I perceive this as well on the boys side, fwiw (although my son isn't at that level, so my perception might be skewed).
Most people just play with whoever is closest to them until U13. Be careful judging what is happening with letter leagues based on youngers. Look at the trends of how things change at the club for teams/players when they hit U13. Do the players stick around, or move clubs? U14/U15 landscape is the key to evaluating youth soccer.
Fine, I don't think anyone (or very few) at MLS Academy teams really care about HS soccer though. Some might because they're getting a private school scholorship for playing on their HS team. But this is a case by case situation.
Absolutly. Also, this in not what the trapped player problems are about at all. The problem is the incompatability with NCAA contact and recruiting rules for college.
Sour grapes much?
A little, yeah. All things being equal, I'd probably prefer my kid to still be doing AYSO Extra/United, and me saving ~$5000/yr more for his college fund, but I couldn't really accept another year and a half with him sitting at home playing on devices because some overly cautious administrators had the vague fear of "but what if we get sued".
No because they fired your ass
This is far from reality. From a typical U14 academy class, a fraction will make it all the way through the academy system, somewhere between zero and three players will land MLS or European contracts. A few will play USL and a few will play D1 college. There may be some cohorts that do better than this.
The EA teams around us are barely NorCal Silver level
Sounds good to me until I watch the kickball. All good if your kid enjoy/ thrives in that kind of play style.
Everything is a range. Even for high level players. It might not affect them superficially, but could be the difference between playing up 1 year vs 2 years. It could be the difference between winning and award or being selected All First-Team vs All Second-Team. Whichever level you are at, subtracting 5 months of youngest players and adding 5 months of oldest players will make competition harder. There is a reason national teams have cut offs and generally the national team at each age group is likely to beat the one year younger counter part by a couple of goals. There might be a couple of unicorns in a generation, but that's it.
lol... I mean, far be it for me to hate on internet trolling and online abuse, but your comment doesn't even make sense. AYSO doesn't employ people (maybe some admins at higher levels, I don't know), and they certainly don't "fire" people; they beg parents including me every year to volunteer their time to make the program work. Just sign away all your rights and agree to the terms of these 100+ pages of contractual obligations written in dense legalese, and you too can have the privilege of serving at the feet of your AYSO masters. I even considered returning in a coaching capacity for Extra (as I'd been doing pre-covid), but the participants pool had degraded so much by then that we couldn't find enough players who hadn't gone to club to fill a team.
I was an AYSO coach for a couple of years. Overall it was a good experience.
Wow, more bitter by the day.
I think the majority of folks here realize that the complaint about trapped players isn't that they are five months younger, but that at two specific grades, much of their team either goes off to play HS soccer for a few months, or graduates HS, so they are "trapped" without a team. It has nothing to do with relative ability, size, maturity etc... which wouldn't change whatever date gets picked as a cutoff.
I don't think many people understand that this affects the non-trapped players as well.
