ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

If your kid needs all this cutoff year gymnastics to be competitive or a standout against younger kids, then college recruitment can't be a realistic goal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“if” US Club and ECNL do plan to change their cutoff dates for Fall 26 it would make sense to have some kind of phase in process or opportunity for trapped players and kids who are part of the large U19 groups. It would then fall on the clubs to decide what they want to do. Short term success or plan for long term teams.

I would be very surprised especially how the ECNL president is almost openly mocking pro BY people if a change was not made for Fall 26.

To his credit, mlsn without academy is same level as ECNL.

Colleges seem to disagree

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

WHAT 😳?
Due Date?

Premature means a baby was born before its due date. It’s especially common in multiples (that means twins and triplets). When babies are born premature, their development is monitored against their due date rather than their birth date. So a baby born in August with an October due date is born two months early. When that baby is a year old, it’s actually developmentally 10 months old. Hope that helps!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“The new standard also strives to lessen relative age effect (RAE). RAE is a selection bias towards players born earlier in the calendar year. Players born in early months are naturally older and more mature, but not necessarily better players. While the change to birth year registration won’t completely solve the problem, it will make it easier to identify and understand.“

This is a passage taken from a press release in 2017 describing the change over. I can’t wrap my mind around this logic.

If you’re stuck into the BY/SY debate you won’t be able to see the logic.

The reason for this is because BY is the international standard (but England…blah blah blah…we’re not talking about the BY/SY debate!). Aligning to a signal standard nationally and internationally allows you to look at your player pools and compare them across geographies and globally to see what the oldest cohort in an age is supposed to look like, and the youngest, etc.

In a SY cutoff, when looking at your “u16” your oldest is an August birthday, and your youngest a July. You can’t compare that to a normed benchmark internationally. And if your standard is not mandated nationally, you can’t even compare it nationally. In theory could you compare a 5/2010 kid to a 5/2010 kid? For sure. But the data isn’t that granular, and it’s age band based because RAE (and this is a common misunderstanding) is more than just size, it’s also soccer iq, technique, athleticism, maturity, cognitive ability, visual ability (convergence/divergence, depth perception, peripheral, etc).

No I get that it was affecting our NT, I just think it’s circular reasoning. Pulisic and Mckinnie came up through the DA system. Pulisic being born in Sept. Was DA based on SY or BY? I wasn’t around during the last registration change so I am trying to understand it all a little better. Thanks for your input.

What’s the circle on the logic?

It would improve RAE on the NT, by creating more RAE in the feeder system i.e. youth soccer

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“The new standard also strives to lessen relative age effect (RAE). RAE is a selection bias towards players born earlier in the calendar year. Players born in early months are naturally older and more mature, but not necessarily better players. While the change to birth year registration won’t completely solve the problem, it will make it easier to identify and understand.“

This is a passage taken from a press release in 2017 describing the change over. I can’t wrap my mind around this logic.

If you’re stuck into the BY/SY debate you won’t be able to see the logic.

The reason for this is because BY is the international standard (but England…blah blah blah…we’re not talking about the BY/SY debate!). Aligning to a signal standard nationally and internationally allows you to look at your player pools and compare them across geographies and globally to see what the oldest cohort in an age is supposed to look like, and the youngest, etc.

In a SY cutoff, when looking at your “u16” your oldest is an August birthday, and your youngest a July. You can’t compare that to a normed benchmark internationally. And if your standard is not mandated nationally, you can’t even compare it nationally. In theory could you compare a 5/2010 kid to a 5/2010 kid? For sure. But the data isn’t that granular, and it’s age band based because RAE (and this is a common misunderstanding) is more than just size, it’s also soccer iq, technique, athleticism, maturity, cognitive ability, visual ability (convergence/divergence, depth perception, peripheral, etc).

No I get that it was affecting our NT, I just think it’s circular reasoning. Pulisic and Mckinnie came up through the DA system. Pulisic being born in Sept. Was DA based on SY or BY? I wasn’t around during the last registration change so I am trying to understand it all a little better. Thanks for your input.

What’s the circle on the logic?

It would improve RAE on the NT, by creating more RAE in the feeder system i.e. youth soccer

Or should I say shifting the RAE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“The new standard also strives to lessen relative age effect (RAE). RAE is a selection bias towards players born earlier in the calendar year. Players born in early months are naturally older and more mature, but not necessarily better players. While the change to birth year registration won’t completely solve the problem, it will make it easier to identify and understand.“

This is a passage taken from a press release in 2017 describing the change over. I can’t wrap my mind around this logic.

If you’re stuck into the BY/SY debate you won’t be able to see the logic.

The reason for this is because BY is the international standard (but England…blah blah blah…we’re not talking about the BY/SY debate!). Aligning to a signal standard nationally and internationally allows you to look at your player pools and compare them across geographies and globally to see what the oldest cohort in an age is supposed to look like, and the youngest, etc.

In a SY cutoff, when looking at your “u16” your oldest is an August birthday, and your youngest a July. You can’t compare that to a normed benchmark internationally. And if your standard is not mandated nationally, you can’t even compare it nationally. In theory could you compare a 5/2010 kid to a 5/2010 kid? For sure. But the data isn’t that granular, and it’s age band based because RAE (and this is a common misunderstanding) is more than just size, it’s also soccer iq, technique, athleticism, maturity, cognitive ability, visual ability (convergence/divergence, depth perception, peripheral, etc).

No I get that it was affecting our NT, I just think it’s circular reasoning. Pulisic and Mckinnie came up through the DA system. Pulisic being born in Sept. Was DA based on SY or BY? I wasn’t around during the last registration change so I am trying to understand it all a little better. Thanks for your input.

What’s the circle on the logic?

It would improve RAE on the NT, by creating more RAE in the feeder system i.e. youth soccer

Or should I say shifting the RAE

As long as there are 12 months to each age group and there are youngest and oldest there will always be RAE

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid needs all this cutoff year gymnastics to be competitive or a standout against younger kids, then college recruitment can't be a realistic goal.

Cutoff year relative to a child's birth day is a factor in determining their predicted soccer outcome.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“The new standard also strives to lessen relative age effect (RAE). RAE is a selection bias towards players born earlier in the calendar year. Players born in early months are naturally older and more mature, but not necessarily better players. While the change to birth year registration won’t completely solve the problem, it will make it easier to identify and understand.“

This is a passage taken from a press release in 2017 describing the change over. I can’t wrap my mind around this logic.

If you’re stuck into the BY/SY debate you won’t be able to see the logic.

The reason for this is because BY is the international standard (but England…blah blah blah…we’re not talking about the BY/SY debate!). Aligning to a signal standard nationally and internationally allows you to look at your player pools and compare them across geographies and globally to see what the oldest cohort in an age is supposed to look like, and the youngest, etc.

In a SY cutoff, when looking at your “u16” your oldest is an August birthday, and your youngest a July. You can’t compare that to a normed benchmark internationally. And if your standard is not mandated nationally, you can’t even compare it nationally. In theory could you compare a 5/2010 kid to a 5/2010 kid? For sure. But the data isn’t that granular, and it’s age band based because RAE (and this is a common misunderstanding) is more than just size, it’s also soccer iq, technique, athleticism, maturity, cognitive ability, visual ability (convergence/divergence, depth perception, peripheral, etc).

No I get that it was affecting our NT, I just think it’s circular reasoning. Pulisic and Mckinnie came up through the DA system. Pulisic being born in Sept. Was DA based on SY or BY? I wasn’t around during the last registration change so I am trying to understand it all a little better. Thanks for your input.

What’s the circle on the logic?

It would improve RAE on the NT, by creating more RAE in the feeder system i.e. youth soccer

Or should I say shifting the RAE

As long as there are 12 months to each age group and there are youngest and oldest there will always be RAE

That is why I corrected myself, it just shifted the RAE to q3/q4 kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“The new standard also strives to lessen relative age effect (RAE). RAE is a selection bias towards players born earlier in the calendar year. Players born in early months are naturally older and more mature, but not necessarily better players. While the change to birth year registration won’t completely solve the problem, it will make it easier to identify and understand.“

This is a passage taken from a press release in 2017 describing the change over. I can’t wrap my mind around this logic.

If you’re stuck into the BY/SY debate you won’t be able to see the logic.

The reason for this is because BY is the international standard (but England…blah blah blah…we’re not talking about the BY/SY debate!). Aligning to a signal standard nationally and internationally allows you to look at your player pools and compare them across geographies and globally to see what the oldest cohort in an age is supposed to look like, and the youngest, etc.

In a SY cutoff, when looking at your “u16” your oldest is an August birthday, and your youngest a July. You can’t compare that to a normed benchmark internationally. And if your standard is not mandated nationally, you can’t even compare it nationally. In theory could you compare a 5/2010 kid to a 5/2010 kid? For sure. But the data isn’t that granular, and it’s age band based because RAE (and this is a common misunderstanding) is more than just size, it’s also soccer iq, technique, athleticism, maturity, cognitive ability, visual ability (convergence/divergence, depth perception, peripheral, etc).

No I get that it was affecting our NT, I just think it’s circular reasoning. Pulisic and Mckinnie came up through the DA system. Pulisic being born in Sept. Was DA based on SY or BY? I wasn’t around during the last registration change so I am trying to understand it all a little better. Thanks for your input.

What’s the circle on the logic?

It would improve RAE on the NT, by creating more RAE in the feeder system i.e. youth soccer

Or should I say shifting the RAE

As long as there are 12 months to each age group and there are youngest and oldest there will always be RAE

That is why I corrected myself, it just shifted the RAE to q3/q4 kids.

And at the same time created the trapped player.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

WHAT 😳?
Due Date?

Premature means a baby was born before its due date. It’s especially common in multiples (that means twins and triplets). When babies are born premature, their development is monitored against their due date rather than their birth date. So a baby born in August with an October due date is born two months early. When that baby is a year old, it’s actually developmentally 10 months old. Hope that helps!!

And by the age of 2 they catch up with their peers. Not sure how that is relevant to choosing when to start school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“The new standard also strives to lessen relative age effect (RAE). RAE is a selection bias towards players born earlier in the calendar year. Players born in early months are naturally older and more mature, but not necessarily better players. While the change to birth year registration won’t completely solve the problem, it will make it easier to identify and understand.“

This is a passage taken from a press release in 2017 describing the change over. I can’t wrap my mind around this logic.

If you’re stuck into the BY/SY debate you won’t be able to see the logic.

The reason for this is because BY is the international standard (but England…blah blah blah…we’re not talking about the BY/SY debate!). Aligning to a signal standard nationally and internationally allows you to look at your player pools and compare them across geographies and globally to see what the oldest cohort in an age is supposed to look like, and the youngest, etc.

In a SY cutoff, when looking at your “u16” your oldest is an August birthday, and your youngest a July. You can’t compare that to a normed benchmark internationally. And if your standard is not mandated nationally, you can’t even compare it nationally. In theory could you compare a 5/2010 kid to a 5/2010 kid? For sure. But the data isn’t that granular, and it’s age band based because RAE (and this is a common misunderstanding) is more than just size, it’s also soccer iq, technique, athleticism, maturity, cognitive ability, visual ability (convergence/divergence, depth perception, peripheral, etc).

No I get that it was affecting our NT, I just think it’s circular reasoning. Pulisic and Mckinnie came up through the DA system. Pulisic being born in Sept. Was DA based on SY or BY? I wasn’t around during the last registration change so I am trying to understand it all a little better. Thanks for your input.

What’s the circle on the logic?

It would improve RAE on the NT, by creating more RAE in the feeder system i.e. youth soccer

Or should I say shifting the RAE

As long as there are 12 months to each age group and there are youngest and oldest there will always be RAE

US Soccer wanted the youth national teams to have the oldest to be closest to January 1 so they could field relatively older teams for international youth soccer events (it isn't expected to effect the "grown up" national teams). Doing this comes at the expense of school soccer, college and HS, who would then lean towards players born in Q1 (with BY) instead of Q4 (with SY).

While US Soccer should use backward induction to create as large a pool (meaning actually support the young months in a youth year) as possible for men's and women's national teams and pick from them this large pool to thrive at the grown up level, they are stuck on a more linear path of weeding out the youngest players in an age group to try to perform well at international youth events because they think it will translate into wins at the "grown up" national teams. It doesn't.

Essentially, if you see blatant RAE in US grown up national teams, US Soccer's handling of youth soccer is failing not only the youngest players in an age cohort, but also it's self.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“The new standard also strives to lessen relative age effect (RAE). RAE is a selection bias towards players born earlier in the calendar year. Players born in early months are naturally older and more mature, but not necessarily better players. While the change to birth year registration won’t completely solve the problem, it will make it easier to identify and understand.“

This is a passage taken from a press release in 2017 describing the change over. I can’t wrap my mind around this logic.

If you’re stuck into the BY/SY debate you won’t be able to see the logic.

The reason for this is because BY is the international standard (but England…blah blah blah…we’re not talking about the BY/SY debate!). Aligning to a signal standard nationally and internationally allows you to look at your player pools and compare them across geographies and globally to see what the oldest cohort in an age is supposed to look like, and the youngest, etc.

In a SY cutoff, when looking at your “u16” your oldest is an August birthday, and your youngest a July. You can’t compare that to a normed benchmark internationally. And if your standard is not mandated nationally, you can’t even compare it nationally. In theory could you compare a 5/2010 kid to a 5/2010 kid? For sure. But the data isn’t that granular, and it’s age band based because RAE (and this is a common misunderstanding) is more than just size, it’s also soccer iq, technique, athleticism, maturity, cognitive ability, visual ability (convergence/divergence, depth perception, peripheral, etc).

No I get that it was affecting our NT, I just think it’s circular reasoning. Pulisic and Mckinnie came up through the DA system. Pulisic being born in Sept. Was DA based on SY or BY? I wasn’t around during the last registration change so I am trying to understand it all a little better. Thanks for your input.

What’s the circle on the logic?

It would improve RAE on the NT, by creating more RAE in the feeder system i.e. youth soccer

Or should I say shifting the RAE

As long as there are 12 months to each age group and there are youngest and oldest there will always be RAE

US Soccer wanted the youth national teams to have the oldest to be closest to January 1 so they could field relatively older teams for international youth soccer events (it isn't expected to effect the "grown up" national teams). Doing this comes at the expense of school soccer, college and HS, who would then lean towards players born in Q1 (with BY) instead of Q4 (with SY).

While US Soccer should use backward induction to create as large a pool (meaning actually support the young months in a youth year) as possible for men's and women's national teams and pick from them this large pool to thrive at the grown up level, they are stuck on a more linear path of weeding out the youngest players in an age group to try to perform well at international youth events because they think it will translate into wins at the "grown up" national teams. It doesn't.

Essentially, if you see blatant RAE in US grown up national teams, US Soccer's handling of youth soccer is failing not only the youngest players in an age cohort, but also it's self.

Seems like switching to the BY model was trying to increase RAE diversity by developing more standout Q1/Q2 players. That relied upon youth soccer still nurturing strong Q3/Q4 players through SY various programming, like rec and HS and even those trapped years, where since there were many MORE players than with the old SY cutoffs, they would have enough to do strong trapped leagues where those would be seen as worth it, where those players would feel even more prepared/confident about HS soccer and other opportunities. Obviously, it didn't work out that way where some trapped players did other sports and some teams decided to forgo HS, etc. Now, it's trying to flip the script, I think, hoping some leagues keep BY, so that there's different pathways where any birth month could potential be among the older player on the team. I think this is also why ODP is experimenting with younger/older teams within BYs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.”

I agree. They came across this episode as people that know everything and have nothing to learn, and that their perspective is the only correct perspective. Typically I lump people like that into the idiot category. And in for SY!

This episode also made it pretty clear that they view college as the only destination for us players, and a terminal destination, because the next stop for a college player, in their words was to either coach, or raise a kid that plays soccer.

I’m really not sure what to think about ECNL’s future as the college landscape changes.

From percentages though what number of youth soccer players get to play Div 1. Then from there what percentage makes it pro. Am I the only one that remembers the ncaa ad campaign "I went pro in something else"? There is allot to be said about keeping kids in the pipeline with dreams of college soccer. Listening to that non earth shattering podcast that was actually the most interesting part of it. Limit international players and as much as I'm against the incoming administration that seems like something they should be on board with.

I get what you’re saying. One of my kids plays tennis, and the internationals rule that landscape, so is poses a real issue.

I guess what I’m discouraged about is that in their view, US Soccer ends at college, and that seems to be the only option they see for kids to continue playing. And let’s be honest, US college soccer does not produce or prepare, especially on the men’s side, players ready for professional play. College soccer is very different from professional soccer - obviously it has to. In a lot of ways HS soccer is a closer product to college soccer. And their vision doesn’t advance US soccer at all, it actually holds it back.

I try to keep an open mind on this stuff. This is the first time I’ve come away from their podcasts think “wow, these guys are thinking way too narrowly and small. And I’m actually not so sure they are doing the homework on these big questions to inform their opinions.”

What is the best way to advance soccer is to have college soccer be the highest level? College soccer is the highest level most will play -- only a few go pro and now many that go pro are skipping college -- soccer is a game not the be all and end all. Most are dumb to go pro.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid needs all this cutoff year gymnastics to be competitive or a standout against younger kids, then college recruitment can't be a realistic goal.

Cutoff year relative to a child's birth day is a factor in determining their predicted soccer outcome.

Not for the exceptional players.

They are the ones making truly elite teams.
(not everything called elite is elite)

The arguments in this thread is for the others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.”

I agree. They came across this episode as people that know everything and have nothing to learn, and that their perspective is the only correct perspective. Typically I lump people like that into the idiot category. And in for SY!

This episode also made it pretty clear that they view college as the only destination for us players, and a terminal destination, because the next stop for a college player, in their words was to either coach, or raise a kid that plays soccer.

I’m really not sure what to think about ECNL’s future as the college landscape changes.

From percentages though what number of youth soccer players get to play Div 1. Then from there what percentage makes it pro. Am I the only one that remembers the ncaa ad campaign "I went pro in something else"? There is allot to be said about keeping kids in the pipeline with dreams of college soccer. Listening to that non earth shattering podcast that was actually the most interesting part of it. Limit international players and as much as I'm against the incoming administration that seems like something they should be on board with.

I get what you’re saying. One of my kids plays tennis, and the internationals rule that landscape, so is poses a real issue.

I guess what I’m discouraged about is that in their view, US Soccer ends at college, and that seems to be the only option they see for kids to continue playing. And let’s be honest, US college soccer does not produce or prepare, especially on the men’s side, players ready for professional play. College soccer is very different from professional soccer - obviously it has to. In a lot of ways HS soccer is a closer product to college soccer. And their vision doesn’t advance US soccer at all, it actually holds it back.

I try to keep an open mind on this stuff. This is the first time I’ve come away from their podcasts think “wow, these guys are thinking way too narrowly and small. And I’m actually not so sure they are doing the homework on these big questions to inform their opinions.”

What is the best way to advance soccer is to have college soccer be the highest level? College soccer is the highest level most will play -- only a few go pro and now many that go pro are skipping college -- soccer is a game not the be all and end all. Most are dumb to go pro.

On the girls side, Pro means so many different things. Play for Chelsea or play for the 2nd division in Greece or Iceland. A not insignificant portion of standout collegiate players choose to get on with their lives vs being a minimum salary NWSL player. And fewer still go straight from youth ENCL or Academies to playing meaningful minutes in a true pro system. So, yes, I think college is the end goal/pinnacle for most top girls soccer players. At least with the current strategy of US Soccer. I reserve the right to change my mind if they develop free elite academies in the US for the sole purpose of developing elite pros, similar to the MLS Academies.