Anonymous
Post 06/08/2024 11:36     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Anonymous wrote:PP here — if the point is to keep kids in the same grade together, how does this help?



For existing teams, think of moving from calendar year months to school year months as allowing about a quarter of the players to go back a year. Or they can stay on their teams/age brackets. So movement wouldn't be needed, only allowed. It presents an opportunity for players that are born in August to December and playing with an older grade to drop down a year and play with their classmates.

MSI Classic says they follow calendar year with an exception for kids born from July to Dec can play down a year if they are in "that grade at school." And MLS Next has biobanding exception while ECNL has trapped player exception.

So ECNL could just follow MSI Classic's lead and stick with calendar year but add an exception for kids born between say August and December to go back a year. Sure, it's just semantics but so are all the exceptions.

When you think about it, ECNL and MLS Next / GA having slightly different rules could be a reasonable way for youth soccer to combat relative age effects as players/teams could have differing months as there oldest months.
Anonymous
Post 06/07/2024 22:34     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
PP here — if the point is to keep kids in the same grade together, how does this help?
Anonymous
Post 06/07/2024 22:33     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Can someone explain what the new rule would be? Cause I don’t get how it would keep a school year group of kids together. Maybe I’m being dense. My kid has an April birthday. His friend has a September birthday and they are in the same grade (born the same year). Would they remain on the same team? It sounds like my kid with the April birthday could be pushed “up” to an older team and his friend with the September birthday could be pushed “down” to the younger team. Is that correct?
Anonymous
Post 06/07/2024 09:19     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
I would expect an announcement in the Aug/Sept time frame on the changes beginning for the 2025-2026 season.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2024 22:05     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
On the latest one, the ECNL team agreed that biobanding would be a disaster to implement and having trapped player exceptions can be problematic (like telling a boy playing down is not a punishment, some view it as a form of cheating, etc.) They also discussed that research found that going to calendar age didn't reduce the relative age effect, it merely slide it to different months.

An interesting side note was that the research infered that coaches were found to be ignoring who the youngest and oldest players in their birth year cohorts are so relative age effect remediation should start by educating coaches and clubs to what they are doing (which seemed like they were saying that should grade players based on a birth month curve when picking the players for top teams)

After the original podcast it seemed like they were trying to justify/float a trial balloon of the idea of expanding the trapped player rule in some way but today's podcast made it pretty clear that there was consensus that school age was better for youth soccer than calendar age. A particular point was made that kids want to play with their school mates when first playing soccer and splitting grade at the outset of their school journey leads to a decrease in overall soccer participation.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2024 20:48     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
US Soccer is pushing this. All leagues will be following it with a year or two when it becomes official. No longer will u19 and u17 teams be destroyed.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2024 15:16     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Again. You guys. One blogger said this. Opinions are not facts.


It's not facts, but it wasn't a "blogger". It was the current Pres/VP of ECNL


The 3rd podcast on the topic from ECNL leaders should be a few days.

On the 1st they pointed out that the 3 reasons that the switch to calendar year happened were essentially inaccurate and on the 2nd they said they got the most feedback ever and as good stewards they need to be responsive to the clubs/players. On the 3rd the are addressing the related topic of relative age using a fact based expert.

They have been pretty fact based on the topic but have not really brought up potential solutions like expanding trap player rules, biobanding, etc.


Thanks for the heads up - it's out now! Only 3 minutes in so I can't comment on it, but we'll see what they get into.
Anonymous
Post 06/05/2024 07:29     Subject: Re:ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Anonymous wrote:Mine is trapped. In 8th grade during her spring year, soccer nearly stopped due to her 9th grade teammates playing high school so we signed her up for tournaments that allowed individual players to sign up (her coach didnt offer any other play opportunities). She got picked up one weekend and played all that weekend. Two other spring weekends, she played some pick up games with her middle school friends, both boys and girls, which was alot of fun. Now as a rising sophomore, seriously considering leaving soccer for another sport for a few other reasons but the trapped player situation keeps that conversation going. Talked about graduating early but probably wont do that. Another issue, though it the social one. I feel sad 3/4 of teammates will move on a year early, repeating the middle school/high school transition.


Yep. That’s why I said these kids “got screwed in the front and screwed in the back”. It wasn’t a one time thing.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2024 20:45     Subject: Re:ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Mine is trapped. In 8th grade during her spring year, soccer nearly stopped due to her 9th grade teammates playing high school so we signed her up for tournaments that allowed individual players to sign up (her coach didnt offer any other play opportunities). She got picked up one weekend and played all that weekend. Two other spring weekends, she played some pick up games with her middle school friends, both boys and girls, which was alot of fun. Now as a rising sophomore, seriously considering leaving soccer for another sport for a few other reasons but the trapped player situation keeps that conversation going. Talked about graduating early but probably wont do that. Another issue, though it the social one. I feel sad 3/4 of teammates will move on a year early, repeating the middle school/high school transition.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2024 18:21     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My son's U16 ECNL team has three kids that go to the same high school. The other 15 go to 15 completely different schools. He's been on teams that had boys in three different grades on the same team. The kids were also from 5 or 6 different areas. There really isn't much reason for this school year thing anymore, because the kids gravitate to a certain club for whatever reason they have.


Sorry to say there is a reason. It’s not about going to the same school. That does not matter. The issue comes in both 8 and 11-12 in a way it does not with calendar year. The U18-19 is a disaster for the 20-30% of juniors on what is a team of seniors preparing to go to college. (which used to be only a junior team or only a senior team). They want to play high level for their junior year and get seen/recruited the spring of their junior year but the rest of their team checks out come spring as they are graduating. Same happens in 8th for kids who want to play but their season stops so all the freshman can play high school. This does not matter for MLs because they don’t allow high school ball. In school year everybody is going to college at the same time u less their parents redshirted them (a choice some make). It’s a mess for a large chunk of kids which is why ECNL has tried so many workarounds in their policies (ie- 8th graders can play down for half a year (dumb as they don’t even know the teams they are then thrusted into mid year and then those teams real players get benched because roster bloats with 20-30% more kids for 6 months. Its a mess). I wish they would revert and stop the stupidness of having a program geared toward college recruiting that makes that process messy at best.


I get that, but those trapped players become the U19 players on the U18/19 teams. They get an extra year of club soccer to develop.


You must have a younger kid. U-19 is not about development anymore. It’s about recruiting. The extra year is not good because they are always off cycle for the rules and norms of boys recruiting (Junior year) and so the college coaches don’t see them in the right recruiting season. They go to watch a junior team and the kid is a sophomore and can’t be contacted. And when they are seniors on a team with juniors it’s too late as all recruiting slots are gone. It’s a PIA for both coaches and trapped players. If you know, you know.


100% with a 2005 Senior now (October bday). Really effing sucked. All of his teammates graduated a year ahead of time--then he was a senior on a team with all juniors his final year. He was a sophomore when they were recruiting --and, yes, he couldn't be contacted but more importantly hadn't gone thru growth spurt yet. It was a very uphill battle.


Colleges are liking older kids now. I will add ^ my kid and trapped teammates like him were still committing winter and spring of senior year. You have to apply to more schools because of this though—since recruitment is happening after college application deadlines for the most part. There are also so many gap year kids at the top colleges nowadays and the transfer portal
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2024 15:08     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Again. You guys. One blogger said this. Opinions are not facts.


It's not facts, but it wasn't a "blogger". It was the current Pres/VP of ECNL


The 3rd podcast on the topic from ECNL leaders should be a few days.

On the 1st they pointed out that the 3 reasons that the switch to calendar year happened were essentially inaccurate and on the 2nd they said they got the most feedback ever and as good stewards they need to be responsive to the clubs/players. On the 3rd the are addressing the related topic of relative age using a fact based expert.

They have been pretty fact based on the topic but have not really brought up potential solutions like expanding trap player rules, biobanding, etc.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2024 13:01     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:My son's U16 ECNL team has three kids that go to the same high school. The other 15 go to 15 completely different schools. He's been on teams that had boys in three different grades on the same team. The kids were also from 5 or 6 different areas. There really isn't much reason for this school year thing anymore, because the kids gravitate to a certain club for whatever reason they have.


Sorry to say there is a reason. It’s not about going to the same school. That does not matter. The issue comes in both 8 and 11-12 in a way it does not with calendar year. The U18-19 is a disaster for the 20-30% of juniors on what is a team of seniors preparing to go to college. (which used to be only a junior team or only a senior team). They want to play high level for their junior year and get seen/recruited the spring of their junior year but the rest of their team checks out come spring as they are graduating. Same happens in 8th for kids who want to play but their season stops so all the freshman can play high school. This does not matter for MLs because they don’t allow high school ball. In school year everybody is going to college at the same time u less their parents redshirted them (a choice some make). It’s a mess for a large chunk of kids which is why ECNL has tried so many workarounds in their policies (ie- 8th graders can play down for half a year (dumb as they don’t even know the teams they are then thrusted into mid year and then those teams real players get benched because roster bloats with 20-30% more kids for 6 months. Its a mess). I wish they would revert and stop the stupidness of having a program geared toward college recruiting that makes that process messy at best.


I get that, but those trapped players become the U19 players on the U18/19 teams. They get an extra year of club soccer to develop.


You must have a younger kid. U-19 is not about development anymore. It’s about recruiting. The extra year is not good because they are always off cycle for the rules and norms of boys recruiting (Junior year) and so the college coaches don’t see them in the right recruiting season. They go to watch a junior team and the kid is a sophomore and can’t be contacted. And when they are seniors on a team with juniors it’s too late as all recruiting slots are gone. It’s a PIA for both coaches and trapped players. If you know, you know.


+1

As a parent who went through this with a September son now playing college, this is exactly correct. The trapped players had objectively a much harder time with recruiting than the kids who weren’t trapped players. Some who should have been good candidates based on skills didn’t end up with effective recruiting at all because they just didn’t get seen at the right time. I know trapped kids who went to good junior college teams instead of a good four-year program (now D1 recruits) because they just couldn’t get seen on the right timeline in high school. It’s a mess.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2024 12:53     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Anonymous wrote:Again. You guys. One blogger said this. Opinions are not facts.


It's not facts, but it wasn't a "blogger". It was the current Pres/VP of ECNL
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2024 12:52     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
They are not going to change. This is just speculation.
But I had a trapped 8th grader this year and it went great. He knew the team from scrimmages. He played a lot was able to keep to a practice schedule and still do some of the optional sessions with his age group .
I hadn’t thought through all the downsides senior year. Makes sense, thanks for the insight. Good to know if that’s the path he stays on.
Anonymous
Post 06/04/2024 12:50     Subject: ECNL moving to school year not calendar
Again. You guys. One blogger said this. Opinions are not facts.