changed registration and also how they would go about it, before presenting. I don't think US Club will go full SY in 25'/26' but I have to think they have a plan in place to start the process. ECNL was arguing if BY was even a mandate...that does not sound like they are on the same page.

MLSN already allows 3 biobanding to play down a year under the BY mandate. I am not surprised if ECNL allows 3 Q4 players to play in their grade in 25/26. It will surely smooth the 26/27 hard transition.

Of all the clubs with MLS Next teams, how many use bio-banding?
Of all the teams in MLSN, how many has biobanded players?
How many MLSN teams have 3 bio-banding players?

To any heldback kid's parent to argue ECNL should go to GY, just join MLS and ask for biobanding. Your problem is solved. Now we are talking about 16-year-old freshmen.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’ve posted this before but after this last podcast it’s worth mentioning again.

My friend (yes I have one) is an ECNL director is Southern California. After the information came out last week he emailed his typical point of contact at ECNL and US Club.

Just wanting confirmation there was no plan for any changes for Fall 25. As California has tryouts very soon. ECNL contact said US club soccer was going to come out with additional information soon but didn’t say NO we are not changing anything for Fall 25 and us club soccer still has not emailed him back.

He thinks they have something in the works for addressing these issues without going against the mandate. But he’s just guessing and is also frustrated they are not just telling him yes or no.

So even ECNL directors are in the dark on this as well. They don’t know anymore than they are told.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I was reading up a little bit on Klinsmann, I didn't realize that he had a son that was in the DA from 2011-2014. Interesting that the last registration change was the year after. Klinsmann gone in 2016.

From what I've read about the change, it was primarily Klinsmann and Ramos (YNT team coach at the time) changing it behind closed doors. The youth landscape was not part of the discussion and blind-sided by it. Klinsmann basically thought the US sucked at developing kids, so we should make our best players marketable to European academies and send them there. The YNT angle was to align with their competition so we had more older kids within the age groups, as the old way ended up with too many best players who were 8+ months off the cutoff line. The youth soccer world was pissed that they were cut out of the decision. Just what I've read from people close to the decision/process at the time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was reading up a little bit on Klinsmann, I didn't realize that he had a son that was in the DA from 2011-2014. Interesting that the last registration change was the year after. Klinsmann gone in 2016.

From what I've read about the change, it was primarily Klinsmann and Ramos (YNT team coach at the time) changing it behind closed doors. The youth landscape was not part of the discussion and blind-sided by it. Klinsmann basically thought the US sucked at developing kids, so we should make our best players marketable to European academies and send them there. The YNT angle was to align with their competition so we had more older kids within the age groups, as the old way ended up with too many best players who were 8+ months off the cutoff line. The youth soccer world was pissed that they were cut out of the decision. Just what I've read from people close to the decision/process at the time.

That makes sense, their is a history there. US Club just hired a long time employee of US Soccer to head their compliance department. I think their is a lot more unsaid right now, than said.

[Anonymous]

Is it possible for ECNL to use 9/1 cutoff, and also copies MLSN biobanding to let 3 biobanding players? This will solve trap players for 8/1 or earlier cutoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To all the people who held back their kid from starting school, was your DC diagnosed with a problem before you made the decision?

No one is talking about kids who were held back. We’ve been talking about August kids who live in states with 8/1 cutoffs

Yeah I'm sure any of the posters fighting for 8/1 live in those states. This is a DC area forum, if you live here you held your child back. Your just hoping because small number of states have that cutoff.

My daughters were born two months early. I sent them to school based on their due date (October), not their birthday (August). There are valid reasons as to why kids are “held back”. Having an athletic advantage was not part of my decision making. I think there should be an opportunity to apply for waivers if the cut off is September 1st.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible for ECNL to use 9/1 cutoff, and also copies MLSN biobanding to let 3 biobanding players? This will solve trap players for 8/1 or earlier cutoff.

Why is cutoff date the focus vs graduation year. Wouldn’t that solve all of these concerns people are raising?

[Anonymous]

Might be just me, but they sounded a bit petulant talking about this. Did they really think they could change US soccer in 6 months with a podcast?

Selfishly, Im happy for my early August kid that they are looking at 9/1.

“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.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is it possible for ECNL to use 9/1 cutoff, and also copies MLSN biobanding to let 3 biobanding players? This will solve trap players for 8/1 or earlier cutoff.

Why is cutoff date the focus vs graduation year. Wouldn’t that solve all of these concerns people are raising?

Biobanding is what the other competing league (MLS) currently using. So they use BY + Biobanding. It is natural for ECNL to use SY + biobanding, instead of GY that no soccer league is currently using. This will solve trapped players.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Might be just me, but they sounded a bit petulant talking about this. Did they really think they could change US soccer in 6 months with a podcast?

Selfishly, Im happy for my early August kid that they are looking at 9/1.

“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.”

Was that a dig at US Soccer basing their recommendations off of the survey that they sent out like the week before?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To all the people who held back their kid from starting school, was your DC diagnosed with a problem before you made the decision?

we live in california and have a mid-august birthday and a school cut off of 9/1. our school district allows parents of august birthdays to fill out a very quick form and request transitional kindergarten rather than kindergarten since the kids make the cut off by a matter of weeks. having read the literature of studies that analyze kids on both sides of mandatory school cutoffs (which shows that kids who are older at time of graduation do way better as adolescents and beyond in terms of risk taking and academics), it was a no-brainer for us to apply to put him with kids who were his age mates (kids born between 9/1 and 12/1 and qualified for TK).

Our district gave our kid a TK spot instead of K spot, so we 'redshirted' him. was I thinking about sports? heck no. was I even thinking about his immediate development? not really -- we sent him to the exact elementary school and he had the exact same length of day, etc, he just got the benefit of being in a class of TK kids whose birthdays were a matter of weeks behind his.

So no, not all 'redshirting' is even really that intentional - it's more that schools increasingly recognize that being right on the cusp puts kids in age discordant situations, and so if there's a more age concordant environment available, why not let them benefit from it.