# Academy players playing in a bronze level tourney?



## Premo5 (Jun 16, 2019)

Question or more of a poll... what does everyone think about academy players playing in a bronze level tourney bracket (regardless if they are a year younger). Just want to know everyones thoughts. Thank you!


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## timbuck (Jun 16, 2019)

Happens every weekend.  Not much you can do about it.  Other than skip tournaments and play handpicked friendlies. Even then you’ll get some ringers thrown in to the mix.


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## Mr. Mac (Jun 16, 2019)

I think most academy players aren't superstars..they are most likely above average to very good..but without their other 10 teammates they won't be be able to dominate as much you think..now if its a superstar then that's different but even they need to get some practice in too..no better place to do it than in a game where it means little to the player. They can try things they otherwise wouldn't be able to do in game situations without the repercussions.  Of course it's also not fair to actual bronze level players especially if one of them is dropped for the academy player. But we all know of teams that purposely play a flight or 2 down from where they should..just so they can get that all important win! I'd advise to not worry too much about it and enjoy our kids being kids..it goes by in the blink of an eye.


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## SoCal GK mom (Jun 17, 2019)

Premo5 said:


> Question or more of a poll... what does everyone think about academy players playing in a bronze level tourney bracket (regardless if they are a year younger). Just want to know everyones thoughts. Thank you!


Per US Soccer rules, US Soccer DA players are not allowed to play in any outside competition during the DA season, Aug 1- June 30, regardless of age group. So this is either a rules violation or it is not accurate.


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

SoCal GK mom said:


> Per US Soccer rules, US Soccer DA players are not allowed to play in any outside competition during the DA season, Aug 1- June 30, regardless of age group. So this is either a rules violation or it is not accurate.


Yes i would like to know if this is accurate or not. It just seems silly if any DA players would play in a bronze level bracket. Regardless of touches, they should be playing to their level or close to it.  But that trophy means the world to some people.


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## socalkdg (Jun 17, 2019)

My daughters in a Rec basketball league.   Played a team that had 7 players from their travel team on it.  Took a nice 44-30 loss in that one.   Not sure why a full travel team would want to play rec ball.  I can see one player, but a whole team?


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

socalkdg said:


> My daughters in a Rec basketball league.   Played a team that had 7 players from their travel team on it.  Took a nice 44-30 loss in that one.   Not sure why a full travel team would want to play rec ball.  I can see one player, but a whole team?


100% agree! I dont get the nbenefit other than the club getting a nice picture with one of their "teams" with a trophy. It just seems so unreal how a club, coach, ans parents would stoop so low. It takes away from the beauty of any sport.


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## carla hinkle (Jun 17, 2019)

Do you mean a literal DA player or just the top "academy" team of a younger age bracket? The former I don't think is allowed (at least for full time DA players) the latter I see all the time with the 7v7 and 9v9 age groups. Usually it's a matter of getting enough kids for a given tournament, especially in the summer when families go on vacation. Better to bring in a guest from a higher team than scrap the tournament, I would think.

If a coach is decent (as a human being and a coach) they play the guest "academy" player strategically and let the kids who are really on that team get solid playing time. I tend to go with what Mr. Mac says, unless the guest "academy" player is a true superstar (which they usually are not, above the average bronze player yes, the next Messi no) they can help the bronze team but shouldn't overwhelm it.


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

carla hinkle said:


> Do you mean a literal DA player or just the top "academy" team of a younger age bracket? The former I don't think is allowed (at least for full time DA players) the latter I see all the time with the 7v7 and 9v9 age groups. Usually it's a matter of getting enough kids for a given tournament, especially in the summer when families go on vacation. Better to bring in a guest from a higher team than scrap the tournament, I would think.
> 
> If a coach is decent (as a human being and a coach) they play the guest "academy" player strategically and let the kids who are really on that team get solid playing time. I tend to go with what Mr. Mac says, unless the guest "academy" player is a true superstar (which they usually are not, above the average bronze player yes, the next Messi no) they can help the bronze team but shouldn't overwhelm it.


Great points! In this case we faced them the 1st  with 3 or 4 DA patched players ( and you could tell) and then in the final it was 6 DA  patched players along eith players we didnt see the 1st time with no numbered jerseys. To top it off, some of those players literally played in the final in the silver bracket right before our final!!!!


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## jpeter (Jun 17, 2019)

Tournments all over have guest players and some bring in the ringers so that's they way goes.  Team that are tight & been playing together for a while can do well so don't worry about who you play rather how you play.

It's up to the clubs to enforce the rules some don't care and as long you have dual carded players (Cal South & Us club for example)  DA players will show up  in tournments or they could be PT or done with thier season.  It's not like there is some DA watchdog that cares or keeps track of who's play what tournment with whom.  Altough playing down is not something that I would entertain for any of my kids.


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

jpeter said:


> Tournments all over have guest players and some bring in the ringers so that's they way goes.  Team that are tight & been playing together for a while can do well so don't worry about who you play rather how you play.
> 
> It's up to the clubs to enforce the rules some don't care and as long you have dual carded players (Cal South & Us club for example)  DA players will show up  in tournments or they could be PT or done with thier season.  It's not like there is some DA watchdog that cares or keeps track of who's play what tournment with whom.  Altough playing down is not something that I would entertain for any of my kids.


Yes and thats the point. Just not playing down... but playing wayyyyyy down. I mean cmon


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## timbuck (Jun 17, 2019)

Club volleyball really has a great system.  Expensive. But good.
Tryouts are all at the same time. You tryout.  You get an offer on Sunday.  You have to accept within 72 hours.  You make a team.  That is your team for all games.  No guests. No adding players after the tryout process.  
The tournaments are all connected.  You do well in one, you move up a group for the next one.  You do bad, you get moved down.


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## dk_b (Jun 17, 2019)

Premo5 said:


> Yes and thats the point. Just not playing down... but playing wayyyyyy down. I mean cmon


Further, I fault the tournament organizers for allowing players to play simultaneously on multiple teams in the same event.  At what point do people say, "hey, maybe it is not healthy for us to allow such a thing"?  Back-to-back games?  Sure, a fit kid will likely make it through unscathed but if they play the next day - practice or game - and the next, etc., the muscles are fatigued and a tired hammy means your risk of knee injury has SKYROCKETED (ask Klay).


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

dk_b said:


> Further, I fault the tournament organizers for allowing players to play simultaneously on multiple teams in the same event.  At what point do people say, "hey, maybe it is not healthy for us to allow such a thing"?  Back-to-back games?  Sure, a fit kid will likely make it through unscathed but if they play the next day - practice or game - and the next, etc., the muscles are fatigued and a tired hammy means your risk of knee injury has SKYROCKETED (ask Klay).





dk_b said:


> Further, I fault the tournament organizers for allowing players to play simultaneously on multiple teams in the same event.  At what point do people say, "hey, maybe it is not healthy for us to allow such a thing"?  Back-to-back games?  Sure, a fit kid will likely make it through unscathed but if they play the next day - practice or game - and the next, etc., the muscles are fatigued and a tired hammy means your risk of knee injury has SKYROCKETED (ask Klay).


Yes exactly! The adults, coaches, and evenparents should do whats right. It was just a joke of how the tourney was ran all weekend. From the tournament organizer (3rd party) and their terrible responses all weekend to the actual club and coaches that were handing player cards and boys to eachother like it was going out of sstyle.of course no DA player cards and didnt even know who was the right age. One boy walked up to a coach ans asked" hey coach which team and field do I go to today!"...... wow!


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## carla hinkle (Jun 17, 2019)

Patched DA players in a bronze tournament, and playing in silver & bronze games the same day, sounds ludicrous and I can’t believe it is allowed?? Or that any reasonable coach would do it.


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

carla hinkle said:


> Patched DA players in a bronze tournament, and playing in silver & bronze games the same day, sounds ludicrous and I can’t believe it is allowed?? Or that any reasonable coach would do it.


Absolutley. And the tournament organizers literally could care less. It was a great lesson for our team to define integrity, but a hard lesson to learn. They earned their way through and to have it play out like it did, was simply ridiculous.


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## coachrefparent (Jun 17, 2019)

Nomads did this a few years ago in a tournament we played (but not bronze). They were the late add to round out the bracket (probably free) and everyone knew what was going on. Red t-shirts  with numbers written in pen, cards didn't look like any players. They were reported to event staff and had to play with real rostered players in final and lost.

What tournament and club was this?


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

Ill say it in relative terms ... sixth letter of the alphabet.. 3rd letter of the alphabet... how everyone likes their hew of fried chicken... and their are 50 of these that are united. Lol!


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## ToonArmy (Jun 17, 2019)

Second favorite hue of friend chicken is bronze


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## 66 GTO (Jun 17, 2019)

what age group was this for?


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

66 GTO said:


> what age group was this for?


B08. For both the silver and bronze brackets.


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## RedCard (Jun 17, 2019)

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.


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## jrcaesar (Jun 17, 2019)

Premo5 said:


> 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.


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

RedCard said:


> 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.


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## watfly (Jun 17, 2019)

Premo5 said:


> 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.


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## Frank (Jun 17, 2019)

No 08 DA. Patches mean nothing.


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

Frank said:


> 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.


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## messy (Jun 17, 2019)

Premo5 said:


> 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.


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

messy said:


> 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".


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## messy (Jun 17, 2019)

Premo5 said:


> 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.


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## Premo5 (Jun 17, 2019)

messy said:


> 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.


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## jpeter (Jun 18, 2019)

9-10 year old academy players? Huh?


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## Premo5 (Jun 18, 2019)

jpeter said:


> 9-10 year old academy players? Huh?


Not crying wolf at all. Without putting the team or players on blast... just know it happened. Got piccs and everything. Excuses included. But again... just want to know everones thoughts


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## carla hinkle (Jun 18, 2019)

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.


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## Premo5 (Jun 18, 2019)

carla hinkle said:


> 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.


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## Frank (Jun 18, 2019)

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.


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## Not_that_Serious (Jun 18, 2019)

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.


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## Premo5 (Jun 18, 2019)

Frank said:


> 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.


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## Premo5 (Jun 18, 2019)

Not_that_Serious said:


> 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.


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## Benzema4 (Jun 18, 2019)

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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## messy (Jun 18, 2019)

Benzema4 said:


> 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 .


‘08s will not have a DA division next year either.


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## Premo5 (Jun 18, 2019)

Benzema4 said:


> 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 .


This team had players and their DA coach even gave them the trophy. STS was the tourney orgabizer and when we asked to see players cards theybsaid DA players are online and not required. All of their game cards were handwritten. All of our aide was printed. At the end we all know whatvthat club tried to pull and the organizer was on board with them. No worries. Just push on and hope to  see them down the road when the tables WILL BE turned!!!!


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## Benzema4 (Jun 18, 2019)

messy said:


> ‘08s will not have a DA division next year either.


Ur right I meant in 2 years


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## Grace T. (Jun 18, 2019)

My son's classmates is an 08 for our local large club, and yes they handed out the DA patch even though they are just a 'pre-DA' team, whatever that means.  Yes, she goes around saying she's "DA".  No, I don't think she really knows the difference.  Marketing.

My 2 cents...so much stupid drama goes on in club soccer it's not worth losing sleep over and you just need to accept youth soccer is really broken (or get out).  On the other hand, for those of us working to improve the system, I get that this stuff is grating....after all, why bother having age group brackets if you aren't going to enforce the level brackets.  I personally think that there should be restrictions on the amount of guest players and on players playing up or down more than 1 level for a tournament to be officially sanctioned by CalSouth....if that results in fewer tournaments, so be it.


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## Benzema4 (Jun 18, 2019)

Grace T. said:


> My son's classmates is an 08 for our local large club, and yes they handed out the DA patch even though they are just a 'pre-DA' team, whatever that means.  Yes, she goes around saying she's "DA".  No, I don't think she really knows the difference.  Marketing.
> 
> My 2 cents...so much stupid drama goes on in club soccer it's not worth losing sleep over and you just need to accept youth soccer is really broken (or get out).  On the other hand, for those of us working to improve the system, I get that this stuff is grating....after all, why bother having age group brackets if you aren't going to enforce the level brackets.  I personally think that there should be restrictions on the amount of guest players and on players playing up or down more than 1 level for a tournament to be officially sanctioned by CalSouth....if that results in fewer tournaments, so be it.


Agreed


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## timbuck (Jun 18, 2019)

Cheaters gonna cheat.  Sandbaggers gonna sand bag.  Assholes gonna ass hole.

Pretty much every tournament that has 2 or more flights will have the 2nd, 3rd, and/or 4th flight won by a team that should have been playing in Flight 1.
Enjoy the 4 games in a weekend.  Winning or losing a trophy really has very little to do with anything along the lines of "development".

Which is worse? 
A team calling itself "DA" and wearing patches when that age group doesn't have that available yet.

OR 

A team playing in one of these closed leagues (DA, ECNL, DPL, ENCL2) that has no business being at that level of competition?


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## Premo5 (Jun 18, 2019)

timbuck said:


> Cheaters gonna cheat.  Sandbaggers gonna sand bag.  Assholes gonna ass hole.
> 
> Pretty much every tournament that has 2 or more flights will have the 2nd, 3rd, and/or 4th flight won by a team that should have been playing in Flight 1.
> Enjoy the 4 games in a weekend.  Winning or losing a trophy really has very little to do with anything along the lines of "development".
> ...


Totally agree! Point well made!


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## PaytoplayinLancaster? (Jun 18, 2019)

I remember being upset by this same situation as my kid was rising through the ranks.  Teams with guest players, our stud defender missing a tournament to play basketball, and the ever favorite “Holy Crap! Did that kid drive here?”  Then I figured once you are at the highest level all the excuses go away.  I’ve seen skilled players get bodied off the ball for hanging on too long.  I’ve seen a team full of big kids get beat by good combination play.  I’ve seen 6’2” goalkeepers at 12 yrs old get scored on by passing, and making them move.  The frustration you’re feeling is all part of the journey.  Most ‘08’s in bronze level aren’t sure if soccer is their sport yet so be patient, and use this as an opportunity to have your kid train harder to lose the excuses.  Once you find a team of likeminded players it gets a whole lot better.


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## RedDevilDad (Jun 19, 2019)

2 things: 
1. Many Academies collect uniforms at the end of the season.  They aren't thrown away.  We have seen a u9 girls team wearing DA patches for a club that does not have a girls DA and clearly not a U9 one...  They were just the extras from the previous apparently small U12 team. So not every kid wearing a DA patch is DA. I doubt people went around checking player cards vs. their profile on www.ussoccerda.com. 

2. DA players don't play HS with their friends.  Many I know will jump in tournaments, regardless of the level, just to play with their friends. 

Simmer down.  Not all DA kids are evil glory hunters looking for that trophy for some rinky-dink tournament. Some of them are actually just kids who want to play and got a chance.... and we all know every coach would turn down a good player from playing with his friends because of principles and for the joy of the beautiful game... bah.


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## RedDevilDad (Jun 19, 2019)

messy said:


> Maybe an 08 who played for their 07 DA team? Very possible.
> An 09 playing for their 07 DA team? Highly unlikely.


I think LAG's U12 had an 09... but his dad plays for the LA Kings so that helps. lol


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## RedDevilDad (Jun 19, 2019)

SoCal GK mom said:


> Per US Soccer rules, US Soccer DA players are not allowed to play in any outside competition during the DA season, Aug 1- June 30, regardless of age group. So this is either a rules violation or it is not accurate.


Not August 1st so yeah, expect DA kids bouncing around Surf Cup or putting themselves in the guest player pool on gotsport.

eh, Close... Read the waiver yourself at: https://ussoccer.app.box.com/s/3e5ipyfjgobggg66gvu766rwbvmbbxth/file/308847432545

Refers to the academy Season... the rules would state that the "DA Clubs may not permit any Academy Player to participate on a non-DA team during the Academy Season."  The Academy Season is defined as "means the U.S. Soccer Development Academy competition beginning in September and concluding in July including the Academy League, Academy Playoffs and Academy Championships."  

So, potentially teams that finished their games in mid-May and that age group didn't have a playoffs...  they were done. Hence, clear to play for whoever they want.


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