ECNL moving to school year not calendar

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

This is wrong. If all births were spread evenly across all months l, you’d be correct.

Think of births a lot like a pair of dice. 6, 7, and 8 are the most common numbers right? For birth months it tends to be 8, but 7 is very close.

On average in a given birth year, kids born in Q3 and Q4 as a group would tend to mature about 7-7.5 months later than a kid born in January. And maybe 1.5 months later than the whole year average.

People get so stuck on birthdate almost like an “best by” date. RAE correlates with birthdates, but birthdates are not causal to RAE.

Bio banding does a good job at highlighting this, because bio banding looks at the maturation rate of the individual compared to the whole group, so a January baby could be bio banded, and a December baby could not qualify.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

+1000

This is where all these SY cheerleaders fall off the cliff when they start using REA to advocate their desire.

IMO it’s the most revealing argument they make. It seems they all believe that their little Chad and Chadette would be global footy stars if I just weren’t for their September birthdate and the ignorant coaches who can’t see they just need an extra month of growth at 15 to catch up with all those New Years babies who aren’t as good as little Chad, they’re just already shaving.

As stated earlier, RAE will shift not decrease with change to SY. Which is why the focus has been on trapped players, trying to stem the tide of quiting soccer to justify the change to SY and aligning youth soccer with college grades.

The argument to keep CY is based on matching most other countries and aligning youth soccer with US national teams. And avoiding the potential hassle of change but presumably players would not have to change teams, they merely would have the option to play down a year.

There will be winners and losers with a change as we see here.

The question isn't really what parents and kids want, it is what to clubs and leagues want.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

This is wrong. If all births were spread evenly across all months l, you’d be correct.

Think of births a lot like a pair of dice. 6, 7, and 8 are the most common numbers right? For birth months it tends to be 8, but 7 is very close.

On average in a given birth year, kids born in Q3 and Q4 as a group would tend to mature about 7-7.5 months later than a kid born in January. And maybe 1.5 months later than the whole year average.

People get so stuck on birthdate almost like an “best by” date. RAE correlates with birthdates, but birthdates are not causal to RAE.

Bio banding does a good job at highlighting this, because bio banding looks at the maturation rate of the individual compared to the whole group, so a January baby could be bio banded, and a December baby could not qualify.

A kid born 6 months before another will on average mature 6 months sooner. Now your uneven distributions and extreme January examples are the dead cats to support biobanding. Weird.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

This is wrong. If all births were spread evenly across all months l, you’d be correct.

Think of births a lot like a pair of dice. 6, 7, and 8 are the most common numbers right? For birth months it tends to be 8, but 7 is very close.

On average in a given birth year, kids born in Q3 and Q4 as a group would tend to mature about 7-7.5 months later than a kid born in January. And maybe 1.5 months later than the whole year average.

People get so stuck on birthdate almost like an “best by” date. RAE correlates with birthdates, but birthdates are not causal to RAE.

Bio banding does a good job at highlighting this, because bio banding looks at the maturation rate of the individual compared to the whole group, so a January baby could be bio banded, and a December baby could not qualify.

A kid born 6 months before another will on average mature 6 months sooner. Now your uneven distributions and extreme January examples are the dead cats to support biobanding. Weird.

Weird? 😂 At least you understood it. Kudos, you’re 99.9% in DCUM pool.

That said, I could give a rats… about bio banding. I was just belaboring the point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

Are they saying eliminate some or all trapped players by going to SY?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

This is wrong. If all births were spread evenly across all months l, you’d be correct.

Think of births a lot like a pair of dice. 6, 7, and 8 are the most common numbers right? For birth months it tends to be 8, but 7 is very close.

On average in a given birth year, kids born in Q3 and Q4 as a group would tend to mature about 7-7.5 months later than a kid born in January. And maybe 1.5 months later than the whole year average.

People get so stuck on birthdate almost like an “best by” date. RAE correlates with birthdates, but birthdates are not causal to RAE.

Bio banding does a good job at highlighting this, because bio banding looks at the maturation rate of the individual compared to the whole group, so a January baby could be bio banded, and a December baby could not qualify.

A kid born 6 months before another will on average mature 6 months sooner. Now your uneven distributions and extreme January examples are the dead cats to support biobanding. Weird.

So you have your own facts and data that goes against all the other scientific research to prove RAE is not a thing and Harry Kane, Declan Rice, De Bruyne etc shouldn't have been biobanded but just cut for not being good enough?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

Are they saying eliminate some or all trapped players by going to SY?

Assuming they do make a change, it would depends on the cutoff date. August 1 seems pretty safe to eliminate all trapped kids from ECNL league play.

BUT! If it’s not universal (ie. MLSN, GA too) then you’ll end up with he same exact parents complaining that their precious Mini-Messi gets to play with the same team all year, but then they can’t play with them at certain tournaments and showcases and have to play with randos a year down, which killed their chance to get that final look from the Stanford coach that would have certainly gotten them an offer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

This is wrong. If all births were spread evenly across all months l, you’d be correct.

Think of births a lot like a pair of dice. 6, 7, and 8 are the most common numbers right? For birth months it tends to be 8, but 7 is very close.

On average in a given birth year, kids born in Q3 and Q4 as a group would tend to mature about 7-7.5 months later than a kid born in January. And maybe 1.5 months later than the whole year average.

People get so stuck on birthdate almost like an “best by” date. RAE correlates with birthdates, but birthdates are not causal to RAE.

Bio banding does a good job at highlighting this, because bio banding looks at the maturation rate of the individual compared to the whole group, so a January baby could be bio banded, and a December baby could not qualify.

A kid born 6 months before another will on average mature 6 months sooner. Now your uneven distributions and extreme January examples are the dead cats to support biobanding. Weird.

So you have your own facts and data that goes against all the other scientific research to prove RAE is not a thing and Harry Kane, Declan Rice, De Bruyne etc shouldn't have been biobanded but just cut for not being good enough?

The corollary challenge to this is to is also to “name one person that SHOULD HAVE been a pro that because of BY cutoffs just never made it.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

Are they saying eliminate some or all trapped players by going to SY?

Assuming they do make a change, it would depends on the cutoff date. August 1 seems pretty safe to eliminate all trapped kids from ECNL league play.

BUT! If it’s not universal (ie. MLSN, GA too) then you’ll end up with he same exact parents complaining that their precious Mini-Messi gets to play with the same team all year, but then they can’t play with them at certain tournaments and showcases and have to play with randos a year down, which killed their chance to get that final look from the Stanford coach that would have certainly gotten them an offer.

Why would I want my October early or normal developer 2010 kid playing down with 2011's?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

This is wrong. If all births were spread evenly across all months l, you’d be correct.

Think of births a lot like a pair of dice. 6, 7, and 8 are the most common numbers right? For birth months it tends to be 8, but 7 is very close.

On average in a given birth year, kids born in Q3 and Q4 as a group would tend to mature about 7-7.5 months later than a kid born in January. And maybe 1.5 months later than the whole year average.

People get so stuck on birthdate almost like an “best by” date. RAE correlates with birthdates, but birthdates are not causal to RAE.

Bio banding does a good job at highlighting this, because bio banding looks at the maturation rate of the individual compared to the whole group, so a January baby could be bio banded, and a December baby could not qualify.

A kid born 6 months before another will on average mature 6 months sooner. Now your uneven distributions and extreme January examples are the dead cats to support biobanding. Weird.

So you have your own facts and data that goes against all the other scientific research to prove RAE is not a thing and Harry Kane, Declan Rice, De Bruyne etc shouldn't have been biobanded but just cut for not being good enough?

It is not clear what you are referencing. Please clarify where someone explicitly stated that RAE does not exist.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

Are they saying eliminate some or all trapped players by going to SY?

Assuming they do make a change, it would depends on the cutoff date. August 1 seems pretty safe to eliminate all trapped kids from ECNL league play.

BUT! If it’s not universal (ie. MLSN, GA too) then you’ll end up with he same exact parents complaining that their precious Mini-Messi gets to play with the same team all year, but then they can’t play with them at certain tournaments and showcases and have to play with randos a year down, which killed their chance to get that final look from the Stanford coach that would have certainly gotten them an offer.

Why would I want my October early or normal developer 2010 kid playing down with 2011's?

Year up rather.

[Anonymous]

This is going to be an absolute mess if it is not universal among ALL US soccer (obvious exception of US Youth National Teams).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

Are they saying eliminate some or all trapped players by going to SY?

Assuming they do make a change, it would depends on the cutoff date. August 1 seems pretty safe to eliminate all trapped kids from ECNL league play.

BUT! If it’s not universal (ie. MLSN, GA too) then you’ll end up with he same exact parents complaining that their precious Mini-Messi gets to play with the same team all year, but then they can’t play with them at certain tournaments and showcases and have to play with randos a year down, which killed their chance to get that final look from the Stanford coach that would have certainly gotten them an offer.

Why would I want my October early or normal developer 2010 kid playing down with 2011's?

Choice is yours of course but relative age effects, more likely to play with classmates, not have trapped seasons, lines up better with college recruitment. You would have to weigh that vs the challenge of what would be viewed as playing up. One size won't fit all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ECNL making the change to school year makes absolute sense. They are a college tracked league so having all their players segmented based on what the College coaches want to evaluate on makes perfect sense. No more, highlighting who is a 2025 vs a 2026 grad on a brochure. Coaches can watch the game and evaluate everyone playing knowing they are in his/her recruiting target.

Stop will the nonsense debate about biobanding, emails or not, this change will come and it actually makes sense. All the chatter about MLS Next is nonsense because the largest percentage of kids will stop playing at the end of highschool, the next group are going to play in college, and a very small sliver will go pro. So why punish the majority of youth players in the hopes that .0000001% of the players being scouted by a pro team is in a league grouped by birth year.

Why should US Soccer and Colleges twist themselves in knots about what ECNL parents want when their primary pool of male players are in MLS Clubs and MLS Next?

I'm not saying you're wrong, but this could also be the reason ECNL/US Club/USYS would tell US Soccer to f off if there was a passionate disagreement. US Soccer claims to be top dog on these decisions, and gives lip service to caring about "grassroots." But if they show they don't actually care, only caring about the national team and pros, more organizations might stop listening to them.

Ridiculous statement 🙄

Changing to school year has nothing to do with grassroots and development.

You'd better explain to enlighten us, because most of the posts on here seem to think SY is beneficial for grassroots soccer.

First a league isn't grassroots soccer.
Especially an expensive league that filters out many.

Grassroots soccer is about young players in small clubs learning the game and developing.
ECNL is not that.

Whether BY or SY doesn't impact how and what kids learn for soccer.

Saying what most posts say in DCUM is hardly an argument for what's best for soccer.
People in here create a big deal about training shirts

Sounds like you took issue with something that wasn't said. The point was not that ECNL is grassroots soccer. The point was that most believe SY is better for grassroots soccer, and US Soccer claims to care about grassroots soccer. Someone said why would they care about anything but MLS and MLS Next, because they are the most elite. If US Soccer shows that statement to be true - that they only care about the most elite - it opens the door for anyone slightly less elite, closer to grassroots soccer, especially with the support of the organizations below, to say US Soccer is no longer the boss for their space and that below it. US Soccer has to at least appear to be balancing everyone's interests. ECNL is itself closer to grassroots soccer than MLS and national teams. ECNL is also composed of clubs which have lower teams well into most people's definition of grassroots. So ECNL, and USYS, could claim they are the true champions of grassroots soccer. The point is that if US Soccer pushes the elitism in that prior comment too far, other organizations can decide to stop following their mandates.

Seems the for SY people are more about how it benefits ECNL without being able to articulate clearly how it benefits the players or US Soccer Youth Development

BY doesn't have a negative effect on development so don't see how SY fixes a non existent problem.
If people want a Rec League based on SY like basketball for example, then choose that.

EDP is closer to grassroots. Not ECNL btw

Grassroots flying all over the place for expensive tournaments, showcases and games? 😂

SY is the best way to divide up kids for Us soccer. Kids at the entry level and lower level comp get to play with kids in their grade they don’t have to be at the same school. The data they talked about on the ECNL podcast said REI was better and had more kids represented at the higher levels when SY was in place.

When you look and ECNL girls teams that are primarily Q1/2 kids. With some from of Q3/4. That is a problem. I want to say it was 70% kids Q1/2 (girls). For college scouts it makes things easier for them not saying they can’t figure it out but it does make it easier.

The only reason people want birth year is if their kid is born Q1/2 and gets the REI advantage. Obviously people with kids born Q 3/4 want that same advantage. Because being older definitely matters all the data on pretty much every sport at the youth U17 level and below shows that.

I couldn’t care less what they decide to do. Keep it change it… But people saying we need to line up with the rest of the world or there no problems with birth year currently just is not true or US soccer wouldn’t be considering a change after only 7 years.

Does SY eliminate kids being born in Q3 and Q4?

I don’t think anything I said would agree with that? Just would have a different group of kids fall under Q3/4 but at least they would be in the same school grade. If your kid benefits from BY which is fine. Just say that don’t pretend like there isn’t an issue with it outside of your own perception.

Like I said if they decide to not switch back I’ll lose 0 sleep over it. You’re obviously panicking that your kid might lose the one thing they have. Eventually the groups rejoin at U19 hopefully it doesn’t effect your kid at that point either.

So if there will always be Q1, Q2, Q3 and Q4 regardless of SY or BY and the rest of the world (including us) uses BY and Colleges have been recruiting with BY for years because they know who they want and when they're leaving HS, there is no soccer value to changing to SY.
Only a social value for some.

The rest of the work does not use birth year. One example is England. Also many countries in Europe (almost all) offer bio banding up to U17.

If there will always be REI why not just eliminate trap players and add in the social part with soccer? Makes academy better to have kids compete with kids from same year. Also makes the grass root level better because kids can play with their friends. Nothing but upside by going to SY. Other than parents being upset their kid loses the I’m older advantage.

Which is understandable. I’m sure Aug to Dec parents felt the same way in 2017.

All kids born in Q3 and Q4 aren't late developers.

They didn't say they all were late developers but kids born in the second half of the year will on average develop 6 months later than kids born in the first half of the year. So no need to throw the biobanding dead cat on the table.

Are they saying eliminate some or all trapped players by going to SY?

Assuming they do make a change, it would depends on the cutoff date. August 1 seems pretty safe to eliminate all trapped kids from ECNL league play.

BUT! If it’s not universal (ie. MLSN, GA too) then you’ll end up with he same exact parents complaining that their precious Mini-Messi gets to play with the same team all year, but then they can’t play with them at certain tournaments and showcases and have to play with randos a year down, which killed their chance to get that final look from the Stanford coach that would have certainly gotten them an offer.

Why would I want my October early or normal developer 2010 kid playing down with 2011's?

Choice is yours of course but relative age effects, more likely to play with classmates, not have trapped seasons, lines up better with college recruitment. You would have to weigh that vs the challenge of what would be viewed as playing up. One size won't fit all.

PP already said the kid is not a late developer, so RAE isn't a factor.

What does classmates have to do with club soccer? My kids at 17 and 18 have never had multiple classmates on any of their club teams.

You know what lines up with college recruitment? TALENT
Also being proactive in being seen by the college recruiters for the school you wish to attend.