Academy players playing in a bronze level tourney?

I know that their 05 DA team did this as well, but at least the played in the Gold 04 bracket. There were no DA brackets so this is the move they had to make. They won only 1 game against an 05 ECNL team but lost the other 2 games to 04 teams.
 
08. For both the silver and bronze brackets.

Since there will be no U-12 DA teams this coming year, there's likely another explanation (since there wouldn't be 2008 DA kids). Maybe shared kits among kids new to a club? That wouldn't be surprising for a June tournament using next season's age groups.
 
I know that their 05 DA team did this as well, but at least the played in the Gold 04 bracket. There were no DA brackets so this is the move they had to make. They won only 1 game against an 05 ECNL team but lost the other 2 games to 04 teams.
Yes see that is definitley more competitive but im not surprised. i can express how disgusted we were.
 
B08. For both the silver and bronze brackets.

I'm a little confused. In your original post you implied that it was younger kids playing up. Were these 09's playing in 08 bracket, or 08's playing up in any 07 bracket, or actually o8's playing in an o8 bracket? Nevertheless, there is no U-12/08 DA like jrcaesar mentioned. Now some 08's did play 07 DA last season so maybe it was a few of those kids.

Depending on the circumstances using "ringers" can be kind of lame particularly if it rises to the level of blatant sand bagging. However, that's on the team that does it and doesn't personally phase me. Regardless, of the level of play, your going to play teams dramatically better than your team.

There has been a number of posts recently about the "ethics" of kids playing down in flight. Unfortunately, this is the outcome of club/competitive soccer becoming "recreationalized", so now ironically, people are complaining about kids being too good. When some clubs go 7 teams deep in certain age groups your going to have this issue. When I was a kid and walked barefoot in the snow uphill both ways to get to school, clubs only had an A and B team if that at each age group. Kids that couldn't make the cut for the two teams didn't play club soccer and it was truly more competitive...or at least that was my vague recollection.
 
No 08 DA. Patches mean nothing.
They were a mix of 08 regular players (which you could tell) and 09 DA players. Didnt mention at the end that the coach that actually was coaching the games wasnowhere to be found and who handed out medals and the trophy... what do you know... their DA coach! I understand that every club that isn8 teams deep will do it... the post was what are your thoughts. If u think its ok... then cool. If not... then cool as well. I wanted to just get a pulse of what the soccer community thought.
 
They were a mix of 08 regular players (which you could tell) and 09 DA players. Didnt mention at the end that the coach that actually was coaching the games wasnowhere to be found and who handed out medals and the trophy... what do you know... their DA coach! I understand that every club that isn8 teams deep will do it... the post was what are your thoughts. If u think its ok... then cool. If not... then cool as well. I wanted to just get a pulse of what the soccer community thought.
There’s no such thing as 08 or 09 DA.
Not even next year.
So your premise needs to be revised.
 
There’s no such thing as 08 or 09 DA.
Not even next year.
So your premise needs to be revised.
No way. We know what we saw and we did get one kid not to play since we knew him. We know he plays for their DA team. He is the cousin of one of our older players and we have seen him grow up. So say what you want, but we know better. And as well... the cosch that was covering admitted ro it and his argument just was " well they are 09 a year younget".
 
No way. We know what we saw and we did get one kid not to play since we knew him. We know he plays for their DA team. He is the cousin of one of our older players and we have seen him grow up. So say what you want, but we know better. And as well... the cosch that was covering admitted ro it and his argument just was " well they are 09 a year younget".
Maybe an 08 who played for their 07 DA team? Very possible.
An 09 playing for their 07 DA team? Highly unlikely.
 
Maybe an 08 who played for their 07 DA team? Very possible.
An 09 playing for their 07 DA team? Highly unlikely.
Ok , whatever you would like to say. Bottom line, weve been together for almost 12 weeks and it was trash what was done. But i know thats the name of the game with club soccer. No complaining. Just giving inaight ans examples.
 
9-10 year old academy players? Huh?

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So DA starts at 2007 for boys, 2006 for girls. Anything younger than that, clubs have all sorts of labels for their top team in an age group (NPL/DPL, Academy, pre-DA, pre-Academy etc etc etc) but it's not DA. If this was a 2008 boys bronze bracket, you could have 2008's who played up with DA at a particular club, so they might have a DA patch. 2009 I guess is possible to play up 2 years (anything is possible) but that would be one special unicorn. You should not have had a true DA, 2007 player in a 2008 bracket of any kind because that is playing down.

If this was 2008 or 2009 -- it's 9v9. I stand by my original thought, I don't have a problem with 1 or 2 players from a club's top team (whatever it is called) guesting with a 2nd/3rd/4th team for a particular tournament to fill out numbers. The bronze team kids would be bummed to scrap a tournament, I'm sure they would rather have some guest players so their team can play. If a club is putting a whole bunch of "A" team players in a bronze bracket, that's not good for anybody (the bronze team kids, the rest of the bronze bracket, the "A" team kids). Plus having kids play on more than one team in a single tournament is something I've never run across and to be honest, I didn't think was allowed? But I guess every tournament makes its own rules.
 
So DA starts at 2007 for boys, 2006 for girls. Anything younger than that, clubs have all sorts of labels for their top team in an age group (NPL/DPL, Academy, pre-DA, pre-Academy etc etc etc) but it's not DA. If this was a 2008 boys bronze bracket, you could have 2008's who played up with DA at a particular club, so they might have a DA patch. 2009 I guess is possible to play up 2 years (anything is possible) but that would be one special unicorn. You should not have had a true DA, 2007 player in a 2008 bracket of any kind because that is playing down.

If this was 2008 or 2009 -- it's 9v9. I stand by my original thought, I don't have a problem with 1 or 2 players from a club's top team (whatever it is called) guesting with a 2nd/3rd/4th team for a particular tournament to fill out numbers. The bronze team kids would be bummed to scrap a tournament, I'm sure they would rather have some guest players so their team can play. If a club is putting a whole bunch of "A" team players in a bronze bracket, that's not good for anybody (the bronze team kids, the rest of the bronze bracket, the "A" team kids). Plus having kids play on more than one team in a single tournament is something I've never run across and to be honest, I didn't think was allowed? But I guess every tournament makes its own rules.
Thank you Carla for the great info. Super helpful. I agree... 1 or 2... all good. Pracrically the whole team was full of the better payers that literally played in the silver final game before ours. In addtion, the rep from the tourney organizer (3rd party) didnt have any player cards on them. When i asked he said check on line. I did and there was no info. Names from other team were all handwritten as ours were printed on the game cards.
 
You're in for a long ride over your next 6+ years of club if this has you that fired up at U12. As someone who had his son play his last ever youth game on Saturday this will seem comical to you as your player is aging out.
 
dont believe the hype no 08 pr 09 DAs as explained well by Carla. probably just really good kids guest playing and teams marketing things to parents so they buy. patches dont mean anything at certain ages. teams playing out of levels happens often. had one of my kids and his friends help a team from out of town team last year in a Bronze level tourney- they ended up playing an ECNL team that destroyed them - everyone knows this coach is an asshat. That is probably more egregious than a couple players, but it happens and you move on.
 
You're in for a long ride over your next 6+ years of club if this has you that fired up at U12. As someone who had his son play his last ever youth game on Saturday this will seem comical to you as your player is aging out.
Wow congrats on your son. Hope he playes goong forward. I have an 04 faughter and definitley know how teams can be , but we never encountered a set of DA players playing down to a Bronze bracket. I guess things are getting nastier and nastier.
 
dont believe the hype no 08 pr 09 DAs as explained well by Carla. probably just really good kids guest playing and teams marketing things to parents so they buy. patches dont mean anything at certain ages. teams playing out of levels happens often. had one of my kids and his friends help a team from out of town team last year in a Bronze level tourney- they ended up playing an ECNL team that destroyed them - everyone knows this coach is an asshat. That is probably more egregious than a couple players, but it happens and you move on.
Yes totally. Just frustrating as im sure everyone here can atest to.
 
My son played in the tournament you are referring. He was in The 08 team that they call “DA” played in the 07 bracket and finished second . They call it DA but yes no DA until next year , they are just trying to get a group together . As far as the
Kid u r referring to from what I heard he couldn’t play with us because of some schedule issue
So he played with the “regular” 08 group .
 
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