What a horrifically stupid and lazy idea. Here's a thought. Instead of forcing kids to play up an age group based on how tall or fast they are, why don't we just continue to develop youth coaches and you know, coach these kids? Some of the "biologically" older kids, will still lack the mental acumen and emotional maturity to play up one or two age groups. I see this doing more harm than good.
Additionally, aren't the kids who grow early/fast prone to being less coordinated in that early growth stage? My kid tripped over a ball in his game Saturday. I said to my assistant coach: "he gets excited." To which the guy said, "he's got long, skinny legs." It's true, he's very tall for his age. He may "grow into" his body, and he may not. But, it doesn't seem to make much sense to throw him into a league with older, stronger, more coordinated kids, just because he's tall. If I'm understanding the idea correctly.
Taking predicted growth is already widely used, however, it does have one serious drawback, that drawback being that you will never allow a Lionel Messi to develop through your coaching system.
It seems US Soccer is dead set on ruining the enjoyment of soccer for millions of kids while continuing to chase rainbows. First they decided to break up teams and create a system where friends and classmates don't play together. Why? So they could better identify the top .01% of the players? Now they want to give no regard to the skill level of soccer being played, but just put kids together based on how big they are, or how big they are expected to be? This might make sense if you were developing offensive linemen for football, but one of the beauties of soccer is that size is not the end-all, be-all. Smaller players need to learn to play against bigger players. They need to learn to use the advantages they have (quickness, change of direction, etc) to overcome the size disadvantage. So frustrating.
"How about just having better coaches that can evaluate when players need to be playing up a level because they're dominating at their age group and therefore stunting both their development and the development of their teamates and opponents?" This is not about quality of coaching but about ego of coaches. Most half decent coaches can recognize this. But many don't want their team to lose their best player and maybe get worse results (thus hurting the coach's ego) and put that ahead the player's best interests.
While I'm indifferent to most of what comes out of USSF, this was a huge, unnecessary, bone-headed decision. Involved in running a recreational league, this did nothing but what you said, "break up teams and create a system where friends and classmates don't play together." [EDIT: We have addressed that issue, somewhat, by allowing players to play up to be with their friends.] We'll have close to 600 kids in the league, and I'd venture to guess 500 don't know - or care - we have a national team. Of the remaining players, the NT if of no consequence to them; all they want to do is play with their friends. If the powers-that-be can't identify the top players the old way, changing the birthdates in age-groups isn't going to help. If the coaches are that damn stupid, get new coaches.
Then he's not a good coach. Educate him to make the right decision, enable him to make the right decision, or get rid of him. There would be more improvement tackling the issues from this angle than bio-age. This needs to be about quality of coaching and coaching decisions. I don't see this bio-age stuff doing much of anything in the grand scheme of things.
The USSF has partnered with the French FA to improve coaching education. https://www.mlssoccer.com/post/2016/09/14/how-french-coaching-course-changing-face-mls-academies
I'm sure someone would have noticed Messi running rings around his bio-banded buddies and moved him up a level or two like Josh Sargent playing for the under 20s when he was 17.
"Disability" and "normal" are all relative terms. Pre-term children don't necessarily have to end up with serious and obvious disabilities, but it is hard to credibly argue the being delivered early confirms them with some advantage that should require to have them compete with biologically older children in youth sports. I have no problem with sorting kids into groups that are not divided by age. I think it is a better way to go. I don't think they claimed it to be a perfect tool, or for that matter the only tool..Instead the are suggesting the obvious which is the at chronological grouping using a single cut-off date (Clearly it is pretty obvious a the kids that were delivered 364 days earlier on the first day of the cut-off will have a huge advantage over kids on the last day) is a developmentally flawed system. Fair question - after all not everyone can run as fast as someone like Bolt. Kids have widely varied abilities and experience. Given the large number of factors and issues to consider, attempting to answer your question in a meaningful way would require a response far longer than I'm willing to write and people would be willing to read. So basically you'd need integrate ability levels and physical development so players are in a environment where they are both competitive and not exposed to an excessive amount of injury.
Can you explain why using chronological age is any less lazy or horrifically stupid? . How exactly do you coach a kid with a body of a boy to compete at the same level with an equally capable child that has a body of a man?
You don't. I think the biggest fallacy about development held in the US is that the majority of it happens in academies under the guidance of great coaches and not in backyards and neighborhood fields during a young person's free time. The child who loves the game and always desires to get better will not limit himself to playing with people his size -- he will seek any game he can and any opportunity to improve that he can find, even (especially) if it means playing and succeeding against actual adults (after all, that's the dream).
When I coached youth soccer, I would see kids who just matured faster. They were often at the older end of the age range, maybe got some size and muscle earlier than most and they dominated through sheer physical aggression. I had more than a few conversations along the lines of “don’t count on that scholarship yet, a lot of these other guys are going to catch up on the next couple years. Let’s actually teach him how to play before that happens.” I can think of a handful of kids who were ahead of the curve physically but never learned technical skills and never learned any other tactics then “run real fast”. They were all out of the game by high school I also saw plenty who were behind the curve physically yet had a head for the game and learned the skills they need to maximize their impact on the field. Many of them went on to play a long time at higher levels. I don’t know anything about bio banding but it sounds like if it is added to the mix they more physical kids would have had to learn skills and tactics early against their bio peers to survive while others would have more time to develop without being discouraged or neglected while waiting for nature to kick in. Is this a good idea? Don’t know. But it’s intriguing and it addresses something that’s more nuanced (especially for really young players) than I think many realize
Biobands sounds like overkill to be honest. It is pretty obvious which kids need to be moved up or down based on their physicality. The real problem is simply a lack of good coaches and good scouts. And perhaps not enough of a focus on the soccer IQ or mind.
I somewhat agree. Biggest impact on development comes from closely related adults (almost always dad) and/or older siblings in child's life. Practice outside of practice is also critical However, this is mostly a fantasy world. The opportunity a kid gets will have a huge impact on a kids career. Once you remove the kids with freak speed and quickness, circumstances largely determine a players success (among kids with similar ability and effort). Have a dad that is well know coach or great former you get access and chances to fail that most players can only dream of. Get on a youth national team, you get access to trials, tryouts, practices, games and chances to fail that other kids do not. Get on an elite academy team, not quite what national team players get, but far more than peers that don't. Play in an Hispanic league in a small, town and and small state and no one knows you exist. You also discount the feedback loop which is often critical. Kids gravitate to and expand effort where they have success. A tall, gawky kid might not initially be interested in being a keeper. But if his teammates are high fiving him because he can reach balls that the can't instead of criticizing him for losing the ball every time he gets it, suddenly becoming a keeper seems much more enjoyable. This feedback loop is a big factor in the relative age effect in youth sports and other activities. I'm pretty sure the people that are opposed to ability grouping, do so largely out of ignorance. This isn't to say they lack intellect, but instead have not worked with young children that are grouped in a way that they have a reasonable chance to succeed. I've worked with kids that ranged from borderline disabled to elite and while there is of course great variability between children, the best outcomes come when their goal is within reach, but not within grasp.
I don't know. How did Xavi, Messi and Iniesta manage to slog through La Masia against people who were bigger, stronger and faster than them? You focus more on technical skills at the earlier age groups where physical maturity tends to have the largest variance. Small sided games with smaller field dimensions negates a player who is lightning quick or more physically gifted. The emphasis needs to be on quick one-two passes and movement off the ball rather then kick it and let the biggest and fastest kids outrun and out-muscle everyone. There are literally dozens of blueprints on how to accomplish this all over the world. This bio-banding idea is just a slightly more scientific version of the same old same old that has plagued youth development in this country for the past 40 years.
You're only half correct. You need both. A kid is going to needs thousands upon thousands of touches to become technically proficient on the ball, which they aren't going to get going to training for an hour at a time a few times a week. That said, there needs to be structure and guidance to how players are developing. If there wasn't, all of the kids posting YouTube videos of their juggling tricks would be getting signed by Barcelona and Real Madrid. Playing on your own will help foster creativity and develop technical skills (to a certain degree). You absolutely need solid coaching at the youth levels to develop soccer IQ and to refine that technical ability into something more useful than gaining YouTube views.
RSL academy includes a high school ,so I imagine they train several hours a day and go to school in-between.
It's basically the sports training equivalent of scaffolding and it's a century old educational/pedagogical theory.
I'm sure they do. And if we lived in a country the size of the state of Utah, we might be on to something. But MLS academies cover an infinitesimally small fraction of the total number of youth players in this country. There needs to be high levels of coaching for all those kids not lucky enough to live within the borders of an MLS academy. We need to shift the focus away from winning (which concentrates efforts on finding the biggest and fastest kids) and put more emphasis on technical training. Teaching one and two touch passing. Getting kids comfortable with the ball at their feet. Teaching kids off the ball movement instead of straight line running. Its great what RSL is doing. I think its great what MLS is doing in general with youth development. But it isn't enough. This country is too big to be solely reliant on MLS academies to develop future national team players.
There's something like 50 DA clubs that aren't affiliated with MLS clubs. There are certainly still gaps and the MLS academies are starting to pull away from the others, but kids that live outside MLS boundaries aren't being entirely missed. I'd also push back somewhat on the theory that we need to shift away from winning. I certainly agree that the focus for younger kids should be heavily weighted towards development rather than winning, but by the time the kids hit U15/U16 a greater emphasis should be placed on winning. The kids should have the base development laid down by that point and they need a competitive environment to push them beyond that point and to get them ready to be professionals.