Biobanding is mostly used for players who have no hope to play their own age group, but club want their money, so they play down and abuse the correct age group players and their parents.
Get ready folks
- Thread starter soccer4us
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I have my younger kid playing right now in U10. He’s grouped with a set of triplets who are the size of 5 & 6 olds. Both physically and psychosocially I could see these kids benefiting from playing down an age group.
But you’re right, I can see how this could be abused. I feel a waiver should be available by whatever governing body if there’s a compelling case. In this circumstances I believe it should exist. And what I mean is, the parents have to annually get a waiver and compelling evidence needs to be available to objective measures and signed off by an impartial pediatrician (physician or advanced practice providers), preferably one familiar and that works in tandem with said governing bodies (ie US Club Soccer and etc).
But ya, I can see clubs using this to get an edge where ever they can and this is why we can’t have nice things
Wait until there's players playing down and on HGH (girls) and on HGH + Steriods (boys). This is what will happen if leagues switch to GY (grade year) not just SY (school year)
You might think I'm exaggerating but there's already top players from different geographic states on the same team. Do you really think parents won't hold their kid back and hop them up on drugs for National wins?
Unfortunately this is just how things work in the world. As you can see changing from BY is a pandoras box.
Another issue with GY that people don't talk about is if a Club league like ECNL switches to GY it would put them on the same level as High School soccer. How long do you think it will take Private Schools to offer free tuition to the top Club players? How long before a big private school is able to gather to all the top players across the country for wins? Remember most of the top private schools are also boarding schools.
Well I know of private schools already offering full scholarships to soccer players on the girls side. And I’m talking $100k.
HGH is already out there. Sometimes legitimately and sometimes not. Messi was on HGH but his growth chart showed he was a candidate medically for it.
If I’m not mistaken, Christian McCaffrey was getting IV infusion from his dad every night for hydration therapy and sleeping in a hyperbaric chamber every night for recovery.
So I mean, crazy parents are going to do crazy things… I don’t think changing the date range between SY or BY will influence that.
While I can appreciate your sentiment, I have yet to see it implemented in that manner. I think MLSN is sincere with their bio-banding efforts (which I believe are minimal at best), but again it just masks the underlying problem.
BY vs SY is just changing the year long window players can play at a specific age group around a little. There's still a start and end.
GY is something very different because it opens the door to players playing a year (maybe even more) down for wins. Once players get to be 18 everyone has roughly grown as much as they're going to. But there's a HUGE difference between a 13 and 16 year old.
Too me the better solution is to have the smaller kids, if necessary, play on a lower level team instead of playing down. If people are so concerned about kids playing with their classmates why would we have them play down?
Where do we draw a line on size? You could just be a kid/teen of small stature vs a kid/teen that is a late developer. I think the concept of bio-banding is more of a temporary thing and more for late developers. If a kid is just going to be small post puberty, do they get to play down permanently?
Of all the team sports played at the highest levels, soccer has the least limitations in terms of size. However, small size is a much bigger issue in US youth soccer because of selection bias. Larger size is a subjective measure in terms of actual soccer ability, however, it is more of an objective measure in terms of winning games. Therein lies the problem.
If parents are going to go to such extremes, they will find ways to get an advantage whether it's BY GY SY ABCDY.
And what's wrong with private schools that offer free tuition? Honest question...trying to understand the downside of this being available to kids who can earn it. I'm sure there are some. But do they out weigh free private high school education?
With BY GY cheating (playing down) was not even in the equation.
SY opens the door enough that the GY cheaters are trying to find a way in.
Yes there's a thousand ways to cheat. All clubs and leagues can do is limit the amount of cheating whenever they can.
General FYI clubs and leagues aren't going to limit cheating because they really care about it either way. The reason they don't want GY playing down cheating is because it kills participation which means less $$$ for clubs and leagues.
Bio Banding left the door open to make teams better by playing down a 6 foot 2 14 year old to u13 to win games. Most clubs did right by the late developing kids. Some clubs use the Bio bands to make teams more competitive.
PurpleCrush
BRONZE
Internal poll for SOCAL came back in favor of 78% to remain on birth year for 25/26 season and SOCAL is being told that its more likely this happens for the 26/27 season.
But we'll see what happens.
But we'll see what happens.
PurpleCrush
BRONZE
Does that make the info less legitimate?
It makes it seem like your info is part of an astroturf campaign.
Offside no S
BRONZE
Sure, and that happens now - good youngers can play up. But this flippant and general "players can just play up" attitude is insane because kids don't make that choice. The clubs are in charge and tell kids where they're being offered a space.
Offside no S
BRONZE
Could someone please point out any MLS/ECNL teams that are comprised of kids from one school? The teams from our club are lucky if they have more than 2-3 kids from a single school.
Offside no S
BRONZE
Sooo... what about the players who will become trapped after this? Do they not count in your book?
Offside no S
BRONZE
But that's the thing... nothing says they have to get out of shape. Crosstraining, individual training, fitness opportunities are available. Why can't they train with another team? Why can't they put together a group from their club who isn't playing HS to train? Not every HS-aged player plays in HS.
You’re confusing fitness which is something they should be doing year round regardless of season to game experience which is what lacks when girls are playing high school and the rest aren’t.