Get ready folks

[maestroFRSM]

i would say mls next or mls academies have nothing to gain by converting to sy. 98% of mls does not compete outside of anything mls. at my son's academy we would never compete in anything beyond fest, flex, playoffs. it isn't needed. you cant have 1 side of mls adjust and not the other. they still play each other head to head. and they already have combo years at 07/08.

Agree. Haven’t heard any chatter on the MLS side

 

[j2five]

because its a joke. There is no really good reason to change it and disrupt everything again. Mark my words. Watch what ECNL does. So mark it in time right now in SoCal, the youngest official team for Girls with an actual Pre-ECNL or ECNL or ECRL or ECRL2 league is 2012 which is U13. Lets see what happens next season.

By the way they finally updated the ECNL app and its pretty good now. Huge improvement.

That's helpful. Essentially saying the benefits are not strong enough (or maybe not at all) to cause short-term disruption. Therefore, let's not change anything. Sorry if I misinterpreted/misrepresented what you said. I don't completely disagree with that.

The change itself is not ridiculous, but the fact that the US soccer organizations are spending energy and giving so much weight to this decision in light of the other problems with youth soccer is ridiculous. At least that's how I see it. I can't speak for SuperSoccerStar.

Yeah, that makes sense. I guess I also feel some change is better than no change. And IMO, the benefit does outweight the cons with this change.

 

[CAZZZ]

Agree. Haven’t heard any chatter on the MLS side

If MLSN does not change, they may lose some Q3/Q4 players. Biobanding is a bit of a stigma compared with SY.

 

[pitchplease]

I agree, just wait. In 4 years NCAA will be a pure form of pro league with all the remnants of amateurism thrown out the window.

Will college soccer recruitment begin resembling pro recruitment? If it does will youth soccer on the women's side start favoring Academy type clubs? This is what's happened on the men's side with MLSN. It's reasonable to assume the same would happen to w

Not to mention she had to deal with the Covid years as a Senior in HS and Freshman in college. The uncertainty with an NCAA settlement is screwing up recruiting for all sports, unless your a 5 star athlete. Fortunately, my son is a Junior. Hopefully, they can get things sorted out within the next year.

Not to mention she had to deal with the Covid years as a Senior in HS and Freshman in college. The uncertainty with an NCAA settlement is screwing up recruiting for all sports, unless your a 5 star athlete. Fortunately, my son is a Junior. Hopefully, they can get things sorted out within the next year.

If MLSN does not change, they may lose some Q3/Q4 players. Biobanding is a bit of a stigma compared with SY.

i don't think bio banding is a stigma necessarily. it is about the development of what is best for that particular player, along with a set of criteria you have to meet, although, it isn't as easy as people think it is. and if you do bio band, you are granted a time limit to play down. i only know of one player at our mls academy that bio banded last year, out of all the age groups. it is more the rarity than commonality.

 

[Grace T.]

If MLSN does not change, they may lose some Q3/Q4 players. Biobanding is a bit of a stigma compared with SY.

Everything in MSLN is beholden to the needs of the academies. The regular N teams are an afterthought. As has been pointed out, there are already some dark/combo years at the academy level. The push back is because of the need for international tournaments for the academy (anyone know how the English academies get around that??? Do they just recombine kids?)

 

[Code]

I would predict MLSN will concede to change to SY after Nov. 22nd, but MLS Academy will stay in BY.

I don't think they will make any mid-season changes. Most likely the change will take effect for the 2025-2026 season starting next Sept.

 

[Code]

Absolutely ridiculous to change it back. Absolutely ridiculous. US Soccer is a joke.

It was a bad idea to go to CY. They let it stay too long. Should have changed back after the Covid fiasco, but they didn't. The problems a CY cut-off created was never resolved over a 7 year period, so the logical thing to do is go back to what was working before the switch. Just because you can't comprehend the problems, doesn't mean US Soccer, Club Soccer, and AYSO can't. Obviously they get it, and obviously you were wrong on this one.

 

[Code]

I think the better question is why change it? I haven't seen any compelling evidence that the change provides any tangible benefit to youth soccer. The benefits are subjective at best, and the primary justification seems to be that it "feels" better.

For those of us that went through the 2017 PDI's (among many other reasons), we have a cynical view of anything US Soccer does to "improve" youth soccer.

That having been said, just like the 2017 BY change, they're will be a lot of short term heartburn. But after a couple years it will all be forgotten...until US Soccer tries to change it back again.

I don't think it was forgotten, it is just the people who were not affected didn't care about those who are. They are changing back, because it has been a constant problem for trapped players, year in and year out. The problem didn't work itself out, so now they are changing back, because there is no solution to resolve the trapped player dilemma in a CY system.

 

[Code]

I am seeing the trapped player issue this year for the first time. Half my son's team is in 8th grade and the other half is in 9th grade. Almost all the 9th graders are playing in high school, so the rest have to merge with a lower team of other 8th graders for 4 months. The younger player parents and the younger players themselves are not happy. They feel abandoned. This will be a disruptive change and some players might leave the sport altogether, but it still makes sense to group them by grade more so than birth year.

Be ready for the trapped players to need to play catch up come March. The Trapped Players may get plenty of good practice in, but no legitimate game time for four months has a notable effect. While the Highschool half will be playing 2-3 games a week during that period against older players.

 

[Code]

because its a joke. There is no really good reason to change it and disrupt everything again. Mark my words. Watch what ECNL does. So mark it in time right now in SoCal, the youngest official team for Girls with an actual Pre-ECNL or ECNL or ECRL or ECRL2 league is 2012 which is U13. Lets see what happens next season.

By the way they finally updated the ECNL app and its pretty good now. Huge improvement.

There are 1000's of good reasons. Every single Trapped Player is a great reason to change it back.

 

[Code]

"38 of 43 states have cutoffs that will not correspond with the 8/1 cutoff. 7 states have local district choice, so we don't know if this will affect them. But 38/50 is almost 40% will have automatic trapped players - so this shift isn't changing anything but who the trapped players are. There's also redshirted kids - they are growing in number and they won't be playing in their grad year either."

Not sure what you mean by 40%. But since you're using numbers and percentages, to say this shift isn't changing anything is false. It changes the number and % of players that fall into the trapped bucket. How?

For geographies with 8/1 school start, it changes it from 5 months of trapped players to 0 months.
For geographies with 9/1 school start, it changes it from 4 months of trapped players to 1 month.

As you pointed out, majority of states have 9/1 start. So majority of states will go from 4 months worth of trapped players to 1 month (minority from 5 to 0). Taking your 38 of 43 count as fact, and assuming equal distribution of population by state and equal distribution of participation by month (I know this is not true and should never assume, but makes this exercise easier), we go from 34% of players in the trapped bucket with 1/1 cutoff, down to 7% of players with 8/1 cutoff. Pretty significant decrease (~78%). RE: the assumptions part, even if all states had 9/1 school start, 8% would be trapped players with 8/1 cutoff.

(please check my math)

How will these players be trapped after the change? By that I mean "Trapped" means they have no options due to rule restrictions.

 

[Derek1800]

i would say mls next or mls academies have nothing to gain by converting to sy. 98% of mls does not compete outside of anything mls. at my son's academy we would never compete in anything beyond fest, flex, playoffs. it isn't needed. you cant have 1 side of mls adjust and not the other. they still play each other head to head. and they already have combo years at 07/08.

Not knowing much about mls next vs mls academies, would letting mlsn change cutoffs make the games more competitive or are they already pretty even.

 

[pitchplease]

Not knowing much about mls next vs mls academies, would letting mlsn change cutoffs make the games more competitive or are they already pretty e

Mls wouldn't change. Games are what they are. Outside of the true mls academies you have maybe 2-3 non academies that can compete against the actual academies. Age isn't a factor. It's like different levels of D1. Yes, Xyz State is D1. But they aren't the same level playing field as let's say a Stanford. No one is adjusting to help xyz state level the playing field. Being under that umbrella, means you know what you signed up for. You will always have maybe an outlier, this yesr is FC Delco at a particular age group that balls out. But as an overall, they are the rarity not the nom.

 

[SuperSoccerStar]

It was a bad idea to go to CY. They let it stay too long. Should have changed back after the Covid fiasco, but they didn't. The problems a CY cut-off created was never resolved over a 7 year period, so the logical thing to do is go back to what was working before the switch. Just because you can't comprehend the problems, doesn't mean US Soccer, Club Soccer, and AYSO can't. Obviously they get it, and obviously you were wrong on this one.

Your kid gets to play on a younger team now right?

 

[Code]

Your kid gets to play on a younger team now right?

They will play on a team in which every player is within an age range of 365 days of each other. Does a 12 month differnce in age create an unfair advantage?

 

[Carlsbad7]

Since we're into rumors did you see that there's a rumor that ACC, Big 10, and other college leagues are in talks to drop NCAA and align to US Soccer. If this happens they also intend to do year round soccer that mirrors MLS. Also MLS is changing to BY.

What this means is that college might completely change to BY.

If this is all true it explains why MLS and maybe GA arent commenting on BY to SY.

x.com

x.com

 

[Yak]

Since we're into rumors did you see that there's a rumor that ACC, Big 10, and other college leagues are in talks to drop NCAA and align to US Soccer. If this happens they also intend to do year round soccer that mirrors MLS. Also MLS is changing to BY.

What this means is that college might completely change to BY.

If this is all true it explains why MLS and maybe GA arent commenting on BY to SY.

x.com

x.com

College and MLS do not have age limits so BY is irrelevant. MLS Next age groups already follow BY, so wouldn’t be a switch. I don’t see MLS Next moving away from BY. It’s reason for being is the MLS professional pathway, not college (although plenty of players end up in college programs).

 

[Carlsbad7]

College and MLS do not have age limits so BY is irrelevant. MLS Next age groups already follow BY, so wouldn’t be a switch. I don’t see MLS Next moving away from BY. It’s reason for being is the MLS professional pathway, not college (although plenty of players end up in college programs).

Yea I agree something like what that link suggested wouldn't change anything.

Recruiters would still only be interested in grad year and since MLSN already has bio banding SY makes no difference.

It would strengthen MLSN to college (semipro) pathways. Contracts would also start forcing players into MLSN if they want to play in college.

 

[watfly]

I don't think it was forgotten, it is just the people who were not affected didn't care about those who are. They are changing back, because it has been a constant problem for trapped players, year in and year out. The problem didn't work itself out, so now they are changing back, because there is no solution to resolve the trapped player dilemma in a CY system.

8Be ready for the trapped players to need to play catch up come March. The Trapped Players may get plenty of good practice in, but no legitimate game time for four months has a notable effect. While the Highschool half will be playing 2-3 games a week during that period against older players.

I guess I'm not understanding why being a trapped player is such an impediment to a kids development. It seems your major issue is that kids that are in 8th grade that play with 9 graders are at a big disadvantage. Kids play year round, I see having a few months off from game play as a benefit and is a great time to unwind and cross train.

Plus on the boys side, MLSN doesn't allow HS play, and any level of play below that is effectively recreational soccer (even some of MLSN is glorified rec).

As a matter of perspective, my son is a late September birthday and was a late boomer to boot. He was on the wrong end of the BY change, but it didn't have a negative impact on his soccer development. In fact, I'd argue he developed better skills because he was always going against bigger kids, whereas other kids would just rely on their size. He was identified for the MLSN late bloomer program but never participated. I think bio-banding is mostly BS. The problem with US youth soccer is player identification not RAE.

The perception of trapped players and RAE is far worse than the reality. In my experience their impact is negligible, and temporary at worst.

 

[watfly]

Since we're into rumors did you see that there's a rumor that ACC, Big 10, and other college leagues are in talks to drop NCAA and align to US Soccer. If this happens they also intend to do year round soccer that mirrors MLS. Also MLS is changing to BY.

What this means is that college might completely change to BY.

If this is all true it explains why MLS and maybe GA arent commenting on BY to SY.

x.com

x.com

Not sure which is worse, the NCAA or US Soccer running college soccer. At least the NCAA has a track record of success, although arguably at the expense of student-athletes.

 

[watfly]

College and MLS do not have age limits so BY is irrelevant. MLS Next age groups already follow BY, so wouldn’t be a switch. I don’t see MLS Next moving away from BY. It’s reason for being is the MLS professional pathway, not college (although plenty of players end up in college programs).

What do you think the ratio of MLSN players going to college vs professional? If I had to guess I'd say its 10 to 1 in favor of college.