It’s announced

https://x.com/imcollegesoccer/status/1807744850256650516?s=46

If US Soccer goes back to school year, then there will be no “trapped player”. I see people mixing in ideas of bio-banding and playing up, but that’s all noise. The term “trapped player” is specific to kids who are born in (September?) Oct, Nov, December and therefore are in a different school class than the kids born Jan-September.

That’s it, nothing fancy or strange. Sure, there will be edge cases of kids who are held back or moved forward in school, but for the vast majority, the move would re-align them for the purposes of college recruiting.

Frankly, if I had a trapped player I would want this. It really sucks for the kids who are sophomores in HS during that crucial year when all of their teammates are all-in on recruiting. Most significant is just the sheer number of coaches that show up. If you are U17, you might have 60-120 College coaches show up at your ECNL showcase or Jeff Cup game. When you are U18/19, it’s 35 coaches, and half of them are only showing up to make sure the kids they already signed aren’t slacking off.

Players can always play up, right unless their club forces them to play with their grade level. I bet some parents will argue to keep their trapped kid on their current team until recruiting age when it really matters. Clubs will have to manage that.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

it's coming. it should be that all leagues will change back.

What is coming? An official announcement? Or are you saying that the change is inevitable?

International play is birth year, recruiting is graduation year, it seems this buzz is about returning to the old 8/1 cutoff - which is neither, it just turns Q2 players into Q4 players and creates a new sacrificial lamb / trap player - albeit a convenient on for NCAA since coaches are too busy running their programs to actually keep a player on their radar for more than 18-24m.

How does aligning the calendar to more closely align with a school year cut offs create a new trapped player?

How does changing it from school year to birth year create a trap player?

This is not a serious question. Until they’re all adults, there is always a trap set of players, the banding is all arbitrary.

Bio-banding, with all its flaws, and its narrow age window relevance, at least recognizes that and tries to account for the relative age with developmental milestones.

I promise the experts ENCL will use to justify the change have an equal number of counterparties in the other side of this debate. And in 10 years we’ll be repeating the cycle.

Yes seriously. I'm not talking about the kids parents hold back but looking at everyone there will be less trapped players if the age groups are aligned to the school year calendar. It's math not opinion.

Anonymous wrote:If GA diesnt follow suit this change will make cross league play in tournaments impossible unless ECNL or GA clubs choose to play up an age group.

It will also make soccer rankings between leagues near impossible unless some kind of magic league "power rankings" dynamic was added. Unfortunately this would end up just being something everyone fights about.

Regarding playing professionally it doesn't really matter. Acadamies are all about players playing up so calender year vs grade grouping is irrelevant. However, internationally teams are grouped by year. If you want to play against teams in other countries teams will need to be calender year based.

Rankings? Nobody cares.

Where are we supposed to see an official update if there is one?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

it's coming. it should be that all leagues will change back.

I believe MSI rec is already school year months.

Nationwide most rec never changed.

Rec is about having fun and is more aligned with grade level.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

it's coming. it should be that all leagues will change back.

What is coming? An official announcement? Or are you saying that the change is inevitable?

International play is birth year, recruiting is graduation year, it seems this buzz is about returning to the old 8/1 cutoff - which is neither, it just turns Q2 players into Q4 players and creates a new sacrificial lamb / trap player - albeit a convenient on for NCAA since coaches are too busy running their programs to actually keep a player on their radar for more than 18-24m.

How does aligning the calendar to more closely align with a school year cut offs create a new trapped player?

How does changing it from school year to birth year create a trap player?

This is not a serious question. Until they’re all adults, there is always a trap set of players, the banding is all arbitrary.

Bio-banding, with all its flaws, and its narrow age window relevance, at least recognizes that and tries to account for the relative age with developmental milestones.

I promise the experts ENCL will use to justify the change have an equal number of counterparties in the other side of this debate. And in 10 years we’ll be repeating the cycle.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

it's coming. it should be that all leagues will change back.

I believe MSI rec is already school year months.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

it's coming. it should be that all leagues will change back.

What is coming? An official announcement? Or are you saying that the change is inevitable?

International play is birth year, recruiting is graduation year, it seems this buzz is about returning to the old 8/1 cutoff - which is neither, it just turns Q2 players into Q4 players and creates a new sacrificial lamb / trap player - albeit a convenient on for NCAA since coaches are too busy running their programs to actually keep a player on their radar for more than 18-24m.

100% correct assessment.

But I also believe the change is ECNL just flexing it's muscles to make others all do what they say.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

it's coming. it should be that all leagues will change back.

What is coming? An official announcement? Or are you saying that the change is inevitable?

International play is birth year, recruiting is graduation year, it seems this buzz is about returning to the old 8/1 cutoff - which is neither, it just turns Q2 players into Q4 players and creates a new sacrificial lamb / trap player - albeit a convenient on for NCAA since coaches are too busy running their programs to actually keep a player on their radar for more than 18-24m.

How does aligning the calendar to more closely align with a school year cut offs create a new trapped player?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

it's coming. it should be that all leagues will change back.

What is coming? An official announcement? Or are you saying that the change is inevitable?

International play is birth year, recruiting is graduation year, it seems this buzz is about returning to the old 8/1 cutoff - which is neither, it just turns Q2 players into Q4 players and creates a new sacrificial lamb / trap player - albeit a convenient on for NCAA since coaches are too busy running their programs to actually keep a player on their radar for more than 18-24m.

Anonymous wrote:Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

it's coming. it should be that all leagues will change back.

Is this announced officially yet? Or is this the annual summer break gossip / buzz?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If GA diesnt follow suit this change will make cross league play in tournaments impossible unless ECNL or GA clubs choose to play up an age group.

It will also make soccer rankings between leagues near impossible unless some kind of magic league "power rankings" dynamic was added. Unfortunately this would end up just being something everyone fights about.

Regarding playing professionally it doesn't really matter. Acadamies are all about players playing up so calender year vs grade grouping is irrelevant. However, internationally teams are grouped by year. If you want to play against teams in other countries teams will need to be calender year based.

Cross league play can still happen. Just a few players would have shifted to different teams. Rankings? who cares

It's another challenge to making cross league play happen. When there's enough challenges that make things overly difficult people will give up trying and just play against clubs in their own league.

Regarding the ranking app. It's been an amazing way to cut through all the rankings nonsense we used to have to put up with. I'd be disappointed if it lost some of its value.