Age True and 9v9 in 2016 for NTX

Forgive me if I didn't know you were joking, I spoke with a coach last night who does that exclusively, and a made fun of him hoping the age pure thing would happen.

No summer 2017 will be U11/07 select age. My guess is that the 06's on 07's will then have to tryout for 05/06 Age group leaving the 07's age pure. It has to start some where and one age group will not be happy ( nor will LP with their 07 teams)
It's tough for whoever gets the vote

Followed this thread with interest until the last 10 posts or so....now my head hurts.

Anybody know a strong 08 group for my early 07?????

Almost seems to make more sense to change 2016 to 05 pure and 06 pure. Most 06 teams are top heavy with 05 birthdays as 07 teams with 06 birthdays. Give 1 year transition for that group, then let it fly. Or am I totally off base with that thought process?

bdgr11 wrote:Almost seems to make more sense to change 2016 to 05 pure and 06 pure. Most 06 teams are top heavy with 05 birthdays as 07 teams with 06 birthdays. Give 1 year transition for that group, then let it fly. Or am I totally off base with that thought process?

You might be right but again USSF have not voted to bring in age pure so if NTSSA were to make the change and USSF voted no you are stirring up a hornets nest for no reason

Make it mandatory with 10s to play with pure birth years, so that we won't have the same debate in 5 years from now. As far as the 9v9s, it's upto the coaches and parents, talk to some leagues and make it happen. Makes sense?

2010s

Some thoughts:

1) I would hope everyone agrees the 9v9 changes should happened ASAP b/c developmentally its hard to argue it is not better than 11v11 for a 9 year old.

2) IMO, the age pure is where the divide begins. No matter what age 05,06,07 etc. If your child is born 1/1-7/31 you are at a minimum fine with whatever happens or you are happy. If your child is born 8/1-12/31, IF, I repeat IF, age pure happens you will have to make a decision. Some people are fine with it. generally those who's kids play up anyway are fine. Unfortunately, that is a small % of the population, usually about 10 teams out the 60 plus teams in academy. Therefore, most of the population is concerned with good reason.

IMO, I said this before, the only way to protect the kids developmentally is to ensure no one misses a year of development. So, the year before implementation, the NTXSSA rule has to change to allow kids with birthdates 8/1-12/31 to go select with the age group that is about to go select at that time. For example, if the age pure goes into effect next year for 06, which will be their u11 season, then the kids born in 05 b/t 8/1-12/31 should be allowed to go select this summer with the 05 born b/t 1/1-7/31 during their U11 season. IF, again I repeat IF, they want to. This ensure those who don't want to risk missing a year of development have that option.

3) Big clubs are fine with this b/c NTX has won its share of National Championship but egregiously under indexes with players on the national teams. These changes put our dds in the best position to get the best development and, hence, increase chances of making national teams.

4) I do not know how small clubs feel. My guess is its mixed. I would imagine LP, DeFeeters, & Kicks are for the changes b/c they are focused on development. I would assume the other small clubs feel the same and want the development as well but are concerned about impact to current teams. I can understand that POV.

5) Rec, I have know idea. IMO, the objectives of rec and academy/select are not necessarily the same. So, its hard to compare.

6) I applaud the states that are being proactive. If an association knows the changes ONLY help the kids, why wait. Most concerns I've read on this thread are not reasons to delay the benefits.

NTXSSA can't make the changes fast enough!

Totally agree on a lot points you bring out especially 9v9
https://youtu.be/X9Pc1vf_tlg

Somebody please help my obviously idiotic brain wrap around the concept of how changing the age group cutoff dates by 5 months improves development???

O.K. now you "force" the Aug.-Dec. birth dates to play up against older competition, which theoretically forces them to develop faster... but didn't you just retard the development of the Jan.-May birth dates because they are no longer required to play against the girls born from Aug.-Dec. of the calendar year before they were born?

...and how does that change the overall paradigm of how much cumulative development a player undergoes by the time they get to 20 years old?

You want to align with the way the rest of the world does it? That's fine. Just spare me the BS about the change to birth year having some sort of magical impact on overall player development.

Triumph FC wrote:

bdgr11 wrote:Almost seems to make more sense to change 2016 to 05 pure and 06 pure. Most 06 teams are top heavy with 05 birthdays as 07 teams with 06 birthdays. Give 1 year transition for that group, then let it fly. Or am I totally off base with that thought process?

You might be right but again USSF have not voted to bring in age pure so if NTSSA were to make the change and USSF voted no you are stirring up a hornets nest for no reason

Not trying to stir the hornets, so don't miss interpret my post.

My questions are (1) if developmentally 9v9 is better, why wait? In the academy/select divisions, We should always want the best for our kids b/c we are paying for it. Personally, I do not like paying for something that is not optimal.

(2) If "Age Pure" lines up with national teams, ODP, etc., why wait? Again, NTSSA should not wait for USSF to vote if the changes benefits our dd. Obviously, other associations share my POV and are making changes. For the record, I am fine. My 06 dd, is born 06, plays on a top team, and they play up. So I have no agenda other than trying to optimize her development.

SkeetsG06 wrote:Some thoughts:
IMO, I said this before, the only way to protect the kids developmentally is to ensure no one misses a year of development.  So, the year before implementation, the NTXSSA rule has to change to allow kids with birthdates 8/1-12/31 to go select with the age group that is about to go select at that time. For example, if the age pure goes into effect next year for 06, which will be their u11 season, then the kids born in 05 b/t 8/1-12/31 should be allowed to go select this summer with the 05 born b/t 1/1-7/31 during their U11 season. IF, again I repeat IF, they want to.  This ensure those who don't want to risk missing a year of development have that option.

Skeets I agree with much of what you said and certainly agree with the bolded statement above, but then you go on to suggest the 05’s born 8/1-12/31 should be able to go select with the 05s this summer. If they did that wouldn’t that mean they just forfeited their U10 year (last and maybe most important Academy year)? I am not following how that aligns with not losing a year of development?

bwgophers wrote:Somebody please help my obviously idiotic brain wrap around the concept of how changing the age group cutoff dates by 5 months improves development???

O.K.  now you "force" the Aug.-Dec. birth dates to play up against older competition, which theoretically forces them to develop faster...  but didn't you just retard the development of the Jan.-May birth dates because they are no longer required to play against the girls born from Aug.-Dec. of the calendar year before they were born?

...and how does that change the overall paradigm of how much cumulative development a player undergoes by the time they get to 20 years old?

You want to align with the way the rest of the world does it?  That's fine.  Just spare me the BS about the change to birth year having some sort of magical impact on overall player development.

BigTex,

You are correct they would miss the U10 year.

My point was to cut the amount time missed playing with 05 born 1/1-12/31.

Honestly, given the current 05s are playing 11v11, I am not sure the 8/1-12/31 05s are missing much other than playing with kids that are older than them.

SkeetsG06 wrote:

Triumph FC wrote:

bdgr11 wrote:Almost seems to make more sense to change 2016 to 05 pure and 06 pure. Most 06 teams are top heavy with 05 birthdays as 07 teams with 06 birthdays. Give 1 year transition for that group, then let it fly. Or am I totally off base with that thought process?

You might be right but again USSF have not voted to bring in age pure so if NTSSA were to make the change and USSF voted no you are stirring up a hornets nest for no reason

Not trying to stir the hornets, so don't miss interpret my post.

My questions are (1) if developmentally 9v9 is better, why wait?  In the academy/select divisions, We should always want the best for our kids b/c we are paying for it.  Personally, I do not like paying for something that is not optimal.  



(2) If "Age Pure" lines up with national teams, ODP, etc., why wait?  Again, NTSSA should not wait for USSF to vote if the changes benefits our dd.  Obviously, other associations share my POV and are making changes.  For the record, I am fine. My 06 dd, is born 06, plays on a top team, and they play up.  So I have no agenda other than trying to optimize her development.

9v9 is a start (iMO not enough but better than 11v11) Coaches know that 11v11 but that is the norm here. LH have to rearrange the fields as do the other leagues so they have no reason to change for the betterment of the girls if they did they would make the changes now. That's not a dig at LH's because it's the old saying.......if it isn't broke don't try to change it.......so why change?
Things need to happen together with everybody pulling in the right direction for it all to work and there is not enough on the same page right now

bwgophers wrote:Somebody please help my obviously idiotic brain wrap around the concept of how changing the age group cutoff dates by 5 months improves development???

O.K.  now you "force" the Aug.-Dec. birth dates to play up against older competition, which theoretically forces them to develop faster...  but didn't you just retard the development of the Jan.-May birth dates because they are no longer required to play against the girls born from Aug.-Dec. of the calendar year before they were born?

...and how does that change the overall paradigm of how much cumulative development a player undergoes by the time they get to 20 years old?

You want to align with the way the rest of the world does it?  That's fine.  Just spare me the BS about the change to birth year having some sort of magical impact on overall player development.

Couldn't agree more.

I find the mix of birthdays on the national team to fascinating..... Pretty evenly spread out all things considered.

http://uswntobsession11.tumblr.com/post/53597533618/all-of-the-uswnt-birthdays-and-ages-if-used

bwgophers wrote:Somebody please help my obviously idiotic brain wrap around the concept of how changing the age group cutoff dates by 5 months improves development???

O.K.  now you "force" the Aug.-Dec. birth dates to play up against older competition, which theoretically forces them to develop faster...  but didn't you just retard the development of the Jan.-May birth dates because they are no longer required to play against the girls born from Aug.-Dec. of the calendar year before they were born?

...and how does that change the overall paradigm of how much cumulative development a player undergoes by the time they get to 20 years old?

You want to align with the way the rest of the world does it?  That's fine.  Just spare me the BS about the change to birth year having some sort of magical impact on overall player development.

Agree, because all you do is throw the issue elsewhere. Lets take that we are going age pure because so we are being told it helps development because 05's on 06 team are unfair. We isn't it unfair we now have Dec 06 playing against Jan 06 players that's very nearly 12 months difference and exactly the same issue as 05's on 06's. So its throwing the problem to someone else down the line. That Dec 06 might be a stud on the 07's but may not be against a Jan 06. Where should we draw the line? Age Pure has nothing to do with development

I think most everyone is good to go with the 9v9, but I honestly do not get the age group change- other than the rest of the world does it by calendar birth year. I admittedly am not well informed about what the perceived benefits to making the change, but like BW I struggle to see any true developmental benefits. That said I welcome any enlightenment?

Although my 07 has birth month that I guess in some people’s eyes would benefit from the date change. But I think her development has been aided by competing against older kids and so I prefer the current age groups for her developmenatly.

Probably the most important negative to me is much of her team would no longer consist of girls in her same school grade. I think many of us would agree our girls like playing with kids in their own school/class, etc. But besides just that- doesn’t it presents a host of other issues like:
- When the girls start playing school sports some of the girls are not going to be impacted while others will have conflicts for practice/games etc. This is always an issue, but I think with pretty much the whole team dealing with the same competing priorities at the same time it helps.
- Also and this is the one I struggle to understand the most....what happens if you are a 9/1-12/31 birth month and your whole team just graduated and you have an entire year of school left? Who do you play with in Club? Regardless wouldn’t it suck to no longer have your team together and have to band with a new group your last year?

Again it may just be that I am not well informed, but I can’t see much of any benefit that outweighs all the negatives?

The general thought is that if the proposed birth year rule change was implemented by NTSSA, it would happen after July 1st 2015.  So assuming NTSSA implemented birth year starting with the '06 age group, then the 8/01-12/31 '05 players would be at a huge disadvantage of finding the right '05 team well after signing day.  If those 8/01-12/31 '05 players were allowed to stay with their current academy teams until fall 2016, and then forced to skip U11 and move up to U12, that creates another issue not previously mentioned.

You can probably guess, my DD is an August '05 birthday.  By next summer, she will have played academy for five years.  If she was forced to skip U11 and go directly to U12, what else does she skip besides one year of soccer?  QUALIFYING!  That's right, that annual right of passage that every club soccer player experiences the summer of going select.  All the sweat, two-a-days, hard work, teamwork, and camaraderie with her friends during that memorable summer of busting her ass in preparation for the qualifying tournament.  There is a special maturation process, at least with our coach's philosophy, during the summer when girls turn into young ladies in preparation for qualifying.  Accountability and responsibility set in.  This is one of the reason's that we put our kids into club sports.  The intangibles they learn in addition to playing the sport they love.

I for one, believe my DD has earned the right to experience the emotion of qualifying with her team that she has worked so hard for.  She would be devastated to hear she has to find a new team this summer, or worse, that she would never experience that unique summer in which NTSSA forced her to skip because of some national team mandate.  My daughter will most likely not have the opportunity to play for the national team, and like so many others, I don't give a rats ass what the rest of the world does.  She just wants to keep playing for her awesome coach and with her teammates.

Some have asked - if this is passed - what happens to these girls in their senior year?  Why does the United States do it differently than the rest of the world?  Maybe because most of our high school players actually go to college instead of going into huge club academies at U12.  Many players abroad that are playing for Bayern's or Barca's youth teams have no desire to go to college - they wind up going professional.  Most of the players in the United States decide that college might be a better option.  I'm not saying that US soccer isn't on to something here, but if this rule is going to be forced upon us, then why not start at U5 or U6?  Why not use common sense and let it organically grow?

My daughter is in the same boat with yours, except she is a 06 girl on a 07 team.

However what worry me most is if they postpone the change to age pure until my dd is at U14/15, which will be too late for us to adapt or change to another sport.

If we know this will change eventually, I'd like the change earlier, the earlier the better, even though with some short term pain. If dd is good enough for pursuing a college scholarship, she need to play up (with 06s) not down (with 07s). If she is not that good, I'd not care much about the changes. LOL

travelin light wrote:The general thought is that if the proposed birth year rule change was implemented by NTSSA, it would happen after July 1st 2015.  So assuming NTSSA implemented birth year starting with the '06 age group, then the 8/01-12/31 '05 players would be at a huge disadvantage of finding the right '05 team well after signing day.  If those 8/01-12/31 '05 players were allowed to stay with their current academy teams until fall 2016, and then forced to skip U11 and move up to U12, that creates another issue not previously mentioned.

You can probably guess, my DD is an August '05 birthday.  By next summer, she will have played academy for five years.  If she was forced to skip U11 and go directly to U12, what else does she skip besides one year of soccer?  QUALIFYING!  That's right, that annual right of passage that every club soccer player experiences the summer of going select.  All the sweat, two-a-days, hard work, teamwork, and camaraderie with her friends during that memorable summer of busting her ass in preparation for the qualifying tournament.  There is a special maturation process, at least with our coach's philosophy, during the summer when girls turn into young ladies in preparation for qualifying.  Accountability and responsibility set in.  This is one of the reason's that we put our kids into club sports.  The intangibles they learn in addition to playing the sport they love.

I for one, believe my DD has earned the right to experience the emotion of qualifying with her team that she has worked so hard for.  She would be devastated to hear she has to find a new team this summer, or worse, that she would never experience that unique summer in which NTSSA forced her to skip because of some national team mandate.  My daughter will most likely not have the opportunity to play for the national team, and like so many others, I don't give a rats ass what the rest of the world does.  She just wants to keep playing for her awesome coach and with her teammates.

Some have asked - if this is passed - what happens to these girls in their senior year?  Why does the United States do it differently than the rest of the world?  Maybe because most of our high school players actually go to college instead of going into huge club academies at U12.  Many players abroad that are playing for Bayern's or Barca's youth teams have no desire to go to college - they wind up going professional.  Most of the players in the United States decide that college might be a better option.  I'm not saying that US soccer isn't on to something here, but if this rule is going to be forced upon us, then why not start at U5 or U6?  Why not use common sense and let it organically grow?

planogirl wrote:My daughter is in the same boat with yours, except she is a 06 girl on a 07 team.

However what worry me most is if they postpone the change to age pure until my dd is at U14/15, which will be too late for us to adapt or change to another sport.

If we know this will change eventually, I'd like the change earlier, the earlier the better, even though with some short term pain. If dd is good enough for pursuing a college scholarship, she need to play up (with 06s) not down (with 07s). If she is not that good, I'd not care much about the changes. LOL

travelin light wrote:The general thought is that if the proposed birth year rule change was implemented by NTSSA, it would happen after July 1st 2015.  So assuming NTSSA implemented birth year starting with the '06 age group, then the 8/01-12/31 '05 players would be at a huge disadvantage of finding the right '05 team well after signing day.  If those 8/01-12/31 '05 players were allowed to stay with their current academy teams until fall 2016, and then forced to skip U11 and move up to U12, that creates another issue not previously mentioned.

You can probably guess, my DD is an August '05 birthday.  By next summer, she will have played academy for five years.  If she was forced to skip U11 and go directly to U12, what else does she skip besides one year of soccer?  QUALIFYING!  That's right, that annual right of passage that every club soccer player experiences the summer of going select.  All the sweat, two-a-days, hard work, teamwork, and camaraderie with her friends during that memorable summer of busting her ass in preparation for the qualifying tournament.  There is a special maturation process, at least with our coach's philosophy, during the summer when girls turn into young ladies in preparation for qualifying.  Accountability and responsibility set in.  This is one of the reason's that we put our kids into club sports.  The intangibles they learn in addition to playing the sport they love.

I for one, believe my DD has earned the right to experience the emotion of qualifying with her team that she has worked so hard for.  She would be devastated to hear she has to find a new team this summer, or worse, that she would never experience that unique summer in which NTSSA forced her to skip because of some national team mandate.  My daughter will most likely not have the opportunity to play for the national team, and like so many others, I don't give a rats ass what the rest of the world does.  She just wants to keep playing for her awesome coach and with her teammates.

Some have asked - if this is passed - what happens to these girls in their senior year?  Why does the United States do it differently than the rest of the world?  Maybe because most of our high school players actually go to college instead of going into huge club academies at U12.  Many players abroad that are playing for Bayern's or Barca's youth teams have no desire to go to college - they wind up going professional.  Most of the players in the United States decide that college might be a better option.  I'm not saying that US soccer isn't on to something here, but if this rule is going to be forced upon us, then why not start at U5 or U6?  Why not use common sense and let it organically grow?

That was either pretty funny or you win the award for most stupid poster ever... given history i lean towrds the later...but will give you benefit of doubt on this one since its so far out there. Pretty funny...

Triumph FC wrote:

bwgophers wrote:Somebody please help my obviously idiotic brain wrap around the concept of how changing the age group cutoff dates by 5 months improves development???

O.K.  now you "force" the Aug.-Dec. birth dates to play up against older competition, which theoretically forces them to develop faster...  but didn't you just retard the development of the Jan.-May birth dates because they are no longer required to play against the girls born from Aug.-Dec. of the calendar year before they were born?

...and how does that change the overall paradigm of how much cumulative development a player undergoes by the time they get to 20 years old?

You want to align with the way the rest of the world does it?  That's fine.  Just spare me the BS about the change to birth year having some sort of magical impact on overall player development.

Agree, because all you do is throw the issue elsewhere. Lets take that we are going age pure because so we are being told it helps development because 05's on 06 team are unfair. We isn't it unfair we now have Dec 06 playing against Jan 06 players that's very nearly 12 months difference and exactly the same issue as 05's on 06's. So its throwing the problem to someone else down the line. That Dec 06 might be a stud on the 07's but may not be against a Jan 06. Where should we draw the line? Age Pure has nothing to do with development

Tell that to the folks at Puget Sound Premier League

Taken from the link provided earlier in this thread...

Why is the US Soccer Federation going to Birth Year?

The US Soccer Federation is going to Birth Year to align youth soccer with the rest of the world. Every country in the world plays Birth Year and all international youth soccer competitions are Birth Year, including all Youth National Team competitions and Youth World Cup competitions. The US Soccer Federation recognizes that the change will help our players develop faster. They hope it will benefit in the short term by producing better players and in the longer term by producing players who can compete on the world stage and win a World Cup.

Are there any benefits to playing Birth Year?

The main benefit for playing Birth Year is for developmental purposes. Playing Birth Year will allow your strongest players to play against older players which is always the best way to develop. Great players like Mia Hamm and Landon Donavan played up most of their youth careers.

How will playing Birth Year benefit our players at the local level?

On the local level, it will allow for better development because it will push individual players, raise the competitive standards, improve team competition and create more meaningful league games.

Ummm... that still doesn't make it any clearer to me what arbitrary date lines define someone as "playing up". That will make my DD (Oct '03) have to work harder, but it will suddenly pit arbitrary Mar '04 girl against younger players.

The only way to "play up" is to jump in the age group higher than yours, regardless of when your birthday is.

Birth year only benefits youth national teams, and it's all down to relative age effect. In NTX, the best teams are heavily weighted with aug-nov players. They are the oldest, and get the well documented age benefit starting at very early ages. Problem is these aug. - nov. players have to compete with the jan. - apr players from everywhere else in the world. They have no problem competing with the early year american players, because those players aren't getting the RAE benefit in the states, but international teams are birth year and their RAE benefit goes to kids born early in the year.

IMO, zero net improvement in development will occur...all we will get is after several years, the top players on top teams will be mostly born in early months, which should help our YNTs create pools having the same aged players with similar RAE benefit as their international competition.

The benefit will not amount to a hill of beans for 99% of  american players, and I question whether it would EVER have any net positive impact  on our senior national teams. I could see it being beneficial for boys headed down the pro track...they can get apples to apples RAE when competing for spots in international academies. But the vast majority of DA players are aiming for college, so for that vast majority of even the elite players, nothing much was gained from moving away from the school calendar system.

Yes I don't ever remember playing birth year. I know I played U12 when I was 9 not because I was exceptional it's because it was my neighborhood team and they needed players!
The Puget Sound deal is written by someone trying to convince everyone by playing age pure you'll be playing against stronger players.......er don't you get that now as it is
Mia Hamm played up against stronger players and helped her develop.......er so can others and it doesn't have to be age pure
Much better development will happen with age pure.....er really why is that, so the Jan-Mar birthdays will be stronger but it now puts the Nov Dec birthdays on the back foot so please explain why it's better for development because I'm scratching my head