So...In Ohio north, kids go 6v6, then 2 years of 8v8, before graduating to the 11 v 11 game. This fall, there are players playing 11v11 after only 1 season of 8v8. (The 04's of the 04/05 teams tha competed their first year at U11 8v8 last year are now U13 11v11. They're not simply calling it something else. That name drives the field dimensions and the number of players per side. Going from 6v6 to 11v11 in around a 14 month time frame is a big deal, and not entirely productive. None of which has anything to do with my primary problem with this change.....namely that there are going to be a whole lot of stranded 8th graders and seniors that will struggle to find teams and playing time for absolutely zero benefit to 99.99% of players and coaches in his country.
My daughter is short, shortest one on her team last year far and away. On her new 05 team, she is still on the short side but the mean has moved towards her.
Yeah - lots of variables there which can make it go either way. My point is that there are differences with the change. Kids are kids though - the ones that want to play will find a way to move forward.
All of that is true but it is also true that ALL the teams are going through the same thing. So yes, while at a few age groups the gap may seem noticeable it will be the SAME across the entire age group. I have always noticed at every age group that some teams always seem to have a few "monsters" and this simply has not changed.
The only kids I feel really sorry for are the younger 07's. These kids were playing 4v4, no goalie, pug soccer last year and are now U10's.
They're a close 2nd for me to the 05s. Both are getting hit with big jumps in field size 2 years in a row, before they can grow into one. The 05s that can't pass 20 yards this year on the 50X80 field are going to love stepping up for corners next year on the full sized pitch. (I picked up a u12b/05 team this year, coming off a 3 year stint from u12-u14 with 01/02s) I suppose putting kids that will gas out taking off on a 60 yd breakaway should theoretically get all us coaches to work on short passing playing through the 3rds but...I have my reservations about what next year's u13 games are gonna look like...
Don't you mean the 04s. They had 3 consecutive field size changes My daughter is a 05 and her field did not change. Still 9v9. Next year she will be on the big field but she will have 2 years on the 75x47 field.
So I was just told that our Recreational conference - no relation to where my daughter plays, is moving to the new birth year structure. Was that a mandate for Rec play???
It depends how you define 'rec.' If your league is sanctioned by USSF/USYSA etc., then yes you have to do it. Our club, while our travel teams are ENY sanctioned and therefore follow USSF, we are on the birth year as of now. The rec league is not USSF sanctioned and we make our own rules depending on enrollment, coaches volunteering for foramt etc. (though we try to mirror USSF) is based on school grade.
You "have to." In a manner of speaking. In the real world, if your club runs a league for elementary schoolers or middle schoolers or whatever, Sunil isn't going to send stormtroopers through your door.
This is why I am perplexed because we have no club association in my town. Unless our rec council is finally giving in to the bigger nieghboring town and handing them our soccer program. Hmmm....
Don’t we all think most rec programs, regardless of have to or not, will eventually make their way to birth year?…I mean, it’s just human nature, at some point, it’s just not worth the “hassle” of being different…
I think rec should ba about making it fun and building a passion. Introducing a kid to the sport may or may not entail that player be part of a team with his or her friends - I think at a younger age, at the rec level this should be an option.
No. We do it by grade, chronologically its a one month difference to calendar year. That doesn't fully take into account those parents holding their late birthday children back. But its rec, and I concur on what @VolklP19 said in his post.
Rec is rec you as the head of a local rec league can do anything you want to do in rec. I was a Vice President of AYSO in the 1970s here in NY. The head of each region back then had a lot of options to run his region any way he wanted to why? Because AYSO did not want to lose any of the region because they mandated something that the guys who ran the region did not like. Frankly, I don't know if AYSO is still not run that way.
That describes our local program, too. Travel teams are in a sanctioned league and the leagues here have all adopted the new birth year and playing formats. Our travel teams comply. I have mixed feelings about the birth year requirement, as I didn't see a problem with the old setup for 95% of US youth players. But we will adjust and manage. Meanwhile, our small rec league plays only within our township and organizes teams by school grade, because that is the most fun for the kids and the most simple means for the overworked, volunteer administrators. By the way, I love the new playing formats. I'm coaching my son's U9 team and playing 7v7 is great. One thing I have a strong early impression about is that the original US Soccer recommendation of a 7v7 field size of 35x47 yards is horrid. Way too tight a space, way too congested, and too many throw-ins. I have to believe that was set in order to justify fitting four 7v7 fields into one 11v11 field, or basically for bureaucratic reasons. Now that there is some flexibility in size ranges, we have set up our 7v7 fields at 40x60 yards, which works really well. Enough space to allow some dribbling and escape from the "swarm," but not so much space that the team shape becomes disjointed and disconnected. The play-out line seems to be working as intended so far. But I will be curious how using that line also for offside might impact what coaches teach their defenders and forwards to do, and how that might actually encourage long balls and/or discourage defenders from moving forward to attack.
Rec programs do not have to switch Our very large Rec program (~6,000 players across 500+ teams ranging in age from kindergarten to HS) has no plans to switch. We are organized by grade level and it works well for us. I believe we submit registrations to our state association based on birth year but that is the extent of our changes.
Hey guys, I know rec leagues don’t have to and maybe shouldn’t, and maybe even have the best intentions a couple months in not to change…I just question whether eventually they don’t… Rec leagues are all about the “fun,” I agree…but in many cases, they also act as a de facto feeder system into more competitive travel/club systems…not only for individual players, but it’s not that uncommon for whole teams to start as Rec and then turn into a travel team… I think rec parents themselves will eventually force this change; they will be confused, they won’t understand why, and will even feel “mislead” that their league hasn’t adopted a standard the rest of youth soccer has…it actually make more sense to have rec and club aligned then it does to have club and national teams aligned…far more kids will make the jump from rec to club then will ever make the jump from club to Nat…. As we go further with this calendar year format and as it becomes the new norm, that isn’t quite the end of the world many feared, I think being different just to be different will become more and more difficult to justify or defend… Or I could just be wrong...wouldn't be the first time..
I could see some transitional programs based on birth year. And at the ages in which kids start travel, it's not a big deal. But I'd hate to see rec leagues forced to drop their high school leagues, their middle school leagues and their kindergarten leagues.
I would be very surprised if our club makes the change on the rec side. We're very committed to keep things the way they are. It is less confusing the parents than birth year. (my kids is 2nd grade so she plays 2nd grade soccer) and lets kids play with their friends. The one changed it forced on us was we tweaked our rules on the number of select (travel+our tryout based intermediate) players allowed to also play rec. Prior to this year, we didn't allow select players to play 2nd grade soccer. But since those kids are now birth year eligible, we allowed up to 1 per team. The model of feeder program doesn't completely apply to us. Whole teams don't graduate to travel-- even if the kids all make it (which is rare) they will get coached by paid staff not the parent coach. For the vast majority of our kids Rec is where they are happy to play and they have no desire to change programs. This is especially true as the kids get older and soccer becomes just one of many things that they do.
City rec programs (as in programs organized and run by the municipal recreation department) can do whatever they want. They have no affiliation with any national governing body. Some rec programs may feel like a city rec program in that they are given easy access to city parks and they restrict enrollment to people in the town, but they aren't technically organized and run by the city. In that case, they may be affiliated with one of the national governing bodies and it wouldn't be very transparent. These programs would have to switch to birth year. In many areas of the country, for example, AYSO is very much the rec program, but it is affiliated with USSF and has to switch. So, why would a local rec program affiliate with a national governing body? There are probably some advantages in terms of access to coaching curriculum assistance, but I suspect it occurs because it makes it easier to get insurance and it provides centralized registration of volunteers and players that may be beneficial (and that can help with insurance, such as for proving that you have run checks on volunteers). Are there other advantages for a rec program where there is otherwise no ambition to send players to national tournaments etc?
In this area (Northern Virginia), there's no AYSO, and all "rec" soccer is run by clubs that also have travel components. But most of them are keeping their rec programs on grade year (or close to it). There have been conflicting statements from USSF about whether this is officially OK. Unofficially, again, who's going to tell a club NOT to have a middle-school rec program?
As a follow-up to my prior comment, in our 2nd weekend of 7v7 travel soccer under the new rules I saw: * Referees mess up on offside at midfield rather than the new build-out/play-out line. These errors will pass soon enough I'm sure. * Several U9 and U10 teams coached to hold 1 or 2 defenders back at the defending end's build-out line all game. Fear of the break-away? * A couple of teams pushing a forward high to the attacking end's build-out line all game. But the long balls were not very accurate and nothing really came of this. * One team that was coached to attack the ball aggressively from the build-out line was able to regularly swarm the defender who had received the ball and overwhelm any attempt to build out of the back. Some long goal kicks or keeper throws mixed in may reduce the impact of the surging swarm.