Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The reason people are argueing about younger than the eligibility window of 8/1-7/31 but a grade up in school is because after switching from BY to SY these are the only "trapped" players if you want to call them that. What makes them different from BY trapped players is younger players can always play up. If leagues made a rule or even drafted a recommendation that young players play with their grade every game would be grouped by grade. Which is exactly what college recruiters want.

The people in leadership positions are just being dumb and stubborn. Initially the called it School Year then once people agreed to switching from Birth Year they wanted to change the name to Seasonal Year because they didnt want the connection to grade in school. Which was something that was used to justify changing from BY to SY. So much moving the goalposts around after the fact.

The reality is club soccer and High School / College Soccer are different worlds. Either College Soccer needs to become more like club or Club Soccer needs to implement ways to bridge the gap between club and college. Younger players playing with their grade is an easy way to bring the two worlds together.

You’re creating an issue where there is none, especially on the girls side. There’s no rule or recommendation to make players play up an age group so they are with their grade. The term “college recruiter” also doesn’t exist; the college coaching staff does the recruiting.

The term "college recruiter" is used because college coaches, assistant coaches, admins, sometimes even people with the specific title of recruiter all attend different events looking at/for talent/players. Its not always college coaches doing the leg work looking at potential recruits. I dont understand why you got hung up on. the words "college recruiter" because its weird and just another example of how you dont understand how college recruitment works.

Reguarding players playing with their grade. Its odd that you're fighting so hard against something that logically just makes sense if clubs want to position players to play in college. Theres never ever ever been a college recruiter that said "look at the Sophmore playing against and on a Freshman team. I bet their skills whould just destroy everyone at the Sophmore and Junior levels." no, they would say " Why is the Sophmore playjng on a Freshman team?"

Anonymous wrote:The reason people are argueing about younger than the eligibility window of 8/1-7/31 but a grade up in school is because after switching from BY to SY these are the only "trapped" players if you want to call them that. What makes them different from BY trapped players is younger players can always play up. If leagues made a rule or even drafted a recommendation that young players play with their grade every game would be grouped by grade. Which is exactly what college recruiters want.

The people in leadership positions are just being dumb and stubborn. Initially the called it School Year then once people agreed to switching from Birth Year they wanted to change the name to Seasonal Year because they didnt want the connection to grade in school. Which was something that was used to justify changing from BY to SY. So much moving the goalposts around after the fact.

The reality is club soccer and High School / College Soccer are different worlds. Either College Soccer needs to become more like club or Club Soccer needs to implement ways to bridge the gap between club and college. Younger players playing with their grade is an easy way to bring the two worlds together.

You’re creating an issue where there is none, especially on the girls side. There’s no rule or recommendation to make players play up an age group so they are with their grade. The term “college recruiter” also doesn’t exist; the college coaching staff does the recruiting.

Anonymous wrote:Curious How many GA trap player parents are planning on coming down a year to ECNL. In addition have you reached out to coaches to set expectations?!

At my kids GA club (one of the top clubs in the nation) multiple ECNL GA and "other" league players have been jumping in on sessions. At least where we are its not league specific about where players are making connections. Its more about top clubs getting inquiries from multiple places. I would expect ECNL clubs would get the same type of players reaching out.

The reason people are argueing about younger than the eligibility window of 8/1-7/31 but a grade up in school is because after switching from BY to SY these are the only "trapped" players if you want to call them that. What makes them different from BY trapped players is younger players can always play up. If leagues made a rule or even drafted a recommendation that young players play with their grade every game would be grouped by grade. Which is exactly what college recruiters want.

The people in leadership positions are just being dumb and stubborn. Initially the called it School Year then once people agreed to switching from Birth Year they wanted to change the name to Seasonal Year because they didnt want the connection to grade in school. Which was something that was used to justify changing from BY to SY. So much moving the goalposts around after the fact.

The reality is club soccer and High School / College Soccer are different worlds. Either College Soccer needs to become more like club or Club Soccer needs to implement ways to bridge the gap between club and college. Younger players playing with their grade is an easy way to bring the two worlds together.

Curious How many GA trap player parents are planning on coming down a year to ECNL. In addition have you reached out to coaches to set expectations?!

ifneena wrote:From what I’ve seen talking to other parents, most clubs haven’t given any formal direction yet. The birth-year shift is coming, but there’s no clear rule about whether tryout dates will change for kids who age down. A lot of parents are waiting for clubs to bring it up, but some are already talking to coaches just so it doesn’t become a last-minute surprise. For now, nobody seems to have an official timeline — just keep communication open and stay ahead of it if you can.

Plenty of clubs have posted info. Many seem to just say “here are the new age brackets and that’s how we’ll play” with not much else and others have a bit more but all make it pretty clear. Players will tryout with their new age bracket (makes sense of course) and anyone wanting to play up will need to get permission on an individual basis (based on a variety of criteria). Not much different than now. There have been a ton of links posted but they are pretty buried by people arguing about the 2-3% of players who may not be with their actual grade. I personally don’t care if those players play up, down or all around because it doesn’t impact me or my players at all.

I would caution taking what a coach tells you as gospel. Most of them have little decision making power and/or aren’t actually in the ‘know’ at the club. So they end up either just making stuff up or telling you what you want to hear. That’s just been my experience. Heck, right before US Club announced they were also doing the age group change, the coach at my older kids ECNL club swore up and down that ECNl would never change to SY and he had connections to ECNL leadership blah blah blah. He was obviously very wrong.

From what I’ve seen talking to other parents, most clubs haven’t given any formal direction yet. The birth-year shift is coming, but there’s no clear rule about whether tryout dates will change for kids who age down. A lot of parents are waiting for clubs to bring it up, but some are already talking to coaches just so it doesn’t become a last-minute surprise. For now, nobody seems to have an official timeline — just keep communication open and stay ahead of it if you can.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best situation if you had a younger than the eligibility window but grade up player would be to roster them "up" on the correct grade level team for development.

Ideally your club would be aware that your kid could also play down. This way they'd have 2x the number of teams they could play with for tournamants. Also for things like Talent IDs they'd be pretty much guaranteed an invite at the lover level bevause they're playing and developing at a higher level than everyone else their age.

This is very interesting for young Aug/Sept playera.

Playing on the team that's your kids grade will need to happen for college recruiting.

It's obvious that playing up but guesting down would create tournament monsters. I never thought about all the advantages playing up could bring for things like Talent IDs. I guess this depends on if US Soccer keeps things BY. I assume they would. But even then you'd need to be playing up with your grade to be considered because you'd be competing with the younger half of the grqde above SY team.

I was told both ODP and USYNT are staying BY. So no real benefit over this year for either of those

Younger Aug/Sept players need to be able to play at the level of the Jan to July players on the SY above them.

The ones that get screwed are the Oct, Nov, Dec birthdays.

Which is how it is now. My kid was one of 4 7th graders at the October USYNT ID camp.

I think the "issue" if you want to call it that is with SY the oldest players would be Aug 1st but with USYNT if they stayed BY the oldest player would be Jan 1st. Basically the younger kids on a SY team would be the oldest on a BY USYNT team.

Im probabaly just saying things people already understand. But this would definitely be a reason for young Aug/Sept birthdays to play up on a team thats their grade in school. At least this way you'd be in the running for a Talent ID invite. If you played on grade down team its not that you wouldn't be considered I just dont think you'd be the first pick.

Much, much higher chance of getting noticed playing on age regardless of grade. Grade is irrelevant of course.

Neither colleges nor USYNTs care about your school grade
Only your age and graduation year

😂😂😂

This has been an ongoing theme with the play age guy. Its painfully obvious that he's a littles know it all + hasn't experienced how things change when college recruiting is involved.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best situation if you had a younger than the eligibility window but grade up player would be to roster them "up" on the correct grade level team for development.

Ideally your club would be aware that your kid could also play down. This way they'd have 2x the number of teams they could play with for tournamants. Also for things like Talent IDs they'd be pretty much guaranteed an invite at the lover level bevause they're playing and developing at a higher level than everyone else their age.

This is very interesting for young Aug/Sept playera.

Playing on the team that's your kids grade will need to happen for college recruiting.

It's obvious that playing up but guesting down would create tournament monsters. I never thought about all the advantages playing up could bring for things like Talent IDs. I guess this depends on if US Soccer keeps things BY. I assume they would. But even then you'd need to be playing up with your grade to be considered because you'd be competing with the younger half of the grqde above SY team.

I was told both ODP and USYNT are staying BY. So no real benefit over this year for either of those

Younger Aug/Sept players need to be able to play at the level of the Jan to July players on the SY above them.

The ones that get screwed are the Oct, Nov, Dec birthdays.

Which is how it is now. My kid was one of 4 7th graders at the October USYNT ID camp.

I think the "issue" if you want to call it that is with SY the oldest players would be Aug 1st but with USYNT if they stayed BY the oldest player would be Jan 1st. Basically the younger kids on a SY team would be the oldest on a BY USYNT team.

Im probabaly just saying things people already understand. But this would definitely be a reason for young Aug/Sept birthdays to play up on a team thats their grade in school. At least this way you'd be in the running for a Talent ID invite. If you played on grade down team its not that you wouldn't be considered I just dont think you'd be the first pick.

Much, much higher chance of getting noticed playing on age regardless of grade. Grade is irrelevant of course.

Neither colleges nor USYNTs care about your school grade
Only your age and graduation year

Care to explain the difference between grade in school and graduation year?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best situation if you had a younger than the eligibility window but grade up player would be to roster them "up" on the correct grade level team for development.

Ideally your club would be aware that your kid could also play down. This way they'd have 2x the number of teams they could play with for tournamants. Also for things like Talent IDs they'd be pretty much guaranteed an invite at the lover level bevause they're playing and developing at a higher level than everyone else their age.

This is very interesting for young Aug/Sept playera.

Playing on the team that's your kids grade will need to happen for college recruiting.

It's obvious that playing up but guesting down would create tournament monsters. I never thought about all the advantages playing up could bring for things like Talent IDs. I guess this depends on if US Soccer keeps things BY. I assume they would. But even then you'd need to be playing up with your grade to be considered because you'd be competing with the younger half of the grqde above SY team.

I was told both ODP and USYNT are staying BY. So no real benefit over this year for either of those

Younger Aug/Sept players need to be able to play at the level of the Jan to July players on the SY above them.

The ones that get screwed are the Oct, Nov, Dec birthdays.

Which is how it is now. My kid was one of 4 7th graders at the October USYNT ID camp.

I think the "issue" if you want to call it that is with SY the oldest players would be Aug 1st but with USYNT if they stayed BY the oldest player would be Jan 1st. Basically the younger kids on a SY team would be the oldest on a BY USYNT team.

Im probabaly just saying things people already understand. But this would definitely be a reason for young Aug/Sept birthdays to play up on a team thats their grade in school. At least this way you'd be in the running for a Talent ID invite. If you played on grade down team its not that you wouldn't be considered I just dont think you'd be the first pick.

Much, much higher chance of getting noticed playing on age regardless of grade. Grade is irrelevant of course.

Neither colleges nor USYNTs care about your school grade
Only your age and graduation year

😂😂😂

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best situation if you had a younger than the eligibility window but grade up player would be to roster them "up" on the correct grade level team for development.

Ideally your club would be aware that your kid could also play down. This way they'd have 2x the number of teams they could play with for tournamants. Also for things like Talent IDs they'd be pretty much guaranteed an invite at the lover level bevause they're playing and developing at a higher level than everyone else their age.

This is very interesting for young Aug/Sept playera.

Playing on the team that's your kids grade will need to happen for college recruiting.

It's obvious that playing up but guesting down would create tournament monsters. I never thought about all the advantages playing up could bring for things like Talent IDs. I guess this depends on if US Soccer keeps things BY. I assume they would. But even then you'd need to be playing up with your grade to be considered because you'd be competing with the younger half of the grqde above SY team.

I was told both ODP and USYNT are staying BY. So no real benefit over this year for either of those

Younger Aug/Sept players need to be able to play at the level of the Jan to July players on the SY above them.

The ones that get screwed are the Oct, Nov, Dec birthdays.

Which is how it is now. My kid was one of 4 7th graders at the October USYNT ID camp.

I think the "issue" if you want to call it that is with SY the oldest players would be Aug 1st but with USYNT if they stayed BY the oldest player would be Jan 1st. Basically the younger kids on a SY team would be the oldest on a BY USYNT team.

Im probabaly just saying things people already understand. But this would definitely be a reason for young Aug/Sept birthdays to play up on a team thats their grade in school. At least this way you'd be in the running for a Talent ID invite. If you played on grade down team its not that you wouldn't be considered I just dont think you'd be the first pick.

Much, much higher chance of getting noticed playing on age regardless of grade. Grade is irrelevant of course.

Neither colleges nor USYNTs care about your school grade
Only your age and graduation year

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best situation if you had a younger than the eligibility window but grade up player would be to roster them "up" on the correct grade level team for development.

Ideally your club would be aware that your kid could also play down. This way they'd have 2x the number of teams they could play with for tournamants. Also for things like Talent IDs they'd be pretty much guaranteed an invite at the lover level bevause they're playing and developing at a higher level than everyone else their age.

This is very interesting for young Aug/Sept playera.

Playing on the team that's your kids grade will need to happen for college recruiting.

It's obvious that playing up but guesting down would create tournament monsters. I never thought about all the advantages playing up could bring for things like Talent IDs. I guess this depends on if US Soccer keeps things BY. I assume they would. But even then you'd need to be playing up with your grade to be considered because you'd be competing with the younger half of the grqde above SY team.

I was told both ODP and USYNT are staying BY. So no real benefit over this year for either of those

Younger Aug/Sept players need to be able to play at the level of the Jan to July players on the SY above them.

The ones that get screwed are the Oct, Nov, Dec birthdays.

Which is how it is now. My kid was one of 4 7th graders at the October USYNT ID camp.

I think the "issue" if you want to call it that is with SY the oldest players would be Aug 1st but with USYNT if they stayed BY the oldest player would be Jan 1st. Basically the younger kids on a SY team would be the oldest on a BY USYNT team.

Im probabaly just saying things people already understand. But this would definitely be a reason for young Aug/Sept birthdays to play up on a team thats their grade in school. At least this way you'd be in the running for a Talent ID invite. If you played on grade down team its not that you wouldn't be considered I just dont think you'd be the first pick.

Much, much higher chance of getting noticed playing on age regardless of grade. Grade is irrelevant of course.

Maybe or maybe not, but again, we're talking about the 1% of the 1% here. If you're even in consideration or contention for one of those spots, all of this back and forth is just moot at that point and meaningless.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best situation if you had a younger than the eligibility window but grade up player would be to roster them "up" on the correct grade level team for development.

Ideally your club would be aware that your kid could also play down. This way they'd have 2x the number of teams they could play with for tournamants. Also for things like Talent IDs they'd be pretty much guaranteed an invite at the lover level bevause they're playing and developing at a higher level than everyone else their age.

This is very interesting for young Aug/Sept playera.

Playing on the team that's your kids grade will need to happen for college recruiting.

It's obvious that playing up but guesting down would create tournament monsters. I never thought about all the advantages playing up could bring for things like Talent IDs. I guess this depends on if US Soccer keeps things BY. I assume they would. But even then you'd need to be playing up with your grade to be considered because you'd be competing with the younger half of the grqde above SY team.

I was told both ODP and USYNT are staying BY. So no real benefit over this year for either of those

Younger Aug/Sept players need to be able to play at the level of the Jan to July players on the SY above them.

The ones that get screwed are the Oct, Nov, Dec birthdays.

Which is how it is now. My kid was one of 4 7th graders at the October USYNT ID camp.

I think the "issue" if you want to call it that is with SY the oldest players would be Aug 1st but with USYNT if they stayed BY the oldest player would be Jan 1st. Basically the younger kids on a SY team would be the oldest on a BY USYNT team.

Im probabaly just saying things people already understand. But this would definitely be a reason for young Aug/Sept birthdays to play up on a team thats their grade in school. At least this way you'd be in the running for a Talent ID invite. If you played on grade down team its not that you wouldn't be considered I just dont think you'd be the first pick.

Much, much higher chance of getting noticed playing on age regardless of grade. Grade is irrelevant of course.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best situation if you had a younger than the eligibility window but grade up player would be to roster them "up" on the correct grade level team for development.

Ideally your club would be aware that your kid could also play down. This way they'd have 2x the number of teams they could play with for tournamants. Also for things like Talent IDs they'd be pretty much guaranteed an invite at the lover level bevause they're playing and developing at a higher level than everyone else their age.

This is very interesting for young Aug/Sept playera.

Playing on the team that's your kids grade will need to happen for college recruiting.

It's obvious that playing up but guesting down would create tournament monsters. I never thought about all the advantages playing up could bring for things like Talent IDs. I guess this depends on if US Soccer keeps things BY. I assume they would. But even then you'd need to be playing up with your grade to be considered because you'd be competing with the younger half of the grqde above SY team.

I was told both ODP and USYNT are staying BY. So no real benefit over this year for either of those

Younger Aug/Sept players need to be able to play at the level of the Jan to July players on the SY above them.

The ones that get screwed are the Oct, Nov, Dec birthdays.

Which is how it is now. My kid was one of 4 7th graders at the October USYNT ID camp.

I think the "issue" if you want to call it that is with SY the oldest players would be Aug 1st but with USYNT if they stayed BY the oldest player would be Jan 1st. Basically the younger kids on a SY team would be the oldest on a BY USYNT team.

Im probabaly just saying things people already understand. But this would definitely be a reason for young Aug/Sept birthdays to play up on a team thats their grade in school. At least this way you'd be in the running for a Talent ID invite. If you played on grade down team its not that you wouldn't be considered I just dont think you'd be the first pick.

The vast vast majority of Q1 players will be playing down with their actual grade under SY. I don’t understand why there is post after post and page after page about the 2 or 3 percent of players who may not be. Who cares? Seriously, what is going on? Now we’re talking about the 1% of the 1% of Q1 players who might be in USYNT contention? And you’re wondering if they don’t somehow play with the ‘correct’ grade that they might not be in contention? For the USYNT? Guys, this is nonsense.

This is a key reason the age cutoff was changed to 1/1 in 2017… to give the benefits of RAE to Jan-march birthdays because the usynt were/are BY.

I get it. That's part of why I think the MLSN academies will stay BY. On the boys side, it seems like 99% of the USYNT rosters are from the academies. It makes this discussion though even more silly and further afield from the OG topic of "Trapped/Re-aging Families, How are you having the conversation?"

Heck, "Trapped", from the actual OP(!) implies that the player is a Q1 currently playing 'up' with kids who are a grade older than them. But yet, I waded through a bunch of pages that had nothing to do with this interesting topic.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The best situation if you had a younger than the eligibility window but grade up player would be to roster them "up" on the correct grade level team for development.

Ideally your club would be aware that your kid could also play down. This way they'd have 2x the number of teams they could play with for tournamants. Also for things like Talent IDs they'd be pretty much guaranteed an invite at the lover level bevause they're playing and developing at a higher level than everyone else their age.

This is very interesting for young Aug/Sept playera.

Playing on the team that's your kids grade will need to happen for college recruiting.

It's obvious that playing up but guesting down would create tournament monsters. I never thought about all the advantages playing up could bring for things like Talent IDs. I guess this depends on if US Soccer keeps things BY. I assume they would. But even then you'd need to be playing up with your grade to be considered because you'd be competing with the younger half of the grqde above SY team.

I was told both ODP and USYNT are staying BY. So no real benefit over this year for either of those

Younger Aug/Sept players need to be able to play at the level of the Jan to July players on the SY above them.

The ones that get screwed are the Oct, Nov, Dec birthdays.

Which is how it is now. My kid was one of 4 7th graders at the October USYNT ID camp.

I think the "issue" if you want to call it that is with SY the oldest players would be Aug 1st but with USYNT if they stayed BY the oldest player would be Jan 1st. Basically the younger kids on a SY team would be the oldest on a BY USYNT team.

Im probabaly just saying things people already understand. But this would definitely be a reason for young Aug/Sept birthdays to play up on a team thats their grade in school. At least this way you'd be in the running for a Talent ID invite. If you played on grade down team its not that you wouldn't be considered I just dont think you'd be the first pick.

The vast vast majority of Q1 players will be playing down with their actual grade under SY. I don’t understand why there is post after post and page after page about the 2 or 3 percent of players who may not be. Who cares? Seriously, what is going on? Now we’re talking about the 1% of the 1% of Q1 players who might be in USYNT contention? And you’re wondering if they don’t somehow play with the ‘correct’ grade that they might not be in contention? For the USYNT? Guys, this is nonsense.

This is a key reason the age cutoff was changed to 1/1 in 2017… to give the benefits of RAE to Jan-march birthdays because the usynt were/are BY.