Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
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Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
Unraveling Youth Soccer: Navigating the ECNL Pathway & Relative Age Effect | Ep. 93
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Join us as we peel back the curtain on the complexities of club promotion, where it's not just about a single age group's success but the collective performance of an entire organization. In this discussion, we shine a light on the varying regional league performances and the weight of postseason victories in the journey to ECNL elevation. We also tackle the controversial birth year versus school year registration debate, a hot-button issue that hits close to home for players and parents alike.
Welcome to Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast, a bi-weekly look at all things related to the growing elite clubs nationally the ECNL. For more information on the ECNL, visit us at wwwtheecnlcom. Now here's your host for Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast, former US soccer press officer and longtime soccer broadcaster, dean Linke.
Speaker 2:It's the May 8th edition of Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast, what we're calling Season 2, with a new format an informal discussion with the leaders of the ECNL, featuring Christian Labers, the president and CEO of the ECNL, doug Bracken, the vice president, also known as the chief of staff, and we even intermix Ashley Willis, a new hire for the ECNL, who brings a great contribution to this week's show. Christian, doug and Ashley break down the questions that you asked, including promotion from the regional league up. They also talk about the longstanding debate about date of birth and or school year Really go inside that issue and then Doug Bracken asks all of us our greatest memory so far in the ECNL? That and so much more because of your questions. Send your questions to info at the ECNLcom. You'll hear your questions answered when we return with the start of another edition of Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast, after this message from the ECNL.
Speaker 1:As the game continues to evolve. In the United States, the ECNL remains the standard of excellence in youth soccer. The elite clubs National League has grown to include over 200 clubs and nearly 50,000 players across the country, with a robust competition platform for teams, educational resources for coaches and clubs and unparalleled identification and development opportunities for players. Alongside its member clubs, collaborating to create a better future, the ECNL continues to raise the game every day. The ECNL is more than a league. Welcome back to Breaking the Line, the ECNLnl podcast.
Speaker 2:Once again, here's dean welcome back to breaking the line, the ecnl podcast. Season two new format, more exciting as christian labors. The president and ceo returns with doug bracken, the vice president, and we also call him the chief of staff, and we're also joined, at least for a little bit of the show by ashley. We also call him the chief of staff and we're also joined, at least for a little bit of the show by Ashley Willis, who is the partnership activation and alumni relations manager, reminding you that it's much more informal answering your questions and we definitely want to hear from you that's all of you out there listening to this podcast. Send in your questions to info at the ECNLcom. Before we hear Christian and Doug, let it rip here on what we're calling season two of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast. We're going to bring in Ashley Willis, the Partnership Activation and Alumni Relations Manager, to offer up the first question for Christian and Doug.
Speaker 3:Awesome, thanks, dean. No pressure here for first question of the new format, so thanks for that. The first question that we got submitted by one of our members is what is required for one of the ECNL RL clubs to be considered for promotion into the ECNL.
Speaker 4:Well, thank you, ashley, for proposing such a great question and, by the way, welcome to the podcast. We'll call you the assistant to the podcast producer as well. I suppose we could go with Dean's right hand person as we continue to adopt and evolve this podcast. So thanks for being here.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 4:So, doug, let's start with that the RL to ECNL promotion success. I asked Chris Leahy, who's one of the associate commissioners in the league, to give us some of the data on the promotions over the last three years, because it's important to us that there's a real pathway within the league and we can talk about that and the reasons for that. But in the last three years we have promoted from the RL 17 girls clubs across the country and 15 boys clubs across the country. That's from the 21-22 season all the way up going into this fall. So a total of 32 clubs have come into the ECNL through their performances in the RL. So for anybody who says there's not a pathway or that we're not looking to reward achievement, I think that stat is pretty loud and clear.
Speaker 5:I do think it's worth saying that we look back on this. Initially, when we started the RL, it was as a service to our club's second teams and it evolved and what we realized is giving people a pathway to get in and something that we could look at and measure in a platform that we understood and we knew the level and that's kind of what's brought us here today. And I didn't know the exact number, so 32. I mean, I think that shows that that's where we're primarily evaluating clubs and where we want to see clubs' performance to come into the ECNL let's put that in context.
Speaker 4:I mean the boys' ECNL next year will be somewhere around 150 clubs. I believe 15 clubs being promoted means 10% of that membership in the last three years has come through performance. And the girls is slightly smaller with 17 clubs. So we're looking at approximately 10 to probably 13% of the total membership in the ECNL having come from clubs who earned that through their performance on the field over the last couple of years. I mean that's not a small number.
Speaker 5:So when you say they've earned their promotion, what strikes you? What are the most important things to that? To?
Speaker 4:you. Before we jump into that, I'm going to just go through some of these so people get a sense of the scope. So we got FC Westlake shout out to Westlake. Texas started out in the ECNL Regional League. Usc got promoted into the Regional League Texas Conference and next year's going into the ECNL Texas. That's a club that's been promoted twice within the scope of, I believe, two years in Texas. Then we got clubs like 1974, newark, san Francisco Elite out in NorCal who've been promoted in that area, el Camino FC, salinas. Same thing.
Speaker 4:Looking at clubs like Parkland and FCE Prime in Florida, beach, fc in Virginia so there we got a bunch of different regions of the country on the boys' side. So there we got a bunch of different regions of the country on the boy's side. On the girl's side we go everywhere, from Cleveland Force in your Ohio Valley we're looking at Chicago. Inter Rockford Raptors in the Midwest got Florida Premier Bay Area Surf in Northern California. This is not something that's just happening in a couple of places, it's happening all over the place. I think that's because and we may have touched on this in the last podcast it's really important to us that we provide a pathway so that competition is ultimately driving some of the improvement in the league. And I think what we've talked about at some of our symposiums is that we believe competition is good for individual development. We believe competition is good for individual development, we believe competition is good for team development, and that means there's got to be a spur of competition in club performance as well that drives people to move forward.
Speaker 5:When you say the clubs and you look at the footprint of those clubs, I think it's proof that what we believe is in fact true, it's not lip service, I totally agree with you is in fact true, it's not lip service. I totally agree with you. I think, just as the landscape changes in youth soccer as a whole, the landscape of clubs changes, markets change. Good clubs who are doing a good job bubble up, players bubble up. So being able to recognize that, see those guys. And at the end of the day, the league is built on the competition. That's the most important part of it. We've talked about it all the time, and so we always have to look and say how can we make this competition the best that it can be? And it would be silly to think that the same clubs will be the best clubs forever and ever and ever right. So I think it's important for that reason and just the competition itself and how much better it makes it.
Speaker 4:Yeah, and I mean we're going to talk, I think, predominantly about promotion from the regional league into the ECNL, but there's also been promotion into the regional league from outside and a lot of that's come through the NPL US clubs leagues. Some of it's come from outside of that. But we hear all the time, and some people for other reasons, talk about the fracturing of youth soccer and our perspective is it's not fractured within the us club landscape of 600, 000. Some odd players most of them are in that sort of competitive side of the spectrum that the pathway within us club is becoming more and more clear and more and more unified. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe our own, ashley Willis, is coaching at a club that was promoted for this coming season from the Florida Club League, npl into the Eastern Original League, florida. Am I correct there, ms Willis?
Speaker 3:You are correct on that.
Speaker 4:What teams are you coaching?
Speaker 3:I have the 09s and I'll have the 08s as well.
Speaker 4:All right, so you can take some of that credit for the performance and development of those players.
Speaker 3:You know I'm the brains of the operation around here, for a reason.
Speaker 5:Or the kids are successful despite her.
Speaker 4:Could be. I mean, that's what we covered last week. For those who didn't remember, bracken's failures at a variety of USYS competitions were largely attributed to his presence. So we'll leave that at Bracken and give Ashley credit for the promotion.
Speaker 3:I like it already. Great news format guys.
Speaker 5:That's why I became a podcaster, christian, I appreciate that I couldn't cut it on the field.
Speaker 4:So when we look at that, you got promotion into the RL, you got promotion out of the RL and we don't talk about it. But there are clubs that have been moved in the opposite direction. We try not to make a big deal about that for obvious reasons, but that's part and parcel to this and probably going to become more and more frequent as the platforms stabilize nationally. In terms of the footprint We've talked about before, you can't promote and relegate and do stuff like that when you're dealing with gigantic geographic expansions, because it screws up the structures to promote in one city and relegate in another city and then tell people they got really weird travel to deal with. But your question I think directly Doug goes back to what Ashley provided, which is what does it take? And the answer here is for those who want some algorithm and nice formula or engineering equation, they're going to be disappointed because it's not that way. But generally we can talk about what a lot of these clubs have in common, although there's always an exception. As I learned in law, the exception always proves the rule, which is not a legal doctrine, by the way. So just caveat that Generally, if you're saying what does it take for an RL club to be considered for moving up.
Speaker 4:The first answer is that club is typically in the top one, two, maybe three spots in their conference at almost every single age group and that goes back to the fact that we are a club based league in the ECNL. So while winning an age group or two or being really high in the standings at an age group or two is certainly notable and it's something we want to celebrate and recognize and that's why we believe a postseason pathway at every level is really important so that clubs can go chase championships with their individual teams To be considered, so that clubs can go chase championships with their individual teams To be considered, really considered for promotion into the ECNL, you have to prove really that you're outperforming the level of competition you're at at almost every age group. It doesn't mean you got to have six championships, but if you got two or three teams in the top couple spots, one or two in the middle and one or two in the bottom, that's generally not going to get you considered for promotion.
Speaker 5:I even simplify it down even more from my perspective when I think about this does this club make the ECNL platform better? Obviously, that can have a lot of pieces and parts to it, but that's ultimately. Is this a club that's going to come in and be successful in that platform? It's kind of like, if I use the analogy of tryouts. You know, I always have told our kids like when you come to tryouts, if another kid from outside comes, they have to be better than you in order for them to make it, because if they're the same as you it doesn't necessarily help us. And so there's some, I think, correlation there. Where you're looking, how do we continue to elevate the platform, the level, the competition? And so I always just ask that question of myself as we think and talk about these things Is this a club that helps elevate the competition?
Speaker 4:as kind of the first threshold. Yeah, for those who want an equation, we'll call that the Bracken contribution to value variable, where Christian will quote Oppenheimer's atom bomb physics.
Speaker 5:I try to keep it a little more simple. I'm a common man. Christian, I'm a common man.
Speaker 4:We look at that, but it's not always that simple in the equations because when you also look we have as you would expect you have a variety of different levels of performance, even regionally, and that's true at every level of the game. I mean you can look in the ECNL and say, hey, these two or three conferences are generally deeper and more difficult to compete in than some of the other conferences. So the easiest one to use as an example of that is Southern California. You got probably the most dense area of talent in the country, huge area of great clubs, the ability to play outside 12 months a year. That conference, boys and girls, is always one of, if not the top conference in terms of depth of top level teams. So it's true at the ECNL level. It's also true at the RL that not every RL goes to the same depth which makes sense. And so one of the things that we look at as well is if you're doing well within your conference, especially as the platforms now have sort of filled out, how do you do when it becomes best on best of the RL when you get into the post-season? It becomes best on best of the RL when you get into the postseason. So if you qualify for your RL playoff event, what are the results there? When first place from Regionally Conference A play first place from Regionally Conference B and we get a real sense, then that actually, I think would be a nice contributor to the Bracken coefficient of value here, because it gives us, see, I changed it to coefficient, I'll consider it Okay. Because that gives us, say, I changed it to coefficient, I'll consider it Okay. Because that gives us now it's not just hey, you're one of the top performing clubs in this regional league, but you are now asserting yourself as one of the better ones within the regional league platform and I think the jump from the regional league to the ECNL is real.
Speaker 4:The other piece to this is it's not easy. When you get promoted, the level jumps and so we want to make sure that we're evaluating correctly. And then sometimes that means that a club does really well in a regional league and then they go and we say, well, we got to see the postseason and that obviously puts us outside of the timeframe for that year. But if a club does well in their regional league in year one, they do well in the postseason and that doesn't mean they got to win RL championships, but it means they got to advance. Some teams have good records in the post -season. Then we look if it's sustained in year two in the regional league. So we have two regular season great performances with a post-season in between. That really is where it becomes a really, really strong case for promotion. And I would say, out of the 30-something clubs that we mentioned, the majority of them have been promoted based on a couple of years worth of results, not based on one season.
Speaker 5:A lot of these top performing RL teams and clubs were able to get them some showcasing opportunities where they're coming to our events playing the ECNL events.
Speaker 5:Yeah, the ECNL events, and so that gives you kind of a also a litmus test in a comparison to other ECNL teams. So that can be just another thing we can look at and consider. You would just also add all the things that we talk about as it relates to our values, right, Leadership and all that stuff. The biggest takeaway here is that there's a lot that goes into it. There's a lot to consider. There is no math coefficient to your point and there are a lot of things that we look at and we think about and we're going to try to make these decisions that we know. When it doesn't happen, people may disagree and not understand.
Speaker 4:Yeah, In the last podcast we talked about some of the weird incentives that come on really, really strict team-based promotion, relegation, like you would hear talk about in the English Premier League and the English Championship and stuff like that, and so we shared some of the reasons why we favor a club structure in the ECNL, for all the things we think it adds.
Speaker 4:But if we just have a club structure, we still have to look and say how do you recognize the value of achievement at a team level, right? So by doing it this way over a course of multiple years, typically by looking at factors within your league and within the post-season, by looking at when we bring one of your teams into an ECNL event, which isn't super common but it's not uncommon we can look at all of that and get a sense of, hey, is the performance here demonstrable enough that this makes sense? So that it's not you've promoted and we don't have enough data. And then it's a really, really rough promotion which we've seen in some of these areas where the jump is significant, because some of the realities of youth soccer if you're struggling to get results, it's a tough road. When you think about managing a youth soccer club, I mean parents and players. It can be difficult when, when results are going against you on a regular basis.
Speaker 5:Incredibly hard and you're balancing that with the development aspects of that, like what impact does that have on players You're really trying to look at? Can this group or this group of teams be successful? Can they compete, and is the experience that they're going to have here a good one? Because that's important, that's an important part of it.
Speaker 4:Let me ask Ashley here, because, ashley, you just coached teams in the NPL and they've been promoted and I think you said you had the 09s.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I did, yep.
Speaker 4:Was promotion, even like in their minds when we were going through the season in the NPL.
Speaker 3:I think for my club specifically, we had more teams that were expected to win the league, not just. You know, let's do well and try to find ourselves into a setting that we can get promoted. There was a across the board expectation put on the kids that we are expected to go get promoted out of NPL into this season. My group was one of them, and then probably our 19s or 05s.
Speaker 4:So that was something you guys had conversations with the players about performance winning, promotion, that type of stuff.
Speaker 3:Yes, correct, they knew what they were getting themselves into and they kind of knew why and what was to come of it if they performed.
Speaker 4:Because I know we'll have people on the other side that talk about the importance of winning and winning as a skill and I believe that that's interesting, that you guys are talking about that and because that adds a little bit of spur to the environment, a little bit of pressure to the environment, and you know, we've talked about before. You don't, players don't learn how to handle pressure by being told that winning doesn't matter at all, and then one day you just flip the switch and say, oh, by the way, now it does. Right, they got. They got to learn how to deal with the pressures of competition and performing under pressure over time, as I would imagine, as gradually bring that reality to the development process.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely. You know these kids have aspirations to go play in college and when you get to college granted, it's a couple of years off for a lot of them you walk into the training room one day and your coach is putting up where you rank in certain things on the team. The depth chart is in front of you. So the first time you're experiencing competition is in college. That's not going to set you up for success. So maybe slow dripping it through the youth system is definitely our philosophy at my club specifically. But yeah, the kids had every idea that they were out there trying to get promoted.
Speaker 4:I think, if I was to say something like generalizing just on the last show and a half, this one and last one, that we've done, what we are trying to do in a lot of these things, is probably balancing countervailing principles in a lot of ways, in what we're doing there's not a right or wrong. There's arguments to all different things team-based versus club-based, when is winning brought in? When is it not? All those things where we're trying to take what I would describe as a reasonable perspective that certainly some people can disagree but to say what do we feel is the best balance of all these variables and factors in making decisions for the league.
Speaker 5:It's a tough, tough balance. Winning is part of the culture of our country, without a doubt. Do we sometimes lean heavily on it, or too heavily on it, to the detriment of development? Yes, probably, but I don't know how anybody could ever stand up and say that it's not important or that we don't, we don't care about winning, because that's that can't be, that can't be. It has to be part of it, because to Ashley's point you're going to get, if you continue to have aspirations to to go, whether you're a team, a club, a player, an individual player, at some point in a hurry it's going to play a major factor.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I remember a quote several years ago that was uh, these kids care too much about winning. And I remember thinking man, be careful what you're saying there, because as soon as we start to diminish the drive to succeed and the drive to compete and the drive to win, we're opening a dangerous box there. So again, I think that's a balancing of overemphasis. The cliche overemphasis too early is a problem, but de-emphasis is also a problem.
Speaker 5:Yeah, it doesn't mean other things aren't also important. It doesn't have to be one thing so winning is important and there are other things that are also really important. It doesn't have to be one thing so winning is important and there are other things that are also really important. But I think just to discount it or not consider it or not realize that there's a reality to it, would be a pretty naive way to look at it, we are often rolling.
Speaker 2:It's the second show of what we're calling season two of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, with a new and exciting format and informal discussion every two weeks led by Christian Labors, the president and CEO, and Doug Bracken, the vice president, also known as the chief of staff, and, we hope, continued involvement from Ashley Willis, who is the partnership, activationation and Alumni Relations Manager. We're going to take a break and when we return, christian, doug and Ashley will break down age group or, better said, birth year registration.
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Speaker 2:We're back for segment two of what we're calling season two of the new informal format of Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast spearheaded by Christian Labors and Doug Bracken, and will often feature Ashley Willis and others as well. With that, I turn it back over to Christian Labors.
Speaker 4:Let's turn topics. We're going to talk, I think, probably about the whole tryout process at some point here in the next couple of weeks. But related to that, a topic that is frequently bemoaned across our league across, I think, all of you soccer parents, coaches, people alike is age group registration.
Speaker 5:Birth year registration right.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the decision in 2017 to go from school year registration, which was an August 1 cutoff, where kids by and large played with kids that they were in the same grade with, to calendar or birth year registration, which was January 1. That decision was made by US soccer, with significant blowback from the youth ranks at almost every level about why to do this, and it continues to get blowback. We want to talk about the history of that, why it's a problem, because I think everybody here would sit here and say it's a problem, maybe debunk some of the arguments for this, because I'm not sure that they're logically very strong, and maybe just kind of stir the pot on this because it continues to come up. I would say, without a doubt, every month somebody's reaching out to me or somebody saying something about when is this going to change? Why are we doing this? I don't know. Ashley, you're dealing with players. Doug, I'm sure you deal with it all the time when we've talked about it. Ashley, do you have people in your club that are complaining about birth year?
Speaker 3:Yes and no. I don't think there's enough parents and players that can truly know what it was like before this. Before it was, you were kind of split amongst your class. I don't think enough parents still remember that time, so I don't get it too much. I think when it comes into play is, for instance, my 09s. This year you got some that are freshmen in high school, so you go into high school, you got the trapped eighth grader.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and you got the eighth graders going on. So that's really the only time it comes up, from my experience time it comes up.
Speaker 5:From my experience, I mean, I will say that I would like to think that somebody or some people who made this decision had some good intention behind it. I don't know. I wasn't in the room, I didn't have the conversations, that's true. But I will say, as it relates to youth soccer, it is one of the most tone deaf decisions that I've experienced in the 30 years that I've been doing this. It just doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
Speaker 4:Let's unpack that, doug, specifically.
Speaker 4:This was brought up at the time when this was being first proposed and discussed, but we'll go through the areas that were brought up and are continually brought up as to why this decision is a problem, number one being when you look at kids who start the sport, and for those people with kids of their own, generally, in every sport that they play, regardless of what it is the first team that they're on or what motivates them to want to do something, is to do something with their friends at school, right, the kids that they're in class with, the kids that they're the same age with Sort of an entry level.
Speaker 4:Can you say that there's a ton of kids that don't play soccer now because they're not with their kids in the same classroom that they are, you know? No, I don't think you can say there's a ton of them, but can you? But could you say that there is a loss of players who start the sport but because they're not with their classmates and they're with kids that they don't know very well, kids that are a little bit older in the grade above them or the grade below them, that they end up moving into another sport where they have more fun with their classmates. I think absolutely you would say no question.
Speaker 5:Listen, my son, who plays in the ECNL, is a 2010 and he will next year be a trapped eighth grader. I believe it'll have a significantly negative impact on him from an enjoyment perspective for the period of time where the majority of his team goes off to play high school soccer and then he's kind of in this no man's land Right, and I think that's unpacked, that because I don't know that everybody knows.
Speaker 4:So in the previous registration, august one, when you went into high school, your whole team went into high school, and so during the high school your whole team went into high school, and so during the high school, generally you know, there's always somebody a little bit outside the range.
Speaker 5:I mean, I think over the years, just to put this into context, I think over the years we had it just as a club just dealing with kids who were in a different grade than their team man. It was less than five over all the years prior to birth year. Yeah, you're talking one, two percent, correct, and now I would say that number is probably it's huge, well so again.
Speaker 4:Let's paint the picture so previously. Group of kids are playing together. They're in eighth grade. They all move into high school. Then they all go play high school soccer whenever that season is, so some places it's spring, some places it's winter, some places it's fall but they all go into high school soccer at the same time. They all come out at the same time and they go back to their club team. Now you change it to calendar year and birth year and now you have some kids who are in eighth grade and some kids who are freshmen. And so when the high school season comes around, a chunk of your team and generally you would say it's probably between 40 and 60% or 30 and 70%, depending on how the age group made up but a chunk of your team goes to high school where they play high school soccer. And then you have these eighth graders left, which we call them trapped eighth eighth graders because they are too old to play with.
Speaker 5:But let me just push back on you here. I mean you would say that it's the percentage is on the higher end usually yeah, yeah, it's usually like the normally 70 or more of the team is going to high school, because there's some realities to physical development in the younger age groups which we'll talk about as part of this argument, but it is not like my son's team of 18, he'll be left with five kids.
Speaker 4:So, yeah, let's just let's use your son's team. This is a fine example. Let's just pretend there's 18 kids. 13 of those kids are going to the high school. Your son's in eighth grade. He's got five kids left, so he's got no team to train with, he's got no games to play, and that is 100% a creation of birth year registration and the unique sort of scholastic structure we have in our country. And so for three months generally, your son is going to be looking for a place to train. You might be able to combine him with if you have multiple teams at the same level. So there's five kids on the first team, five kids on the second team and five kids on the third team.
Speaker 5:Well, I mean he ends up probably training with the younger team, the 2011s yeah, For the fall, which is it's training. So, but the level is not. There's the game.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the competition schedule is a mess. The training schedule is a mess. The kid is left, sort of you know, in the middle. So that's, that's the trapped eighth grade problem right, which is created purely by this.
Speaker 5:Let me just add to that, because you're talking about the player. What about the club? So, as a club director now I have to worry about providing programming for that kid or those kids that are in that, which requires more resources for fields, more probably trying to get them into some kind of league. If we have enough kids, it means coaching. So there are resources attached to this decision that are outside what the normal resources would be, and that is most of us. Youth clubs are running a tight ship as we try to staff everything and all that.
Speaker 4:So that is the other part of it.
Speaker 5:That's tough. And here's the other thing If you're providing programming and coaching and something in the fall, people normally have to pay for that, and so then they're paying for that and then they're starting back with their normal team, which for our area is November, because they play high school soccer in the fall. So there's a bigger financial outlay. I guess people could argue somebody has to pay for the tournament Right.
Speaker 5:So there's. So that is the club side of it. It's not just the player side, it's the club that also bears some burden in that whole thing.
Speaker 4:Well and so. And the last piece of that is it's variable, right? Sometimes you're going to have three kids, sometimes you might have seven kids. If you have two teams in an age group versus one team or three teams, you can never plan for it. So that's trapped eighth grade. Then let's go on, because then the last damaging piece comes when. So again, now, keeping in mind that you have two classes for every age group now. So the trapped eighth grader resolves the next year, because then they're freshmen and sophomores, they're all in high school together. But then you go to the end of your youth career, where you're a U18 and half of your team is seniors and half of them are juniors, which means or I'm using approximates, right but a chunk of that team will then graduate and go to college at the end of that year, leaving behind the juniors that are now rising to become seniors. But coming up underneath them is another whole team of kids going from U17 to U18. So now you have a situation where you have some kids that are U18 and stay U18, and then you have a whole new group of kids that are 17, turning 18 in terms of age groups.
Speaker 4:And then what happens? There is that many times for the first time in their youth career, when they're seniors, when they're leaving youth soccer, when their minds are moving on to other things. You have kids that are cut. You have kids that are demoted to a second team or a third team. You have kids that are moved into different positions. You have kids that are demoted to a second team or a third team. You have kids that are moved into different positions. You have social structures completely eradicated within the teams because it's sort of a combining for the last season. You sort of combine these two different team environments into one and deal with the fact that you have players facing turmoil, change and generally loss of opportunity that they've never faced before. And before anyone starts screaming, it doesn't happen to the best kids. Obviously the best kids make the team. What we're talking about is the kids that are farther down, the solid player that's been with your, your team. Think about player number 12, 13 but hold on.
Speaker 5:But hold on if my son and I'm not saying he is, but let's just say he's the best kid.
Speaker 4:You're hinting that he is right now.
Speaker 5:He's definitely not but let's say he's a trapped eighth grader. He's the best kid. He sits out for the fall, that fall season of eighth grade, while he waits for his teammates talking.
Speaker 4:You're talking about trapped high school right now. Man, Are you going to fast forward? Okay, I know, but just hold on.
Speaker 5:Yeah, I'm going to fast forward to this. Okay, so he has that experience. Now fast forward to now. He's. The majority of his team is seniors. They graduate. He's a junior, whether he's the best player or not, he still has to go, try to integrate into a whole different group of kids. Now you could argue that that's fine and it's not going to kill him and all that stuff, and I believe that, but it's still not great when they have already established these social structures and roles and all that stuff. So, like the kids that are in this trapped kind of thing, they're kind of getting screwed twice if you think about it.
Speaker 5:Whether they're good or not good?
Speaker 4:Well, because one of the arguments Doug, one of the arguments made in support of this was like oh, this is great for player development and force these kids to play with different age groups and force them to play up and force them to adapt outside of social things, and you can take some of that with some value. But can't we do?
Speaker 5:that, but can't we do that?
Speaker 4:That's my point you can, because you look and say the very, very top players, do they train up or play up or compete up either part-time or full-time? Yeah, do clubs have integrated training environments with multiple age groups training together a lot? Yeah, so it was sort of a solution looking for a problem in that regard. And so, again, take away the psychosocial piece of whatever the kid that you just mentioned and let's put a real perspective to it in a different way. You look at that player number 13, 14 on your roster, if the first or second sub off the bench in general, and they come into their senior year and then all of a sudden you got seven kids from the younger team coming up and that kid goes from being the first or second kid off the bench to potentially being cut at a time at which they're not going to.
Speaker 4:You know it's a time of life that's already transitioned in turmoil and you're making it worse.
Speaker 5:I mean, when you have a team that has a high number of trap players on it, it creates a situation that is very, very it is a bad situation Because, to your point, you're integrating these 17s that are turning to be seniors and you're integrating them with your trap them, with your trap kids that are left.
Speaker 5:So let's say you have a high number of trap kids you could have kids on that u17 team that's rising to bu18 that have played in your ecnl team, let's say, for their entire career, since they were 13, and you're forced into this numbers game where you then have I mean, we had a year here where we had like 29 returning ECNL players Because we had a high number of trap kids and we had our U17s that were matriculating up to be U18.
Speaker 5:And you can't keep that many kids. So you've got to go to kids and say, hey, sorry, like we can only keep X number and you're not going to make it, even though if this rule wasn't in place and we were, it was school year registration it wouldn't affect you. So I mean it's hard to look at a kid who's played on your top team for that many years and they become a senior and then you say hey look, sorry that's, it's tough, and so I think that's another like thing that people don't you don't think about in this, so so and to be really clear here, because is there value for kids playing in different social groups?
Speaker 4:yes, is there value for kids playing against older players? Yes, there's a value to kids playing in different social groups yes. Is there a value for kids playing against older players? Yes, there's a value to kids playing against younger players as well in the developmental process.
Speaker 5:But we can create that. I think this is what you're saying. We could create that without the rule.
Speaker 4:Correct. We can do this without the negative impacts.
Speaker 5:Right as a as a responsible director of a club, I have top players. I need to make sure I challenge them appropriately, give them the right opportunities when it makes sense, whether that's training, competition, whatever.
Speaker 4:So let's sum this up we don't need it. Yeah, we have problems at the induction level, right, when kids come into the sport. You have problems midway through at the eighth grade, freshman level, and then you have problems at the exit level, right. So you have three significant problems with this. So, if people agree with what we say and then you say why was it done? And so that's another interesting thing, because the next question is when is it going to change? And so this was done in 2017. And, for context, it was different if you go back 20 years as well, maybe 25, 30 years. So this is kind of the second time this changed from school year birth year. School year birth year.
Speaker 4:I'm going to read this was a document about why this was done. The change in age group registration aims to support player development. Okay, Well, we talked about we can do all that stuff without doing this. Using birth year registration ensures players are training and playing in the proper age group. That is just circular logic, right? The proper age group depends on how you define it, and it's honestly, it's patently untrue and I'm sure we'll break that down.
Speaker 4:But here's a good one. Shifting to a birth year registration system makes it easier to understand what age group a youth player belongs in. To a birth year registration system makes it easier to understand what age group a youth player belongs in. Now, to me, I think the easiest way to know which age group a youth player belongs in is to say hey. Are you in eighth grade? Are you in seventh grade? Not, hey. Were you born in 20 2004? Were you?
Speaker 5:born in 2006 so you're right, I agree with you, but it's arguable. Okay, there's an argument that can be made there. I don't just don't, I don't know why, making something easier to understand, so let's go back to that Cause. That's another piece To do it.
Speaker 4:Right. So national teams around the world are formed on birth year. That's just the way FIFA is set it up. So when you scout, you know and you play for the under 17 national team or the 20 national team, whatever it may be, your eligibility is based on birth year, not where you are in school, and that's fine. So there is an argument that says well, we want to align our age groups here in the US by birth year, so that when somebody's scouting for the national team, they know exactly what age group that they're looking at.
Speaker 5:Now you're talking about this point.0005%, to be clear.
Speaker 4:Correct and I think you'd also make the argument that you should be able to figure that out. But that is generally probably the driver number. Now the reality is the vast majority of the world is set up that way. I would argue that the vast majority of the world doesn't have the same scholastic system and culture that we have, and in fact England is not set up that way. England youth soccer is actually school year registration based. But the other argument that was made was that this helped combat relative age.
Speaker 4:For those who don't know relative age effect it's a crazy yeah relative age effect is a real thing, and it's not a great thing.
Speaker 5:It definitely is.
Speaker 4:Yeah, relative age effect is a real thing and it's a not a good thing. Definitely is, definitely so it is and it started. I think the first study I read about it was in hockey and it was basically like, if you look at players in the NHL, they are overwhelmingly born in January, february, march. And then you can look at national teams across a variety of sports and they're the players are overwhelmingly born in the first three months of the year, the first six months of the year. You say, well, why is that? And it's because if you set up a registration date of January 1, that's when you're eligible for age groups Think about going all the way back to a 10-year-old born on January 1 or a 10-year-old born on December 31.
Speaker 4:The kid born on January 1 has one year of additional life than the kid born on December 31. And so when you look at that, that's 10% of emotional growth, cognitive growth, physical growth, experiential growth, all that sort of stuff. So when you look at scouting this is another argument against early scouting and you're comparing two kids that are quote, unquote in the let's say it'd be the 2014 birth year right now if we were looking at under tens the kid born January 1 to December 31,. You're really comparing apples to oranges. The kid born January 1 is, on average, going to be a little bit bigger, a little bit stronger, a little bit smarter, have a little bit more life experience than the kid born on December 31. Therefore, if you're scouting who's more likely to be selected the January 1 kid Now you fast forward that that kid gets selected.
Speaker 4:They get more opportunities than the other kid at that age. Then those opportunities almost compound, right. You get an opportunity that this other kid doesn't. You learn and grow from that opportunity. The other kid doesn't. Then the next selection happens. You're already a little bit farther ahead. You can see how over time then you fast forward 10 years and the kids born earlier because of minute differences, you know end up with far more of the opportunity at the high end than it would be if it was, if you would think it'd be relatively evenly distributed across a birth year. So that's relative age effect. Now, if you look at relative age effect, it would occur and it's real.
Speaker 5:We agree. It's real, absolutely 100%.
Speaker 4:And it would occur. Though, wherever you draw your date. No question. If it's January 1, the relative age effect is going to be January, february, March, and since that's where most of the world is, that's why you see all those stats and that's where, since that's where most of the world is, that's why you see all those stats. If it's August 1, then the relative age effect would be August, september, october, I mean the easiest way to say it, christian is.
Speaker 5:You can't argue relative age effect when you're dealing with the same period of time. Whether you go to birth year registration, it's still a year. If you do school year registration, it's still a year. So there's no argument. So the argument is different.
Speaker 4:Yeah, the argument that this does anything to solve relative age effect is a complete non-sequitur. Right now you could actually make an argument that if you had selection of whether it was ODP, id2, us soccer national teams, whatever, if you do that by birth year, like you have to with FIFA for those teams, but your teams, your club teams, are selected by August 1, you could make an argument by having two different dates you actually do a better job of combating relative age effect, because the kids for the national teams, where relative age effect would be January, february, march, are not going to be the same kids for relative age effect, because the kids for the national teams, where relative age effect would be january, february, march, are not going to be the same kids for relative age effect for the club teams which are, or the school teams, which are august, september, october.
Speaker 4:So you could actually make an argument and now some statistician might tell me I'm, I'm wrong I mean, I never thought of that, but it's a great point so you could say our system actually did a better job of dealing with that in some ways than by making everything go back club and national team to birth year. Now that also begs the other question, which is what is the way you deal with relative age effect, which we've acknowledged is a real issue, and the answer to that is education. The answer to that is to say, hey, be aware that the kid born in January has some advantages over the kid born in December. When you're looking at forming teams, be aware of the physical differences.
Speaker 5:Yeah, you look at it differently. If you have that knowledge and that education to your point, when you sit down to scout you're going to have a different lens, you're going to look through a different lens. Who was it that they said? They said Kevin De Bruyne plays for man City in Belgium was always a really small kid and was always on their B national team all the way up, I believe, all the way through U19. He never broke into the national team. He was always on the B team because of his size, one of the best midfielders in the world now, and I you credit them for putting him in the environment and letting him, you know, develop and not saying, oh, you know, sorry, you're too little or whatever, but so I just think you're right, education is the way to do this and then you know, it's just when you're scouting. If that's your argument, then you just have to look at the right lens. But if you're dealing with one year's worth of time, the relative age effect is a fact in either case.
Speaker 4:So you sit here and you say we have demonstrable negative impacts to birth year registration. The only legitimate positive to changing to birth year that we can come up with is that it quote aligns with the rest of the world, which I'm not sure that really matters to 99.9% of youth soccer players, and it aligns with national team age group selection, which also I think doesn't matter to a lot of people. If you can't scout and see the difference between players and see their birth year, then we have a different problem with scouting. You sit and say with demonstrable negative outcomes, why is it still here? And that's the question that everybody asks, that's the question that we get asked all the time.
Speaker 4:Will the ECNL change back to school year? That's what I think. League operators or associations are dealing with that question all the time, and so we wanted to talk about it here, because the other piece that hasn't been mentioned is, if you are a parent or of a kid stuck in this trapped eighth grade situation or this U18-19 situation, it is not the club's fault. In fact, the club doesn't like it any more than you do. 99 times out of 100. And so 100 times out of 100. Yeah, it begs the question of will it change? And I think the answer is maybe, because there's more and more people talking about it. Is it the end of the world? No, let's not be accused of being dramatic. Know dramatic about it, but is it a negative impact for a sizable minority of players?
Speaker 5:I would say it absolutely is I will tell you my 13 year old son and I've explained to him what's happening next year for him doesn't get it, you know, he just doesn't. He's confused about it. And I'm like, in the fall, he's like, what am I going to do in the fall? I'm like, well, we'll sort that out with the club to figure out what you do in the fall. And he's like, and then I start with my main team in november, do we play in the spring? Like he doesn't, he doesn't get it.
Speaker 4:Now, some of that probably is switching from what we call the juniors, where you're you're playing a fall season and a spring season, to going into the senior age groups, where you play yeah, that's basically november, so there's some built-in confusion with that anyway, but like he doesn't, he doesn't get it and and, by the way, I just want to make it clear, I'm not making this up, I'm reading it from this document the new standard strives to lessen relative age effect. Relative age effect is the selection bias towards players born earlier in the calendar year. While the change to birth to registration won't completely solve the problem, it will make it easier to identify and understand. Now, I'm sorry, man, you got to stretch a lot of logic to get to that conclusion.
Speaker 5:There's still going to be people that are born. I don't understand that one at all.
Speaker 4:Ashley, you're coaching in an age group that's dealing with this now. You obviously were a player, a good level player. What are your thoughts on this?
Speaker 3:I agree with you guys. I think it's interesting to watch what happens to kids in that you know, when they're a trapped player Down here in Florida it's obviously a little bit different because we do spring break for the winter, for high school and then come back in the fall, so it's a little bit easier to have a plan. My club had a pretty good plan in place for our trapped kids that we just trained them all the way through the winter as they were kind of like a mini team because we had about nine. We had 11 in the 09s, so we kind of got away with it. But yeah, it doesn't happen at every club and of course across the country, depending on how you break, you can definitely kind of be affected a lot more than other kids. Which then brings it back to your point earlier of you're getting kind of screwed by the system twice based off of where you are in the country, specifically because of just different ways of how your league is structured.
Speaker 4:That point is a good one. I mean, can it be managed? Yes, can you adjust to accommodate? Yes, can you fully replace the lost things? Probably not, maybe. But I just ask the question why? Why do we make it harder? Why do we create this type of adversity when there's enough adversity? If you want to make it to the top, you're going to have more, more difficult adversity than this, and I'm not sure that this changes anything except make it difficult for the people.
Speaker 5:They don't need it yeah, I mean the same question. I would just say repeat what you said. Why we didn't? It doesn't need to be like that we'll leave it there.
Speaker 4:the question is why, if anyone has a great answer, we will read it aloud or bring you on if you have a really good way of talking about it as to why this is done and why we shouldn't consider moving it back, I would be curious what the other side's arguments are on that.
Speaker 5:This is where, if you have a comment about this or any question that you want Christian and I and Ashley or Dean to tackle, you can send those questions to info at theecnlcom. It's info at theecnlcom. That's why we're doing this. We want to help people understand or talk about topics like this, and I think this is a really interesting one, christian, because, like I never got it, I just didn't get it. I still don't get it, and as a club operator, we've struggled through some of this. I just don't understand why we had to be there.
Speaker 4:Ours is not to question why Ours is, but to do or die. That's a poem right there. You may reference that Charge of the Light Brigade, everybody right there.
Speaker 2:The always well-read. Christian Lavers puts a finishing touch on that argument. We're not done when we return. Doug Bracken asks us all a question worth thinking about as we all enjoy what we do for the ECNL Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast, where we turn for one more segment after these messages.
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Speaker 2:The ECNL is pleased to announce Quick Goal as the official goal provider and partner for ECNL Girls and ECNL Boys. A new partnership created to support the growth and development of the country's top players, clubs and coaches At all national events, including national playoffs and national finals. Including national playoffs and national finals. The Quick Goal Coaches Corner will provide hospitality and social space for ECNL girls, ecnl boys and collegiate coaches. Quick Goal will also be the presenting sponsor of the national championship-winning ECNL Girls and ECNL Boys Coaches of the Year and the ECNL Girls and ECNL boys coaches of the year and the ECNL girls and ECNL boys goals of the year. Quick Goal looks forward to helping the ECNL continue to elevate the standards of youth soccer and provide more opportunities to players on and off the field in the coming years.
Speaker 5:We're coming to this part Now. This happened organically last time that I just asked you and Dean a question at the very end of the podcast we'll put ashley first on this one.
Speaker 4:Let's put her.
Speaker 5:Well, yeah we, we can't, we can't. But I I think, with this question I have today, we'll see what she has for it under pressure.
Speaker 5:Actually you ready for this, oh god it's like teasing I was thinking about this and I was like, man, this would be fun to wait to end the podcast, I don't't know what we're going to call it. I think Dean has a lot of really cool names in his head about this, but I'm just going to put a question out there, and last week it was Christian and Dean. If you weren't doing what you're doing now, what would you be doing? So the question here is this was really targeted to you, Christian first, but since Ashley is here for the first time, you, Christian, first, but since Ashley is here for the first time. Ashley, what has been your proudest?
Speaker 3:moment in the ECNL so far Not fumbling my opening question on this podcast.
Speaker 5:Ashley's only worked for the ECNL. Ashley hasn't even worked for the ECNL for one year yet, so she hasn't had a lot of time to build. I think that's a good one.
Speaker 3:I got here, I got, I didn't mess up. I added some great insight.
Speaker 4:When you raise your tone at the end of that. That's sort of like a questioning. So like, I think you did have some great insight, so you know. Anything else you want to add?
Speaker 3:I've enjoyed my time at the UCNL so far, so I feel like it's only upward from here. I haven't. I guess I've enjoyed the events. The symposium was great. I think Dean and I worked well together in the symposium. Getting more people on the podcast. That would be a crowning moment for me.
Speaker 4:There you go.
Speaker 3:Reuniting with my old coach, Jay Howell. I mean that's a proud moment, jay, and I recognize each other, you know, 15 or so odd years later.
Speaker 5:We will dive into your performance as a player for Jay at another time. I mean we got it. Yeah, that was good. That was good. I'll go in reverse order here, because Christian probably has lots of memories, so he's still trying to think Dean, you've been doing some of this, you know, broadcasting for us and podcasting for us. You got any thoughts on that question, your proudest moment, or maybe even just your proudest moment as a broadcaster? That'd be kind of a cool thing to know.
Speaker 2:Well, I'm focused more in on the ECNL and calling the championship games and calling the selection games.
Speaker 2:The selection games I've had multiple times where I've had parents come up to me and say you know, hey, we've heard you on the Big Ten Network or heard you on Fox Soccer and I think it's pretty cool that you know you're calling our daughter and our daughter is going to be going to a school that you're going to be able to call, like I love, I absolutely love that tie in. And then, probably the moment I got most excited I'm kind of an NBA nerd geek and when Christian set up Grant Hill to be on the podcast in the early days, I was fanboying for sure. Grant Hill was a first-class player and a first-class citizen and it's something that I often talk about, even away from you guys, the fact that I was able to interview Grant Hill. Talk about, even away from you guys, the fact that I was able to interview Grant Hill. There's been a ton of great moments with the ECL and I feel like more to come, including, you know, quite frankly, just kind of sitting back and taking in this new format. I'm really enjoying it.
Speaker 4:I got to give credit to Hugh Manzies, by the way.
Speaker 5:Hugh Manzies is who brought Grant Hill to the table, which was a really cool experience. All right, christian, this is going to be a tough one for me and you, because there's been a lot that's gone down in these 16 years.
Speaker 4:What do you got Proudest moment you know, I don't know, take proudest is a difficult one, but I will say that this past year at the symposium, it was pretty cool to see when you walk in to our event and there's 800 or whatever the number was close to 800 people set up there with a really professional thanks to our great team setting up a fantastic atmosphere, but where we're able to sit there and impact and reach 800 coaches and leaders from across the country, there was just a different feeling.
Speaker 4:I suppose it was two years ago where we kind of crossed that 500 number and it was like, holy cow, this is different, like that just feels different. This year just added another exclamation on top of it. And I would say that it's at that moment that you look and say, man, this is pretty, pretty powerful and we have a great opportunity and a great responsibility to do good things, which is why we you know, when we're talking about stuff like this age group change, these are things that impact the sport long-term. Again, there's not going to be totally right or wrong answers on almost anything we talk about, because those things are pretty boring when they're really clear, the gray and the sort of area of debate you know it's it's. It's cool that we have a platform that you know we can hear what people think all over the country and then we can have some impact on how people think.
Speaker 5:I'm going to go with way, way back. And if you remember the very first national championship we ever had in Seattle, whatever, that was 2010. To remember that it was 2010. And I remember, and you tell me if you remember this the same way, because I was really proud but we had the first team win, one of the teams won the championship and I I remember going to christian and going, hey man, like what are we going to do?
Speaker 5:We have a stage over here, who's who's who's giving out the trophy, and I think you and I kind of just figured out that you were going to give the trophy and I thought that was a super cool moment because it felt like we had the at least the base to move forward from that. And then the other one for me was when we went to Nike for a national training camp and they had all our like, they had decked it out in all ECnl stuff right where we were. I was like that's pretty, that's pretty large right there. And I think that's the same year kobe bryant talked to the players, isn't it?
Speaker 5:yep, yep, no, he was in the tiger woods center yeah, that was cool, so those are my two for the record that'll be the last trophy I ever hand out, so I'm retired from that.
Speaker 4:Maybe we can get Dean to do that next time.
Speaker 2:Great show and it was helped by people sending in questions, so keep doing it. Ecnl is going to use all their platforms to make sure you know about this new format with Christian Labors and Doug Bracken and Ashley Willis. That email again is info at the ECNLcom. We want to hear from you and Christian Doug, ashley and other guests will answer them every two weeks right here on Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast. Christian Doug and Ashley have a great two weeks. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast. For more information on the ECNL, visit us at wwwtheecnlcom, and if you have a suggestion for the show or a great idea for a guest, please email us at info at theecnlcom. Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast is an ECNL production. Ecnl is an ECNL production. Ecnl more than a league.