Age Pure Dilemma

Interesting conversations in Baltimore last weekend at the NSCAA coaches convention and a couple of lectures on the age pure and SSG's format. Lots of good information but still many unanswered questions and definitely food for thought that parents should think about before some sign their children up for AP and select soccer.
US Soccer wanted to get the playing years aligned with Europe (I know many who have played or coached in Europe and we all agreed in was school year)
US Soccer said it was confusing to know what age your child played at so now birth year makes that easier. So I guess it must be confusing to know what grade your child is at school.
US Soccer needs coaches to focus on the Jan-July birthdays as in Birth year alignment these are the strongest ages. National Teams, ECNL, ODP and all our elite programs and it's players already do this so why should the rest who won't be elite players now be separated from coaches and team mates who are the same school year and more than likely their friends
What happens when the Jan-July birthdays are in HS and on a different schedule than the Aug-Dec are in middle school. Yes the Aug-Dec suffer because the Jan-July are not available Dec-March because of HS soccer
What happens when Aug-Dec are Seniors in HS? Where are their Jan-July team mates? Graduated of course so if your team was loaded with Jan-July birthdays you are now looking for a new team/club/coach in your senior year the last thing you want to do in their final seasons!
You will then have 2 options
Find as many players in the same boat (so Aug-Dec birthdays and this makes a mockery of AP) or
Play with the Jan-July 06's which brings us back to where we were befor US Soccer decided to change the age grouping so it will be easier to indentify which age group the child is in!
There are more disadvantage but I haven't got another 2 hours to post but parents thinking should be
What do I want out of soccer for my child and if Elite status is not in your thinking then Age Pure probably isn't for you

1. Age Pure is being promoted as a fix to US Soccer by the dunces at the top of US Soccer. This fix won't fix anything.
2. Age Pure is primarily aimed at the male side of soccer. That's where all the money is. Don't believe it? Look up the earnings of top ten female soccer players on the planet. Then look up the men.
3. US Women's Soccer doesn't need fixing, the men's side does.
4. US Men's Soccer has 2 problems. Problem #1 is, they don't get the best athletes in this country. The best athletes in this country play football & basketball. This fix will do nothing to change that. In fact, this fix ignores that reality altogether and substitutes that reality with the illusion of, what month you are born in determines how good of an athlete that you are. Like I said, "DUNCES". #2 Soccer needs to do a better job of identifying its best athletes. This fix does nothing to address that.

I believe that this fix is nothing more than a distraction. It's a self manufactured distraction that will provide a handy excuse for the powers that be to point to when everyone begins to ask, "why is the US Men's team not any good?"  The answer? "Well, we've revamped our entire program and it will just take time to get it running smoothly."

Meanwhile, they've dynamited the foundation of their World's Best women's program, which is club soccer. "DUNCES".

The whole thing is a farce, perpetrated by DUNCES. It will do nothing for the men's program. It remains to be seen whether it does damage to the women's program.

What choice do we have if the decision is made?  My daughter is a keeper and has an Oct. bday but she is as big, if not bigger as any of the girls with a Jan - July bday and we will likely have to find a new team when the spring season ends.  Will she be pre-judged just because of her birth month?

OLJW wrote:1. Age Pure is being promoted as a fix to US Soccer by the dunces at the top of US Soccer. This fix won't fix anything.
2. Age Pure is primarily aimed at the male side of soccer. That's where all the money is. Don't believe it? Look up the earnings of top ten female soccer players on the planet. Then look up the men.
3. US Women's Soccer doesn't need fixing, the men's side does.
4. US Men's Soccer has 2 problems. Problem #1 is, they don't get the best athletes in this country. The best athletes in this country play football & basketball. This fix will do nothing to change that. In fact, this fix ignores that reality altogether and substitutes that reality with the illusion of, what month you are born in determines how good of an athlete that you are. Like I said, "DUNCES". #2 Soccer needs to do a better job of identifying its best athletes. This fix does nothing to address that.

I believe that this fix is nothing more than a distraction. It's a self manufactured distraction that will provide a handy excuse for the powers that be to point to when everyone begins to ask, "why is the US Men's team not any good?"  The answer? "Well, we've revamped our entire program and it will just take time to get it running smoothly."

Meanwhile, they've dynamited the foundation of their World's Best women's program, which is club soccer. "DUNCES".

The whole thing is a farce, perpetrated by DUNCES. It will do nothing for the men's program. It remains to be seen whether it does damage to the women's program.

Whole heartedly agree with this. Especially using lack of age pure as a scapegoat for how poorly the men have performed over the years. Talk about throwing out the baby with bathwater.

It's tough and US Soccer refuses to come up with answers. If you go to a team that is top heavy in Jan-July then you have problem ahead. If your answer to that is well in not thinking that far ahead, the next question should be are we doing this for the fun educational team environment experience you should be looking for teams that have her friends on it and that will be teams with Aug-Dec Xyear and Jan-July Yyear exactly as they are now. I know many teams and clubs that won't align with birth year, not because they don't want to its for the reasons I pointed to in the original post. Our academy will start recruiting players by birth year then grouping them into Jan-July and Aug-Dec teams this way we can keep friends and school year players together

My real delima is.  Maybe the Men should of moved or stayed with teams August -July birthdays so the boys could of played with there friends like they do in football and other American sports? Then they might have the success of the women.

Kids like to play with there friends in the same grade like Triumph said. Unfortunately they blew up women's soccer.  I guess there is a chance  that our daughters will get more interested in other sports that are school year based in time. Could be the worst decision ever and this could be one of the pieces that made woman's soccer great.

It's happening whether you like it or not. We can only adjust and hope that they did not kill girls soccer.

Triumph FC wrote: Our academy will start recruiting players by birth year then grouping them into Jan-July and Aug-Dec teams this way we can keep friends and school year players together

Shouldn't Aug be with Jan-July if based on school year? School year cut off is Sept 1 isn't it? August kids been playing with younger grade in old system.

Felt the need to respond to this. This is just one persons opinion based on information that may not be accurate so caveat emptor.

I think after the transition all of the Select Clubs will move to Age Purse since that's how US Soccer has ordained it to be. There was another thread that indicated why that doesn't fit too well with College recruiting since they are more interested in Graduation Year and not in age but I don't think it will matter.

The reason it won't matter that much is that D1 College Coaches are committing to Sophomores and are pretty much done early in Junior year for most of their roster. So they're looking at Freshmen and confirming through Sophomore BUT they're not looking at teams, they're looking at individuals.

IF a parent is interested in having their kid play Soccer in College they will be trying to have that kid play in tournaments a coach is going to be at (ECNL and above) and will have already contacted the Coach (especially since the coach is prohibited from contacting them).

If a parent is investing in Select at the High School level it's probably because they would like to have that be an advantage when making a College application. We're relatively new to the US but the College application thing is a thing. So they'll be aware enough to know their DD needs to be competing at tournaments where they can be seen or ones a coach or admissions person might have heard of. Those tournaments will be Age Pure so the teams will be Age Pure and since the folks further down the age brackets will all assume their DD is talented enough to make an Elite team they will expect Age Pure.

Ideally we would all realize that talent is a responsibility not a gift and developing it is it's own journey that's worth it for itself but that's hard and kind of vague so giving your kid an advantage on their college application seems more real.

I think if you want to play Soccer for fun with your friends High School is the place. Ironically an unintended consequence may be that High School Soccer for Girls gets a boost and Select loses some participants. The coaches would then pay more attention to High School...

I understand where you are coming from and I know tournaments will be age pure. What I'm trying to say is teams Could stay together under the current age format. US soccer cannot Demand teams to be age birth year pure. I'm pointing out the ones getting shafted here are the Aug-Dec (maybe not the Aug ones if the poster is correct on school year. It was Sept when I was at school a long time ago)those are the players who's parents need to think about. You are right college coaches are recruiting younger now but will they want those players to miss their senior year because there is nowhere to play? What about ones that have yet to decide where they are going? To many unanswered questions about Age Pure that makes all the more reason to ask why are we doing this!

Stupid solution to fix an issue that effects only about 5% of all youth players in the US. Or should the Killer Daisies really start worrying what their counterparts in Spain are doing?

Please understand I don't have the answers but I am pointing out the problems they will arise as age pure goes forward. US Soccer need to give these answers otherwise it is left to individual teams and clubs. To just say well every has to follow age pure is not a solution for the (at least) Sept-Dec birthdays at the end of their youth careers

You'll never hear a cogent argument for the AP move because there isn't one. Particularly on the girls side.

After the dust settles, the majority of kids will migrate back toward teams of their school grade.

NTX was AP once before. To one poster's point, never understood why they used August instead of September when they moved to SY.

It's not a solution for 5% (it's actually not a solution at all, it's a smokescreen)

For arguments sake let's pretend it IS a solution. Who is it a solution for? It's a solution for the National Teams. That's about 300 players at all ages, both boys and girls.

There are 3 million kids playing soccer in the US. 300 of them will play for National Teams.

3 million divided by 300= 10,000

The geniuses at USSF have rearranged everything for the benefit of 1 out of 10,000 players. That's 1 in 10,000.....NOT 5 in 100.

Jokes on them. This won't help them find that 1 in 10,000. There is only one way to find players. Somebody that knows what they are looking at, has to see them playing. The fact that the USSF is putting its entire youth system back into the blender and then telling us that by re-blending everyone we can then find the needle in the haystack, makes me think one thing....they have no clue what they are doing. I'm throwing the BS flag.