Anonymous
Post 01/11/2026 17:26     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Why are you starting a new thread when you aready have one and then saying you will report anyone who doesn't support what you are saying? Why the drama?


There is no agreeing/disagreeing - if you want to talk about Aug players go there. This about how clubs and families are being impacted in every other scenario.

Again if you take August players out of the mix changing from BY to SY is no big deal.

The only players impacted will be HS level who are in the college recruitment phase.

I guess people might have issues with Jersey numbers. But clubs will use this an an opportunity for them to make more $$$ forcing everyone to buy a new kit.
Aug and Sept. a lot of states Oct 1 is cut off for school grades
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2026 12:56     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:Sounds like that kid was mis evaluated and put on the wrong team to begin with.


100% likely the case. We have a B team kid who has a greater than a 90% passing completion rate with left and right feet, but coaches never valued that skill as it didn't stand out. They valued the over confident ball-hogs & kids who showboat. Fast forward to U14 and those ball-hogs and over dribblers cause constant turn overs. The B team kid who was a good team player, switched clubs and is in a great spot now. My kid is still B team, but it's surprising what some coaches value.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2026 11:21     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:Sounds like that kid was mis evaluated and put on the wrong team to begin with.

I dont know. Maybe? Probably? I think most soccer coaches are washed up hacks. But Im not in the trenches day after day dealing with the grind.

The advantage offensive players have is if you can score goals you can force getting noticed. Defensive players dont have the same opportunities to force getting noticed.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2026 11:02     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Sounds like that kid was mis evaluated and put on the wrong team to begin with.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2026 10:51     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We are U12 and my DC is a Q4 on a 1st team and we have heard nothing.

I don’t honestly expect us to hear anything right now because the older age groups are much more impacted than us. Just reshuffle us and we’ll be fine.

I heard that one club is scrimmaging with the new age groups to understand internally what they have. I heard another club is going to run their tryouts top down and fill in the older teams first and move down the line. I am sure if every club did both, it would be an ideal transition. Naturally, these clubs are not that great at execution and they bow to parental pressure so we will see a range of circumstance’s this spring.

People in big clubs need to be ready for anything. There are 8/1+ kids buried on Aspire and RL teams that are going to supplant 7/31- kids on 1st teams. Don’t be too emotional. There is nothing wrong with 2nd teams. If you are focused on the long haul, develop where you are and focus on moving up in a few years.

You probably wont see as many B team players moving to younger A teams as you think. At least at first. Club coaches and DOCs are egotistical and arrogant. They have their favorites that they've been developing for several years and wont like being proven wrong. This means if you get put on a B team and your kid lights it up they will get noticed. By your coach or other club coaches.

We have a B team player that worked their way to the A team. Then scored a bunch of goals and got a League Talent ID invite. Kicked butt at the league talent id and was recently invited to a Natoinal Talent ID event. What im hearing is that they're seriously being considered for a National team roster.

Wrote all that because you never know what might happen with B team players.


Amen. B players who shine often get their chance to move up, either within their own club OR by going someplace else. It can be a very long road BUT by making these kids work harder to get there sometimes gives them the habits needed to succeed at the harder level vs. a kid who always has been on the A team.

This is why people are wrong to discount strong Aug-Dec players from B teams during this transition year. They are the ones who are the most hungry and the ones most likely to have a chip on their shoulder.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2026 09:58     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We are U12 and my DC is a Q4 on a 1st team and we have heard nothing.

I don’t honestly expect us to hear anything right now because the older age groups are much more impacted than us. Just reshuffle us and we’ll be fine.

I heard that one club is scrimmaging with the new age groups to understand internally what they have. I heard another club is going to run their tryouts top down and fill in the older teams first and move down the line. I am sure if every club did both, it would be an ideal transition. Naturally, these clubs are not that great at execution and they bow to parental pressure so we will see a range of circumstance’s this spring.

People in big clubs need to be ready for anything. There are 8/1+ kids buried on Aspire and RL teams that are going to supplant 7/31- kids on 1st teams. Don’t be too emotional. There is nothing wrong with 2nd teams. If you are focused on the long haul, develop where you are and focus on moving up in a few years.

You probably wont see as many B team players moving to younger A teams as you think. At least at first. Club coaches and DOCs are egotistical and arrogant. They have their favorites that they've been developing for several years and wont like being proven wrong. This means if you get put on a B team and your kid lights it up they will get noticed. By your coach or other club coaches.

We have a B team player that worked their way to the A team. Then scored a bunch of goals and got a League Talent ID invite. Kicked butt at the league talent id and was recently invited to a Natoinal Talent ID event. What im hearing is that they're seriously being considered for a National team roster.

Wrote all that because you never know what might happen with B team players.
Anonymous
Post 01/11/2026 09:51     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
My kids club is starting to do optional mixed age group scrimmages. Which are completely optional and totally not a tryout. Just ignore the coaches watching all players and marking things off on their clipboards. They're planning to do this once per week over the next month. Players from all clubs in the area are invited.

Honestly I like this type of tryout better. The one day cattle call tryouts are ridiculous. Theres no way coaches can properly evaluate hundreds of players in an afternoon.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2026 18:49     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My June 2012 birthday is on a 2012 team.
It is our first year doing travel soccer so I don't understand a lot of the constant angst. She is in 8th grade and her team is combined 7th/8th
Our coach said that the 7th graders will just play " up" if and when it changes and there will be no changes to our team.
Sounds good to me.


It sounds nice but youll have other kids, older kids trying out, and if they are more talented they may displace the 7th graders (or less talented 8th graders). And youll be competing against teams with older 8th graders. Which may or may not matter.

If their first year of travel soccer is U14 it's probably not too high a tier of a team anyway.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2026 18:42     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:My June 2012 birthday is on a 2012 team.
It is our first year doing travel soccer so I don't understand a lot of the constant angst. She is in 8th grade and her team is combined 7th/8th
Our coach said that the 7th graders will just play " up" if and when it changes and there will be no changes to our team.
Sounds good to me.


It sounds nice but youll have other kids, older kids trying out, and if they are more talented they may displace the 7th graders (or less talented 8th graders). And youll be competing against teams with older 8th graders. Which may or may not matter.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2026 16:05     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My June 2012 birthday is on a 2012 team.
It is our first year doing travel soccer so I don't understand a lot of the constant angst. She is in 8th grade and her team is combined 7th/8th
Our coach said that the 7th graders will just play " up" if and when it changes and there will be no changes to our team.
Sounds good to me.


That does sound nice to focus on keeping a group together. Too much of that gets derided. The potential problem is the teams you play next year may have older girls and be harder to compete against. It really depends on league choice.


All the parents and kids who are serious about soccer knows that harder to compete against is best.
Keeping groups together being thrown around is funny, considering without this SY switch, people would still be voluntarily trying out for other teams and switching clubs. As always
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2026 15:50     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:My June 2012 birthday is on a 2012 team.
It is our first year doing travel soccer so I don't understand a lot of the constant angst. She is in 8th grade and her team is combined 7th/8th
Our coach said that the 7th graders will just play " up" if and when it changes and there will be no changes to our team.
Sounds good to me.


A big issue especially for your age group is who will the 7th grades (next year in 8th grade) play with when the 8th grades (now in 9th grade) are playing in HS? To stay together, your team will need to play up an age group and most leagues at that level typically do not play during the HS season (some clubs/areas may offer showcase teams). So, hopefully those 7th graders get to play on age while your kid and the 8th graders are playing in HS. BUT that may upset that younger team to have all the new players for just 1 season.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2026 15:46     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:My June 2012 birthday is on a 2012 team.
It is our first year doing travel soccer so I don't understand a lot of the constant angst. She is in 8th grade and her team is combined 7th/8th
Our coach said that the 7th graders will just play " up" if and when it changes and there will be no changes to our team.
Sounds good to me.


That does sound nice to focus on keeping a group together. Too much of that gets derided. The potential problem is the teams you play next year may have older girls and be harder to compete against. It really depends on league choice.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2026 15:34     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
My June 2012 birthday is on a 2012 team.
It is our first year doing travel soccer so I don't understand a lot of the constant angst. She is in 8th grade and her team is combined 7th/8th
Our coach said that the 7th graders will just play " up" if and when it changes and there will be no changes to our team.
Sounds good to me.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2026 14:54     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We are U12 and my DC is a Q4 on a 1st team and we have heard nothing.

I don’t honestly expect us to hear anything right now because the older age groups are much more impacted than us. Just reshuffle us and we’ll be fine.

I heard that one club is scrimmaging with the new age groups to understand internally what they have. I heard another club is going to run their tryouts top down and fill in the older teams first and move down the line. I am sure if every club did both, it would be an ideal transition. Naturally, these clubs are not that great at execution and they bow to parental pressure so we will see a range of circumstance’s this spring.

People in big clubs need to be ready for anything. There are 8/1+ kids buried on Aspire and RL teams that are going to supplant 7/31- kids on 1st teams. Don’t be too emotional. There is nothing wrong with 2nd teams. If you are focused on the long haul, develop where you are and focus on moving up in a few years.

You probably wont see as many B team players moving to younger A teams as you think. At least at first. Club coaches and DOCs are egotistical and arrogant. They have their favorites that they've been developing for several years and wont like being proven wrong. This means if you get put on a B team and your kid lights it up they will get noticed. By your coach or other club coaches.


I agree with this. We have 3 B team players moving down. 1 will likely move to the younger A squad there other 2 will still be on younger B squad. And we will likely gain 2x B squad players who will drop down to our B squad. There is still a game IQ and skill gap between our older B squad and younger A squad.


Yes, it's not an easy jump. The second teamers most likely to jump are already practicing with the top team now. That's the tell.
Anonymous
Post 01/10/2026 14:45     Subject: Age Change Discussion/Impacts (Except for August Birthdays Playing "Down")
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:We are U12 and my DC is a Q4 on a 1st team and we have heard nothing.

I don’t honestly expect us to hear anything right now because the older age groups are much more impacted than us. Just reshuffle us and we’ll be fine.

I heard that one club is scrimmaging with the new age groups to understand internally what they have. I heard another club is going to run their tryouts top down and fill in the older teams first and move down the line. I am sure if every club did both, it would be an ideal transition. Naturally, these clubs are not that great at execution and they bow to parental pressure so we will see a range of circumstance’s this spring.

People in big clubs need to be ready for anything. There are 8/1+ kids buried on Aspire and RL teams that are going to supplant 7/31- kids on 1st teams. Don’t be too emotional. There is nothing wrong with 2nd teams. If you are focused on the long haul, develop where you are and focus on moving up in a few years.

You probably wont see as many B team players moving to younger A teams as you think. At least at first. Club coaches and DOCs are egotistical and arrogant. They have their favorites that they've been developing for several years and wont like being proven wrong. This means if you get put on a B team and your kid lights it up they will get noticed. By your coach or other club coaches.


I agree with this. We have 3 B team players moving down. 1 will likely move to the younger A squad there other 2 will still be on younger B squad. And we will likely gain 2x B squad players who will drop down to our B squad. There is still a game IQ and skill gap between our older B squad and younger A squad.