Thatonedad
SILVER
They still have to vote on it. So until that happens we won’t know anything.
Get ready folks
- Thread starter soccer4us
- Start date
Code
GOLD
Trapped players have a birthdate that is in November or December. Because their birthday is beyond the school start cutoff date, which is usually November 1st (it used to be January 1st) they are not allowed to start school "early"; they would be 4 years old in Kindergarten for about half the year, then turn 5 like the majority of their classmates for the remaining half of the school year. Because the US Soccer year group cutoff date was changed to Jan 1st, and not Nov 1st, they are forced to play with a group of players that is in a Grade Year ahead of them, and forced to attended school a grade year behind the Calendar Year Group of their soccer teammates. This is why they term "Trapped Player" was created; they are literally caught in the red tape between two inflexible rules based on arbitrary dates.
You are right about how it works. Just want to clarify that these players would not start Kindergarten when they are 6. They would be 5 years old for about half the school year. My daughter is in this trapped player group, which I'm sure everyone already has figured out by my over involvement in this discussion. When she started Kindergarten (the first time) she was 4 years old, about two months into the school year, California changed the law regarding the cut-off date. The school gave us an option to disenroll her and come back next year, or keep her in the class under a "TK" enrollment. Either way she would have to attend Kindergarten the following year. Because she was already about two months in and enjoyed it, we decided to just keep her in school. Six of her classmates where in the same scenario. They all did Kindergarten twice; the school board refused to let them move into 1st grade with their first Kindergarten class.
Code
GOLD
Hopefully it works out for you. It was a disaster for us. Could never get any other teams to commit to a scrimmage. Had some friendlies with some of the clubs younger teams, but between the youngers league and tournament schedules around the Holiday's it never was much. It is also an age group where one or two years younger is a significant size/development difference. So most coaches/parents don't want their younger players scrimmaging the "Highschool Players". Don't expect the U15 Trapped Player to see any meaningful games from the end of Nov until March. I would heavily recommend a good training schedule focused on fitness and individual skills. The teammates playing in Highschool will see a lot of games against older players in this timeframe and will usually come out of Highschool in good shape, ready to play, if they don't get injured. Most Highschool programs are pure Kick and Run, so the tactical skills of game play will suffer for all players. Your trapped player needs to keep their fitness and touches on point during this three month forced timeout. Club coaches are going to want to hit the ground running in March to fix all the bad Highschool habits; if your player is out of shape from half-hearted training during this time, they are going to be on the bench when they can't catch their breath.
Scrub It Kook
BRONZE
In some districts Middle Schools are now offering winter soccer. The teams are a combo of 6th, 7th, & 8th graders with a 10-12 game schedule. The tough part is the rosters were like 20 players last year and the games conflicted with State Cup. Not exactly their club team level but gets the middle schoolers used to playing with varying age groups before high school. Fortunately my sons team had mostly club players on it so it was a lot less jungle-ball-ish than I thought it was going to be.
Assuming she is 2010 if your in SoCal they will probably do like they did last year and she would play with the 2011's where all the southwest clubs repeat the first half of league again. The entire 2011 and 2012 teams will need something to do from Mid Nov to Mid March. Hopefully they do that again.
That cut off got moved early to Sept 1st and August 1st in some areas. For soccer, the cut off was July 31st. So trapped players are typically born in September and later
In this case, they can choose to play up (AKA their original team) if they want to stay in the same grade.
Sure, but now they’re at a disadvantage playing against Sept and October kids a year older. It would be to their advantage in exposure to play with the younger team. For my 2010, I’m excited at the prospect she’d play NL as being one of the older kids rather than playing RL with mostly younger kids.
It was interesting because this video showed up on my instagram feed and now my kid has the chance of being on the earlier half if the year instead of the younger half:
rainbow_unicorn
PREMIER
Basically if your kid is a trapped player (Sep - Dec birthday) then you're for
the change to grade year. If your kid is not a trapped player (Jan - Aug) then you're against
the change to grade year.The moral of the story is, don’t make sweet love to your wife until it’s middle of May. Anytime earlier than that you will have December babies.Basically if your kid is a trapped player (Sep - Dec birthday) then you're for
If your kid is not a trapped player (Jan - Aug) then you're against
Messi>CR7
GOLD
Out of curiosity, I looked up the birth month of some GOATS and a few of my favorite players. There is no correlation between success and birth month (at least not for this small sample size of 12 world class players).
Pele – October
Maradona – October
Ronaldinho - March
Zidane – June
Bobby Firmino - October
Kante - March
Messi – June
CR7 – February
Mbappe - December
Kevin De Bruyne – June
Modrić – September
Yamal – July
Thatonedad
SILVER
I agree. Won’t matter if they change things to SY or BY the top kids will always rise.
Can’t a child train with another team younger during these months with the same club?
A lot of my son’s friends who have summer birthdays and started kinder after they turned 6 that summer (back when they were younger). So most of those players will technically still be trapped even if the date gets moved to Aug 1st (if they have June and July birthdays). The summer birthdays kids that started school late will still be one grade lower if date gets moved. Right?
This is the million dollar question.
I haven't seen any statements from leagues/groups other than ECNL on this subject.
Calender year grouping (what exists now) has benefits as well. It's how the rest of the world groups players and it's how National teams are grouped. By aligning to calender year grouping Anerican teams can travel to other countries and play against their teams because everyone is grouped the same way.
The main reason to group players by school grade is to better appeal to college scouts. If all the players on a team are the same grade in school they'll also graduate the same year from High School. This means recruiters could attend a showcase and all players they watch are available to be recruited to play on college teams.
Different people have different things that they'd like get out of soccer. Those that more highly value playing professionally generally prefer calender year grouping of players. Those that view soccer as a way to get into into college and/or potentially get college paid for tend to like grouping players by grade in school.
What you're describing is one of the issues with grouping players by grade in school. There's no national standard cutoff date for students to attend school Most are around Aug but there are outliers. What this means is no matter what cutoff date ECNL chooses to define there will always be a few "trapped" players. To address this people will push for players to be grouped by school grade no matter what age. If this happens patents will start holding their kids back in school for an advantage in sports (ie 18 year old High School freshman)
See how it works? Pick your poison. You can't be everything to everyone. There's a reason clubs switched from school grade to calender year back in the day. Switching back to school year grouping just opens a different can of worms.
Thatonedad
SILVER
Code
GOLD
This makes the problem much worse than expected. A Calendar Year Cut off date causes problems for nearly 1/3 of all youth players (Sept01-Dec31 is 1/3 of the year). Where a Grade Year Cut off date causes problems the handful of players that may go to play in Europe, and have a birthyear mismatch, which can easily be resolved by playing up.
pitchplease
SILVER
which is why it is so odd that us club soccer and ecnl would switch back to school calendar groups. mls will always align with European models, just like DA did prior. no different than when you are getting call ups into ynt. it goes by birth year, not your school year. mls you can not play high school, and ecnl, etc you can. so maybe that is why the switch back?