Reply to US soccer rumors of changing back age groups?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I never really get all the "grade year" arguments. We did not have a "grade year" cutoff in soccer before.  August 1st was not grade year - it is two months off of the Virginia school cutoff date.  So in Virginia soccer we went from 2 months off the school cutoff with Aug 1st to 3 months off the cutoff with birth year.  But this 5 month move completely changed who received the relative age advantage which I think is the root of all these discussions not "grade year".[/quote]

Completely agree.  [/quote]

You're being obtuse.  Particularly with boys, August 1 was a fairly good proxy for grade level; the majority of boys born in August or September are sent to school late.  It's not a perfect grade level cutoff, but it's probably as close as you could get without doing an actual grade level cutoff like in basketball, where 14-year-old seventh graders who were held back play against seventh graders who just turned 12.[/quote]

Right.  I'll give you an example.  My undersized late August 2005 birthday kid was one of the oldest under the old classification.   If I could do it over, I probably would have held him back a year due to his lack of maturity, which would have put in in the same grade as most of the kids in in his age group under the old system

However, as a younger kid who was fairly skilled,  under the old system, he opted to play up with his school friends (we have a September 1 cutoff). He was playing with some kids a year older, but it was having the option to be with his friends made it fun. He definitely was more confident playing up under those circumstances.

When the age groups changed, all of the kids born in September to December were removed from the age group groups they were previously in.  Under the new classification, he was now in the same age group as kids born in January through August. But if he wanted to try to stay with the September to December born kids he was friends with, he would have had to play in an age group with kids born as early as January 2004, which is a huge age difference, especially for a smaller kid.

I prefer the school year designations, but at this point, I don't know whether I would want them changed. Changing age groups is too disruptive.

Also, one of the stated reasons of going to calendar year age groups was that it would make coaches more aware of the relative age effect.  News flash - they aren't more aware or they simply don't care. DS plays on an upper level EDP team, and most of the starters on his team, the team below him, and the team above him were born in January through March/April.  I would rather see coaches have more awareness of the RAE and the advantage associated with it, no matter where the cutoff is, so that younger players aren't shafted.

[/quote]

The problem with your example is he was playing up, so you weren't following the system anyways.  It makes how he did not relevant to the conversation and then you are furthering it by saying how the new system impacts his ability to play up.[/quote]

Not at all.  The point was that there was some flexibility for younger kids to play travel soccer with classmates.  When he was little, it was more FUN to play with friends and that made him motivated and committed. [/quote]

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