Reply to US soccer rumors of changing back age groups?

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "US soccer rumors of changing back age groups?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]It will be switched back. Money is the driving factor. Numbers are low.[/quote]

Kids always left in middle school. Kids interests change in middle school. Lots of activities lose kids then. Every blackbelt daycare factory loses 95% of their clients at middle school too. Every gymnastics and dance school suffers the same fate.

Basketball and volley ball lose 80% of their elementary age players. Interests, size and more play a far greater role than a participation cutoff date.

Soccer suffers more from clubs like Arlington and Loudoun fielding 6+ teams deep through U13 and kids who don't move up get bored. Clubs are not losing players at the top to other sports they are losing kids on B, C and D teams in middle school because kids tend to see it for what it is, garbage play and they recognize their own limitations.

Thinking a soccer club should be 4+ teams deep at 11v11 is insane for travel level soccer. No kid teenager is giving up 3-4 nights a week to be on the 4th team unless they truly love playing. No age group cutoff will ever solve that. [/quote]

Six month age groups will solve some of that. It would cut the number of lower teams in half. It would keep more kids on the A team. So, not true. [/quote]

Six month age groups will solve some of that. It would cut the number of lower teams in half. It would keep more kids on the A team. So, not true.[/quote]

A kid who is on the July through December team knows they are on the B team no matter what you want to call it. The "older" team at every age group will always be perceived as the A team. The July/December team would never win a game against the Jan/June team in a scrimmage. You would actually lose kids faster than ever before.

Being a small kid and being placed on a younger age A team is better than being stuck on a July/December team through HS.

College coaches are still going to be drawn to larger players and will scout those teams predominately.

At some point the kids have to learn to fly on their own.

[/quote]

I  know it is DCUM's mindset that everything is survival of the fittest so your dream is to drive out the weak kids, but a governing organization has an interest in having kids continue to play.  In smaller nations where they actually train the kids they have instead of constantly looking to find better ones and casting others aside, they have had success in actually developing players and a soccer culture.[/quote][/quote]

I'm for finding a better solution and said what I think the better solution is. 6 month age grouping through elementary school and bio banding beyond.

If size is the issue then it is easier to designate a percentile in size during middle school that allows for change as the player grows and changes. But two 6 month age groups per birth year through 9th grade is unnecessary and overly complicated.

The game gets competitive in middle school and kids simply make the team or they don't but it will be based on differing factors by then because the system was more inclusive at the youngest ages and more developmentally tailored. If kids STILL need a helping hand then bio banding is a better instrument and more precise and flexible than maintaining a seemingly more and more arbitrary cutoff as they get older. Parents bitch now about trapped 8th graders imagine not being able to play with your friends through middle school because of the half of year you were born. You attend the same classes everyday, eat lunch together but have to play on different teams because one is born in June and the other in July?

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics