ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

Anyone who’s hoping and wishing for ECNL to make quick changes is setting themselves up to be disappointed. If ECNL really cared about any trapped players they would have made a waiver system a long time ago.

Your only saving grace is if ECNL decides to play all their teams up a year. Which would not go against the mandate but would probably piss off a bunch of club directors.

[Anonymous]

Allowing each team to roster a max of 2 or 3 trapped players certainly sounds way easier than having every ECNL team play up.

[Anonymous]

And for those who say they already have this….roster permanently (the entire year) not just for the few months during HS season that they are allowed now

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were less than 12 mothns from wide spred implementation. I dont see how they can avoid a slow roll out.

ECNL & US Club should let trapped players play with SY teams ASAP.

Telling a kid they need to remian trapped for another year because they cant fix the computer code is bush league.

If only trapped kids are moved, is U14 growing by about 40 percent and U15 teams shrinking by 40 percent really feasible? Would have to do multiple years.

I doubt they are shrinking that much each team on average has no more than 4 trapped players and even that might be high. But U14 would grow U15 would be almost the same.

If there aren't enough trapped players on the A teams, clubs that prefer older players will just send a couple of trapped B team players down to the A team one year below to be competitive.

On the podcast, ECNL recognized the jam up situation when only one year sends players down so likely to be all age groups or nothing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Were less than 12 mothns from wide spred implementation. I dont see how they can avoid a slow roll out.

ECNL & US Club should let trapped players play with SY teams ASAP.

Telling a kid they need to remian trapped for another year because they cant fix the computer code is bush league.

If only trapped kids are moved, is U14 growing by about 40 percent and U15 teams shrinking by 40 percent really feasible? Would have to do multiple years.

I doubt they are shrinking that much each team on average has no more than 4 trapped players and even that might be high. But U14 would grow U15 would be almost the same.

If there aren't enough trapped players on the A teams, clubs that prefer older players will just send a couple of trapped B team players down to the A team one year below to be competitive.

On the podcast, ECNL recognized the jam up situation when only one year sends players down so likely to be all age groups or nothing.

Technically it would just have to be next years U13 2012/2013 and U14 2012/2011 it wouldn’t cause substantial issues with the older ages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Allowing each team to roster a max of 2 or 3 trapped players certainly sounds way easier than having every ECNL team play up.

One goes against the mandate and one does not, has nothing to do with what’s easier.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who’s hoping and wishing for ECNL to make quick changes is setting themselves up to be disappointed. If ECNL really cared about any trapped players they would have made a waiver system a long time ago.

Your only saving grace is if ECNL decides to play all their teams up a year. Which would not go against the mandate but would probably piss off a bunch of club directors.

I think this is because 26/27 will change to SY, so it makes sense to allow 3 Q4 players or Q3 players (if they figure out the cutoff date) in 25/26, so the impact will be smoothed out.

[Anonymous]

You people are fools coming up with all these ways ECNL can make your dreams come true. ECNL isn’t going to do anything next fall. You guys will just have to wait until Fall 26.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Anyone who’s hoping and wishing for ECNL to make quick changes is setting themselves up to be disappointed. If ECNL really cared about any trapped players they would have made a waiver system a long time ago.

Your only saving grace is if ECNL decides to play all their teams up a year. Which would not go against the mandate but would probably piss off a bunch of club directors.

There is a possibility that ECNL will let teams play up. 95% of games are already within the ECNL ecosystem, so they will have 6 ECNL age groups and 3 pre-ECNL age groups.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You people are fools coming up with all these ways ECNL can make your dreams come true. ECNL isn’t going to do anything next fall. You guys will just have to wait until Fall 26.

Q2 parent is still trying to hang on there

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You people are fools coming up with all these ways ECNL can make your dreams come true. ECNL isn’t going to do anything next fall. You guys will just have to wait until Fall 26.

If ECNL is doing like what you just said, the podcast will not play the "to be continued" theme.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL needs to fix the trapped player issues ASAP, before 2026

Yes they should
How about being on a trap team next fall while your teammates play HS and then in the fall playing on a team that doesn’t matter because they will be broken up. Talk about a wasted year

I will not be surprised if ECNL does SY in 25/26. The president already questioned the authority of the BY mandate. It is his league, and SY is good for the customers in his league. There is no point in wasting another year. Since US Soccer will remove the mandate in 26/27, I do not see why an individual league can not start first within its own ecosystem.

Because the way it rolls up to FIFA.

You can certainly make your own league and play by your own rules. But you won’t get sanctioned by USSF. And if you’re not sanctioned by the governing body, you’re not getting exposure to college coaches.

There are tons of Mexican leagues and adult leagues in the US that fall into that category.

So the non-USSF member NCAA would only scout USSF member leagues? Ridiculous. Colleges will scout wherever it's worth their time to scout. Even the USSF itself, for national teams, will scout wherever it's worth their time to scout.

This doesn't even matter though, as ECNL wouldn't lose it's USSF membership if it went against the BY mandate for its league play. The mandate is only for inter-league play. Bio-banding and trapped player exceptions are currently possible for intra-league play because each member has exclusive jurisdiction over its own "programs and activities" (leagues).

I'm not saying they will go against the mandate, but it's not because they can't, or that they will lose college scouts. They probably won't because it's a pain in the butt to be totally alone on this, and they don't want to start a war with USSF and other leagues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You people are fools coming up with all these ways ECNL can make your dreams come true. ECNL isn’t going to do anything next fall. You guys will just have to wait until Fall 26.

If ECNL is doing like what you just said, the podcast will not play the "to be continued" theme.

lol . . . that is crazy. ECNL will come out with guidance in the Spring for 26/27 -- concepts not specifics. Specifics will come out late fall 2025. If they wanted to fix something now this is the fast timetable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You people are fools coming up with all these ways ECNL can make your dreams come true. ECNL isn’t going to do anything next fall. You guys will just have to wait until Fall 26.

If ECNL is doing like what you just said, the podcast will not play the "to be continued" theme.

lol . . . that is crazy. ECNL will come out with guidance in the Spring for 26/27 -- concepts not specifics. Specifics will come out late fall 2025. If they wanted to fix something now this is the fast timetable.

Wait and see, moron.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I'm done with this topic.

Too many wuss B team parents that don't understand how high level sports work.

If you cant hang with the rest of the players on the team because of whatever excuse dejour it won't matter because your kid is going to quit playing soon anyway.

Unfortunate there's a very vocal group of numbnuts that don't matter crying on this thread

Fun to listen to parents call B team parents and kids wusses and bad players and when all we are saying is let my kid compete with yours for a spot. Why you so scared? I can only imagine how scared you are of the A team Q3/4 kids that can also compete with your kids.

The real Q1/2 studs and their parents also want a switch to school year and have the confidence their player can handle competing with older kids.

It’s the Q1/2 parents who can barely make and play that are nervous.

🤦‍♂️ this is a dumb take. The studs don’t give an S if it’s SY or BY. They’re eating everyone else’s breakfast, lunch and dinner in the opportunities game. That isn’t a birth month issue.

The parent or kid, regardless of birth month, who can “barely make and play” also don’t care about BY or SY…because they’re always nervous (they’re also probably not in ECNL).

Only these weird bubble parents and kids care either way about SY or BY on either side of the debate. But news flash! It still doesn’t matter! Nothing replaces doing the hard work. An age cutoff change doesn’t make anyone better or worse, the work still has to be done.

And just a quick point of correction - every single Q4 ECNL top team family I know is pissed about this change.

Weird to get angry and pretend to flex when as you say age cutoffs don't matter. They matter enough to you.

? No, they don’t. They have zero impact on my kid or me. My kid already plays up and starts on her ECNL team, that won’t change. She’s one of the best in the country at her position. And college probably isn’t her play.

Cutoffs don’t matter.

Cutoffs don't matter for a kid like yours, but they do for the large majority, especially when making a huge change that's appears ahead. For the humbled masses, it would be better if we had a system where maybe the better younger players played with the average older ones where both SY and BY still existed. Maybe we need half the country to do school by BY, so the benefits can go beyond sports.

Most ECNL rosters are packed with early month players so cutoffs did matter for many of them. Worry that college will not be in play for a bunch of them after a few years of SY cutoffs.

My daughter is the only Q4 player on her ECNL team. Everyone else is high school she is the only 8th grader. Our rival clubs in our area also have few if any Q3/4 players on their rosters.

Q4 has the fewest birthday as a quarter. That should not be surprising.

Q3 is a different story.

Are you trying to say Q4 underrepresentation is just a result of lower birth rates in those months? To the tune of approx 1 out of 16-18 on the team?!

2023 US Births:
Q1 (Jan-Mar) 24.2%
Q2 (Apr-Jun) 24.5%
Q3 (Jul-Sep) 26.1%
Q4 (Oct-Dec) 25.2%

Last third, approx the trapped group, Sep-Dec, 33.6%. The relative popularity of birth months is pretty steady from year to year. If anything, Q1/2 should be underrepresented if you're going by birthday popularity.

You picked “a year” to make an argument for all births. Cherrypick much?

Interesting fact! The US has a declining birth rate, the Q with the largest decline is…drum roll please…Q4!!!! Age cutoffs don’t matter!

Seriously, birth month distributions change little year to year. Going to be 500 pages plus of parents who are astute enough to know that age cutoffs will affect their kids, they matter.

What's true is they WILL matter for the next generation of players, however it evolves. Those in the current system, not so much. Changing trapped years may help some. I just hope clubs consider programming for any who don't want to play HS for whatever reason (That will be the new thing!)

If a club has a large pool of possible replacement players in an area, in addition to players on top teams going down, there is going to some real replacement. Every team is going to be affected, top or not.

Yes, if most youth soccer adopts SY, every team will be effected. It's exciting for those who like to seek a so-called "edge" but it's just jumbling of teams that, if not done well, will likely force anyone not happy with it to move on from the sport. That would be a bad outcome and decrease participation. I mean it is true some players may find themselves on better teams/situations as a result but, if they know club soccer, that's every season, really. That's why it's a shame that clubs may use this to break up teams that are working for groups of players who would rather stay together. Or, it might be frustrating to make a top team and then be asked to play with younger players who may have less experience. So, that is a big, big deal structurally.

But for all of that disruption, you really won't see much change will be the level of play, despite all the hype here. All the players will still be in 12-month windows. Advantages from RAE happen over years and the older you go, the more it's is already baked in. All the drama is really clubs trying to outdo each other during the transition. After that, they'll move on to a new tactic.