I've always found the age timeframes for both school and sports confusing. But then try to juxtapose the two and it's a real brain teaser. But I think I've figured it out. For school, usually the rule is something like you have turn 5 by 9/1 to start kindergarten. So kids that are born in Sep/Oct/Nov will be the older kids in the class. The kids born June/July/Aug will be the young ones. But in soccer it goes by birth year. So combine the two and it means something like... Kids born Sep/Oct/Nov/Dec will be old for the classroom, but they'll be the young ones on the soccer team. Kids born Jan/Feb/March/April will be about avg in the class, but will be the older kids on the soccer team. Kids born May/June/July/Aug will be the younger kids in the classroom, and middle of the pack on the soccer team. (though the distribution might be skewed in comp soccer due to the unintended selection bias of age advantage at try-outs) To summarize: In comp soccer, it's advantageous to be born Jan-Apr; they'll have a physical advantage (of course there are exceptions, but on the whole this would bear out, as Gladwell's Outliers noted). For academics, perhaps that effect is there (ie advantageous to be born Sep-Dec) though less so since it's not exactly a "competitive sport" and there's more time in the long run for things to even out (eg, up through late teens and in college). If you look at the best month to be born when combining both sports and school, I would say Jan/Feb is best, since then you'll fit in well in the class but be older on the pitch. Probably the least advantageous month would be August since you'll be real young in the class and slightly young on the pitch. A double whammy. Not sure what spurred me to dive into this, but I find it interesting. I think one takeaway you could have from this is that it could inform the environment (re competitiveness) that might be ideal for you particular kid. I don't think it's good to overwhelm them.
Age groups used determined by school-age, but US Soccer switched everyone to birth year five or six years ago. The logic behind switching to birth year was that most of the rest of the world did it that way, and so we had to as well if we wanted to be competitive. Of course, what US Soccer forgot to mention is that most of the rest of the world uses birth year for school eligibility as well. Social age is far more important than birth age, especially at ages 10 and under.
Why does it matter? Unless you're going to plan when to conceive a child so that they're born in a particular part of the year, it is what it is. DS was born in October and has been one of the taller ones on his teams (until the last year or so). DD was born in February and is in the middle of her team (height wise).
I don't know that it does. Though for me it does feel kind of nice to have more context as to how my kid might feel when he's amongst these peer groups. If he's on the younger end he might feel more challenged for reasons unbeknownst to him (ie age). Though perhaps the difference is so nominal that it's not worth thinking about. Although studies show that in the aggregate there is a real effect. My kid was born late May and is undersized for his age (25% percentile). So yeah not sure it matters a ton but I do think it helps me have more perspective.
When the change was made, you had a lot of people who were previous beneficiaries of the relative age effect quitting, as "they're just not good anymore" in the general community travel population. Especially the kids with 4th quarter bdays who jumped from u10 ->u12 and u11->u13. The u10->12->13 jump over 2 years was a killer. Spent a lot of time as a club president explaing rae, how it shifted, and trying to make the point that if they stay with it, they should see a benefit when they hit scholastic soccer*, since they will have been playing against the higher grade in club soccer, but will be the oldest kids in their grade. Not sure how effective it was as my term ended the following year. *Of course, that assumes that they get playing time since they're now the smaller/slower kids, etc.... Generally by HS you see more of the "if you're good enough you're old enough" start to take effect, so my opinion is it's important to keep playing through the 10-14 age group, regardless of level, as long as you are getting reasonable game time and coaching. If you really love soccer, you'd be surprised how many multi sport kids that might have been selected ahead of you decide cross country/basketball/baseball/volleyball/job/social are more important to them by 10th grade.
If you haven't, read Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell. The books starts of with this topic in regards to Canadian Hockey players and the month they were born. It is a good read. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outliers_(book)
A couple effects that happened the year that the age group change occurred, at least from my experience was that: 1.) teams had trouble the first year because many of them were split down the middle - for example, my son's U11 team was suddenly split into 04's and 05's and a number of the players (and the coach) that he grew up playing with were 04's. So he ended up with a whole new group of teammates and a new coach. The fall season was a disaster, and he ended up switching clubs. 2.) The issue of "trapped" players became a much bigger issue - meaning there was half a team every fall that were 8th graders and therefore really didn't have many teams to play that season, as half their teammates were playing in high school. So fall U14 soccer ends up being a lot of "friendlies", as many of those teams were having to use younger players to fill in for games so it didn't resemble what their team would look like in the spring. 3.) Often, the top teams in a given age group are comprised of the older aged kids in that club, but honestly, that wasn't much different from when my son was younger and the local travel team still generally took those who were on the older side of the age cutoff (e.g. those Sept/Oct/Nov birth dates). But then, in my experience with "travel" soccer, they were more interested in having the bigger and stronger kids, not necessarily the most talented.
All this is why we have "late bloomers" at the high school, college and even professional levels. Athletes who have taken the long view and just keep at it. As they fight thru all the bs of youth and high school sports their skill level keeps progressing. Then boom the physical, skills and mental maturity all converge and they surpass many of their peers and find success at higher levels. Often some luck is involved, but when the opportunity occurs, they are ready.
Yeah I read that. Was really interesting. Though I'm guessing the age effect in Canadian hocky is more pronounced since it's taken very seriously there. Maybe would be akin to soccer in Brazil or Germany. idk. But here it seems a bit more open