Right. So even without the small-sided mandate, you'd still need to designate U8, U9, U10, etc., right? At least up until U13?
And here it is -- possibly the most BigSoccer-indebted piece I've ever written: http://www.soccerwire.com/news/club...soccer-organizations-move-to-clarify/?loc=psw
Update: Acknowledgement of this impeding change for next year has finally become a topic of conversation among some of the parents on our team…early and limited results, show a bit of a split… Some ‘02 parents (older kids) seem to assume everyone will just play up and keep the current team intact…while some ’03 parents (younger kids) definitely see this as an opportunity go with a new team/coach (current Coach’s son is ’02) …whether this trend continues and solidifies is unclear; it’s still a long ways off…
Good article. In your linked article about how to avoid the mandate, you mention the possibility of having the back half of the age group play up in order to keep kids together who are in the same grade. That may be a solution that some teams attempt to implement in the short run, but I suspect it will crater fast. Let's say you are a current U10 team with a 8/1/05-7/31/06 age range. Next year, your options are (1) split into one 2005 U12 team and one 2006 U11 team or (2) have the 2006s play up in order to keep the entire team together as a U12 team in the 2005 age group. The obvious problem with option 2 is that you are going to be horribly overmatched unless all the other teams do the same thing you are doing. It really only takes a couple teams to load up on kids born in January-July of 2005 for your late 2005-mid 2006 team to be in way over its head. So you'll either have to drop to a lower division or level of play, or end up breaking up the band. I suspect we'll see that "solution" abandoned en masse by 2017-2018, and I seriously doubt any teams will form that way that don't already exist. Some of the January-March kids (and even some others) will choose to play up as they always have, but entire teams of kids playing up just to stay together (as opposed to doing it because they are super advanced players) isn't workable.
Parents in our club are too focused on A,B, C team status to stick with their team. The belief that their Jan - July kid will have a better chance of making the A team if they play according to their prescribed age will easily trump who their teammates are. Our club does not guarantee the same coach year to year, you play for the club, not the coach, so that's not really a factor to take into consideration. Question: For teams that keep the same coach, who will the coach follow? The kids that move up one year, or the kids who move up two years? I'm guessing he or she would follow the ones that jump two years simply because that's the only way the team can stay together, but what if the majority of the team doesn't have to play up? Seems "unfair". My kid's U11 team only has three out of 13 kids that are '04, and that, coupled with the fact that our teams don't necessarily keep their coach, means I have no decision to make, he'll play U12 next year. Personally, if I were a parent of any kid under U11/U12, even one that kept the coach, I'd just rip the bandaid off and have my child play at the US Soccer level regardless.
We have a local interclub rec league ("travel light") that has divisions, and it allows U11 teams to come in and play in their U12 group -- just not in Division 1. So I could see something like that, where you just play in a division with other similarly younger-skewing teams. It depends on what your parents really want. I'm seeing a backlash to the notion of playing just for the sake of development and pushing your kid to the highest "level" possible. Plenty of parents just want kids to play reasonably competitive games with teammates and coaches they know. But that's not everyone -- maybe not even the majority.
I our area it is still quite common for coaches to have a son or daughter on their team…that will be the starting point for where most coaches/teams start out…in my case, our coach has a ‘02 kid; that will be the team he will likely coach next year…
The more I think about it and, if I understand this correctly our older U13 boys (2002) could be/will be very dependent on our younger U13 boys (2003), at least a majority of them, playing up in order for the ’02 Boys to field a Fall team next year; they would be potential “victims” of the 8th/HS split…there is the potential for some serious bad blood and hurt feelings if that doesn’t happen…I personally lean toward PW’s “rip the bandaid off” method, as I have never much liked the idea of my kid playing up…never saw the need and have seen the practice abused far too often…
This is exactly my main concern. After 1 year everyone will know what size field to play on, game #'s, what age group they're supposed to be in etc. But every year there will be this issue with the 8th graders/high school seniors.
I understand that my daughter who is u10 and born 2005 will move to u11 and be joined by any current u11 players who were also born in 2005. That's good for use as my daughter started early on and had to play with many of these girls to begin with since they did not have a u7 team for her when she started - so she is excited. All the players born in 2006 repeat u10.
Yes, you are right…I initially assumed that everything would settle out after this transitional year, but it does look like this 8th graders/high school seniors problem will occur each and every year…I really didn’t fully appreciate that until just now…wow, that really does suck!
Nope. Turns out that chart was wrong, at least if your "season" is defined as 2016-17 -- http://www.soccerwire.com/news/club...p-youth-soccer-organizations-move-to-clarify/
For 2016-2017, a 2005 is a U12 (2017 minus 2005= 12) For 2016-2017, a 2006 is a U11 (2017 minus 2006=11)
I'm going to keep posting the link until you read it. http://www.soccerwire.com/news/club...p-youth-soccer-organizations-move-to-clarify/
So the 04 u11s who just moved up to 8v8 this year jump to the full game next year as u13s? So instead of midfield through balls leading to 50yd breakaways we're hoping they learn to possess by getting tired on the 70 yd breakaways and pulling up