Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
The Elite Clubs National League was founded in 2009 and continues to lead by daring to do things differently, embedded with grit, collaboration and tenacity – all things learned from the beautiful game. The ECNL protects and propels the integrity of the game and everyone it impacts by facilitating the perfect symmetry of excellence and humility, exclusivity and accessibility, freedom and community. We believe that challenging everyone to rise to their best creates game-changers that live well, long after cleats are unlaced. Born out of the belief in a better way. Continued in the ever-evolving pursuit of excellence.
Breaking the Line: The ECNL Podcast
Is Age Just A Number? Navigating Birth Years and Team Placements | Ep. 124
Let us know the topics of interest to you!
After a quick Labor Day pause, the Breaking the Line team returns to your airwaves. Fall is in the air, the kids are back at school and the 2025-26 soccer season is ready to kick off.
This week, ECNL President Christian Lavers and ECNL Vice President Doug Bracken discuss two topics that were submitted by Breaking the Line listeners. First up was a question about a topic that has been discussed at length on the podcast: birth year vs. school year. This episodes, the pair examine how clubs are going to navigate the shift beginning in 2026, and more importantly, the distinction that not every player will automatically stay with their birth year or their school year, and that there are a multitude of factors players, parents and coaches need to examine when determining which team these players born from Aug. 1 - Dec. 31 will play on.
The second segment of the show follows a similar through process, which is how, as a parent, do you know when your player has outgrown his current team environment? Once again, it's a gray area, but Lavers and Bracken go through their ideas of what development looks like at different age groups, what are good determiners of development, and more.
It's a fantastic episode that every soccer parent will want to listen to, and the BTL crew even gives a teaser for episode 125.
As always, make sure to submit any questions to https://ecnl.info/BTL-Questions, to subscribe to Breaking the Line on YouTube, and to follow the ECNL on all social channels.
This is Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast featuring ECNL President and CEO, christian Labors, and ECNL Vice President and Chief of Staff, doug Bracken. Today, Christian and Doug answer your questions, so let's get right into it. Take it away, christian.
Speaker 2:Thank you very much for that intro. Dean Doug, welcome back to the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thank you. I was sad to see the ratings took a dip while I was gone.
Speaker 1:I thought you were right, dip, dip up.
Speaker 3:It actually probably went. They were higher probably. I thought you could carry it a little bit more. You know, I know you're just doing your best out here and I'm happy to be back and support you in this endeavor, for sure.
Speaker 2:I appreciate it and I expect you to be better now that your brain is refreshed.
Speaker 3:I will try to be better. Great trip Always good to take a little time to refresh the brain. So glad to be back and look forward to today. Got a couple super, I think, interesting topics to talk about. I'm excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, first week of school. In a lot of places in the country, first week of September everybody turning over a leaf, some kids going to school for the first time. I just dropped off my daughter who did not seem very happy about that first day of preschool. Some people in some areas of the country have been at school for a couple of weeks, but I think for the vast majority of the country new school year, new year. Soccer's probably been going for a couple weeks for most people probably some kickoffs for various conferences across the country. This coming weekend I think probably by Sunday, almost every team that plays fall club soccer will have kicked a game in the regional league as this 25, 26 season starts.
Speaker 3:So this is a big, a big weekend coming up when we start, so see how it goes. New year, new possibilities, I guess.
Speaker 2:On that note, we had a couple of interesting questions that came in this this week for the podcast that I I think are kind of tied to that new year starting, and as people get into their new teams they also look as crazy as it sounds they start looking ahead to the future, trying to understand and predict what happens. And so the first one is, you know, the upcoming much discussed age group changes, which we have talked about logic and the reasoning for for several podcasts, about why, starting next season so we're talking about 11 months from now the age groups will change to the august one cutoff and we already have people talking about it now in california the seasonal schedule is different. They they do tryouts here in december for these young ages crazy dude.
Speaker 2:Just well, the season's different. The season goes like february to december, which is not the way it goes almost anywhere else, but so people are already starting to look and prep for that. In most places, these tryouts won't happen until May, but so my guess is this question comes from a California-like environment in terms of tryouts coming up here in the next couple of months, tryouts coming up here in the next couple of months and the question about how clubs are going to handle the change from birth year to a more school year oriented age group team, and how to approach that issue as a parent, as a player, when you're trying to think about what's best for my kid and maybe a little bit of understanding about how clubs may look at this and try and manage this process. Because I think the short story is that this is going to be tumultuous in the short term. In the long term, we've been very adamant about the fact that this will be better for a lot of players, but in the short term, as teams change and players move around, no-transcript.
Speaker 3:A lot of information out about this change and we're, in a lot of ways, the organization that kind of spearheaded this conversation, coming to the forefront so that we could get to here. But I have heard questions of people saying will ECNL do it? And the answer to that question is yes, we are going to support it and we think it's a good thing, which is why we talked about it almost ad nauseum at times here.
Speaker 2:So yeah, so. So on that US club soccer, our sanctioning bodies made this decision, along with US youth soccer and almost every youth organization. The reasons for the decisions are the very, very clear and defined benefits for the kids that are trapped, that are left without teams or are stuck in difficult positions because of school year and age group cutoffs varying. We've also acknowledged that there is no single date that makes everything perfect. There is just a variety of dates that are better or worse in terms of aligning school year and team makeup, and if you, the better you align school year and team makeup, the easier it is for kids to have a consistent environment year over year. And then they move within a club by levels of team on performance, so they move from club to club. Nothing changes in that regard.
Speaker 2:But what? What this does is it eliminates the trapped kid, the kid in eighth grade who's on a team full of freshmen and has no place to play for three months of the year. The kid who is a rising senior and the seniors above him are still there because they they they were under 17s, and now that team has gluts of players and kids are cut in their last year. So we're eliminating a significant amount of that problem in the long term. In the short term, what this means is that there will be players that move around, and I think there's probably some assumptions and some maybe inaccurate assumptions about how that's going to be done, so maybe we'll start with. The first step is you will have kids that are born late in the year, so after August 1, so let's just use an example your 2017 team right? So you're born in 2017 currently, and that's how the age group is made. Made the kids that are born after august 1, 2017. Uh, in the new age group cutoff would be actually age eligible to play with the 2018s correct?
Speaker 3:yeah, obviously semantics, but we will more than likely go back to the U, whatever kind of U9, u10. Yeah, u10, because it's probably more accurate.
Speaker 2:Let's start with understanding who this changes. So if you're born from January 1 to July 31, 2017, you're going to stay in the same age group. Correct In general, right? Correct. If you're born August 1 1 to december 31 2017, there is the decision to be made, and that decision is does the player go and play with the kids born january 1 to july 31 2018, which is that sort of school year alignment, or does the player stay in the what is now going to be older team?
Speaker 3:that's right, but that's the decision I'm so.
Speaker 2:We'll talk about it but that's the decision is does that kid stay with the team he is on currently and by doing so will be playing up a year, but on his current team, or does that player drop down to their now appropriate age group, which will probably be aligned more with the school year in general? But it is a new team and it is a new group of players in theory that they're playing with? And the first question I guess maybe there's two different questions One, how do you think clubs are going to manage this process? And number two is how should parents look at this process from the perspective of their kids and what are the various factors that go into it?
Speaker 3:Okay, so that's a lot. So let's take question one, because a lot of club operators and people who run elite youth soccer clubs have experienced this, because they changed this back in 2017, 2015. I can't remember. Yeah, we've talked about it before. I can't remember the exact year, but they changed this from school year to calendar year and so you know, I was a part of that, with our club having to make that decision and implement that, and we we just did it like all at once rip the bandaid off, do it now. They're probably in that are always going to be Well hold on.
Speaker 2:Let's talk about what that means. All right, to rip the bandaid off, because there, because there are some people that say, hey, can we gradually phase this in, you know, whether we do it by starting at some age groups and making the changes and not other ages. There's issues with that, because wherever that break is between hey, these teams are August 1, these teams are January 1, there's going to be a weird bubble of players one way or the other there. So so that's the gradual perspective. Then there is the rip the band-aid off, which means we're going to re do every team, um, and really, though, what it's impacting is the august one and after, kids at each gauge group and whether they stay or whether they move down right, and so the big question is what's and I think maybe that's the first guidance we would give is the question is what is right for the August 1 to December 31 players to stay where they are or to move down?
Speaker 3:I think it's tough. I think it depends on the club. Like I think if you're a small club, it's going to be very hard to not make the decision to go almost all in on this, like because you're because your player pools are smaller and therefore every you know, if you try to graduate it or do it cut it off in an age group, that you're going to just have this trickle down effect. That is going to.
Speaker 2:You don't have as many players to sort of move around to draw from.
Speaker 3:I think you know, again to your point, wherever you draw the line, if you opted to draw the line somewhere, there is a knock on effect to that that you're going to have to manage and and and. No matter what decision you made there, you're going to affect people. Doug, I don't think it's realistic for many clubs at all to say we're going to phase this in, it's arbitrary.
Speaker 2:So I think the most likely and again, if somebody out there is doing it different, we'll hear from them, I'm sure but most likely is, every club is going to look at every age group and they're going to assess, okay, what are the changes? And I don't want to sound like I'm beating a dead horse here, but it is about those four months August, september, october, november, five months, december and where does that player go? And that is probably to some degree an individual review and it's also to some degree a collective review of with if this, this player moves down, what do they look like in the age group down? What does that team look like already in the age group down? Which kids on that team might be moving down? You know further? So it's a little cascading game. Yeah, um, because the the goal is to put kids in the right spot for their development and to put together teams with as close a range of ability or talent level as possible.
Speaker 3:Because the tighter your talent level, that's.
Speaker 3:That's utopia that you're talking about and I said that's the goal yeah, that's the goal and I I 100 think you're right about that. That is not necessarily a reality, because making the realities of the politics of club soccer are making decisions about individual players individually can have effects. So let's say you have a team and you have four players in this August 1 to December 31 timeframe and you deem that these three are going to go down to the age group below which they're eligible for and the one player is going to stay up. There are inherent challenges to that.
Speaker 2:Oh, of course. So let's talk about it First, from a pure developmental utopia for lack of a better word, or taking away something, maybe not utopia the more complicated social or emotional issues first. Right, because when you talk let's use your example there's four kids that could move down and then you say, well, three of them, we think it makes sense to move down and one of them stay up. Now there's a variety of different reasons that you may do that. Right, you could. It could be that the, the kid that stays up, is physically more mature, even though he is in the younger side of the age group, because those things are not correlated a hundred percent. And the other three are physically less mature. It could be a performance difference. And the other three are physically less mature. It could be a performance difference.
Speaker 2:It could be that there is a need in the team, right in these age groups, in these positions. So the three come down into a spot where they school together in the same age group and we want to move them and keep them together because there is a, there is a piece of the social and peer group uh factor, especially when you're dealing with, probably, you 12 and below. Um, maybe some people would argue with that. So I think what what I'm saying is that there's a the the ideal situation is to make an individualized assessment based upon where you think the player will have the most success and fit in the most and in a way that, collectively, is the least disruptive. What you're saying is that, no matter what you're doing, it's going to be disruptive and it's going to be complicated.
Speaker 3:Yes, and I think that's that's a fair statement the ideal is, to your point, developmental success is what we should be, where we should be placing all these players right. To the degree that you can do that, we should try to place all these players in the, in the place where they can have the most developmental success and they're age eligible right Because there's age eligibility part to that. So that is true and again, it's not that simple. Probably as much as we would love it to be that simple, it probably isn't to your point.
Speaker 2:The factors that you consider are simple. I mean we just basically outlined them, how those factors interplay in the decision and then how one decision impacts another decision. That is not simple, right, so it gets complex quickly. The factors to consider are straightforward how they kind of ripple off of each other, far more complicated. One of the important parts for us to talk about as well is that staying up is not quote unquote the best thing and staying down is a bad thing. That, that is.
Speaker 2:I think there's going to be some misunderstanding of oh, playing up or staying up means that my son or daughter is better than a player who stays down or goes down, because if you make these on an individualized basis, as we've just said, there's a lot of different factors that go into it.
Speaker 2:But one thing that also goes into it is, at most clubs, the performance level of each age group and the depth of performance within each age group is very, very different. It's not a apples to apples comparison. When you say, well, if I'm a U12 today and I have the ability to either stay U12 next year or move up and be an older player or sorry, a younger player playing up on the U13s, you also have to look at what is the level of the age group you're currently at and the level of the age group that's below you, because sometimes the team that is below, that is, a year younger, has more talent or more competitiveness or more depth than the team that's above from a age perspective I mean I would say that's almost certainly going to be likely in some ages the other thing is what is the number of kids on the above team that fall into that?
Speaker 3:august 31 to december 31st or august 1? Yeah, august 1 to december 31st time frame. That would potentially come down, which could again have a cascading effect you know which can change that talent. Yeah, so I think it's. I think the point that I'm I was trying to make on this is I don't, I just don't know how you do it without just doing it.
Speaker 2:Well, but you've made that point, doug. But my point is doing it doesn't mean that every single player is going to stay down. That's my point, is we agree, I think, that every club is going to have to make adjustments at every age group there's. It's almost going to be impossible to say this is the age group.
Speaker 4:we face it, yeah, because the number question is how many are going to be different?
Speaker 2:Yeah, what percentage of kids move down and what percentage of kids stay up, and move down and stay up is probably that insinuates one's better than the other. So maybe we should be more careful and say what percentage stay young and then are age appropriate by the new cutoff, and what percentage stay old and are now playing older.
Speaker 3:Let me ask you this when you put your coach's hat on and you're determining players hat on you and you put your coach's hat on and you're determining players hat on, and even in the current environment, when you look at a player and consider them to play up an age, what kind of criteria are you looking for to have a player? So let's just make this an easy conversation. You have two teams, the U15s in the U16s. Both teams are good, talent-wise. You have a special or a really good U15 player. Let's say, what kind of criteria do you look at to consider them to play up?
Speaker 2:We're taking this out of the context of age.
Speaker 3:Yeah, because I think it does apply here, because when you think about kids that are going to stay, you've got to talk about this.
Speaker 2:I think, first of all, I would say that it is a probably a different discussion at the younger ages, 10 and below, than it is at the older ages, 14 and above. And I'll just those are somewhat arbitrary cutoffs, because I do think there is a bigger social impact to consider at 10 and below with respect to players than there is at 14 and above. It doesn't mean there's 100 social impact and zero, uh, but it means I think there is a variation there. But if we're going to say, take away age group cutoff changes and use as sort of a test case when otherwise, do players play up an age group? Uh, first of all, I would say parents probably in general think it's more important than it is to play up, or they think it is a bigger compliment or a bigger sign that their son or daughter is going to be a superstar when they play up. And I think there was a point where there were a lot of people who kind of had the perspective of like, if my kid doesn't play up, then something's wrong, or if my kid does play up, that means they're going to be, you know, the division one top 10 recruit national, whatever it may be, and I don't think that is the case at all, for all the other reasons we talk about in terms of the team up may not be as good as the team you know. An age group of the team up may not be as good as the team you know in age group the other. But if we had to say they're about the same level, when would I?
Speaker 2:When I play a player up, I would say that player has to be not just a starter on the age group above but they need to be a major, major contributor and standout on the age group above.
Speaker 2:Because I think if you, if you take a kid who is a standout in their own age group and then you put them up a year and they are not able to do the things that make them stand out and be special, I think you risk taking away what makes that player special by putting them into an environment with too much resistance.
Speaker 2:If we were to take a step back and say if the player can't stand up, stand out consistently and age group older, then the way I would probably look to manage that players have them train older and periodically play older so they encounter that resistance and they hopefully learn to stand out. But you don't take away their ability to perform as a star and stand out and grow in the confidence to do that in their own age group. If they are capable of standing out on a regular basis, an age group above and be one of the very best players and do the things that make them special, and now do it with greater resistance, then I would look at having them play up quote unquote on a more consistent basis.
Speaker 3:Think that is a very, very rare player so I'll mark this moment in time because I agree with you 100, that is, that is the. I think that should be the criteria. And I do agree with you that there is this problem, this idea that playing up is this thing, that maybe it isn't right or provide some experience, that is overly positive when sometimes it can have the opposite effect if the wrong person or the wrong player is playing in that circumstance.
Speaker 2:So I think, given that kind of idea and that conversation that you just said, by the way, within that, I just want to underscore the point that there's on one end is this play up full-time, train and compete every day. A year older In the middle is you're a very big standout in your own age group and you train or play up in competition periodically to get bigger resistance because you're not ready to stand out there every year. And then on the other end of the continuum is hey, you get enough resistance and enough ups and downs in your own age group, that playing with older players is something that is not necessary to create, and you know we're using the word resistance here in terms of challenge. Right, so you can be anywhere along the continuum. And ultimately that decision should be made again, ideally on an individualized basis, by people who understand the player.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think, if you take this criteria that you talked about, which we both agree upon, think, if you take this criteria that you talked about, which we both agree upon, you're going to have to apply that in this scenario that we're about to face in 11 months, and and it is an individual decision there's, you know, admittedly, some politics and some, you know uh well, you say politics, I'll say factors, because I think when you're saying politics, you're talking about some peer group issues.
Speaker 2:You're talking about some peer group issues.
Speaker 3:You're talking about some position and playing time issues. Nobody's going to sorry politics is a bad word for that. But there are some factors to my earlier example that say you know, if you have four kids and three of them move down and one of them move up.
Speaker 3:You could create some problems for yourself down and one of them move up. You could create some problems for yourself which you know, in the right environment you'd be. You know, I don't have an issue creating that conflict. That's just what it is right. But when we changed to birth year, however many years ago, 10 years ago we had to face the same situation, right?
Speaker 2:The same decisions and the same conversations that we will have to. So. So, but because we just addressed what I would, uh, consider the cleanest, simplest example an older age group of teams of like level, all right. Now you go down into a younger age group, you go from u8 to u9, u9 to u10, something like that. I think that's a slightly different issue because there's going to be more peer group issues. Potentially there's more social issues because the kids are younger. That complicates it. But then you also look at most clubs. Most bigger clubs have multiple levels of teams, right? So in theory you can apply resistance by moving them up a level. So you go from the age group you know 13 to the second team.
Speaker 2:Or you can apply resistance by moving them up age groups. And so there's also then a question of if you've got, let's say you're a big club and you have three or four teams in an age group and you're looking at players on, you know teams two, three and four, do they stay up at where they are and maybe they're on a lower quote unquote team than they would be if they dropped down. So they're on the third team and age group up or the second team and age group down. There's a social factor on that you know which?
Speaker 2:what is the? What does the kid want to do? And I do think, to some degree that needs to be considered.
Speaker 3:Yeah, here's what I'm going to say about that. When you talk about young kids, they're not totally. First of all, they're pretty resilient, so changing their environment is usually something they can get sorted fairly quickly, and I think you know I just dropped my little.
Speaker 2:I just dropped my girl off at preschool today for the first time she's not adapted great in her first five minutes.
Speaker 3:Well, right, right, but she will.
Speaker 2:She'll run the classroom in a few weeks, right? She will.
Speaker 3:And she's been taught to do tough things.
Speaker 2:So there's no there's no question. That's right. Hard girls, tough girls, do hard things, that's right.
Speaker 3:What I'll say is that 10 year olds are not equipped to make those decisions.
Speaker 2:And as parents, we have to help them make those decisions. Very good point.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so we have to just be careful about quote unquote what they want. You know they're part of the discussion, but I'm their parent. I'm going to help them be in the right environment.
Speaker 2:This is another. I'll take your, your tactic here and pull this out. This is another example of how important is a stable, or stay a more stable, than than less or less disruptive team structure year to year versus consistent change right, because, to your point, consistent change in the team makeup, if it's significant. So let's say we're talking about turnover of 40 to 60% of a roster every year Players moving up, moving down, new players coming in that is going to provide some additional resilience training for lack of a better word because kids have new people coming in, new challenges, new coaches.
Speaker 2:There's a value to that, right, I think we would probably say at some point and at some age, there can be a thing as too much turnover and change from year to year where it doesn't really become about, you know, adapt and learn and be resilient, but it becomes disruptive as there is lost learning or lost cohesion. And I'm not talking about team play, I'm just talking about the social dynamic, the environment of the team. If there is too much turnover it can become disruptive, and that is again regardless of an age group change. We all know teams that have significantly improved with major turnover and we have known teams that significantly decline with major turnover because of a variety of different factors. And that is again without consideration of an age group change.
Speaker 3:All those are factors you know, regardless of this change or not. I just you know it is going to be disruptive, it is going to be something that we all have to manage through. And and again you have kids in it. I don't know, I don't, I don't know your soccer playing kids when they were born. I can't remember all of of them, so I don't know if any of them fall in none of none of my kids are going to stay, are going to be in the yeah uh, moving area.
Speaker 2:They're going to. You know, my oldest is going to be going to turn into one of the youngest in his age group which is going to be resilience training, right, yeah, you know, no question. But I think if we take a step back and and we may get some very good questions that come in from this discussion now that we've sort of laid the foundation of all the various factors, if we, if we had to sit and say, well, what is some basic change management principles that we could apply to this from a general perspective? From a general perspective, I think I would say number one, from a club perspective communicate early and often about what is happening, why it is happening and what your plan is, and even if it's very general, of how you're going to assess players and how you're going to generally look to structure and make these decisions.
Speaker 2:Number two get ahead of it early in your planning.
Speaker 2:Identify who those kids are that are in this sort of flex, so you start to see how many are there in each age group.
Speaker 2:Are there some ages where it's way heavier than others, and how might that impact the changes.
Speaker 2:Start to look at also players that you may, you know, otherwise, be looking at moving up or moving down performance wise and get a handle of what is the scope of potential change so that you can plan it.
Speaker 2:The earlier you get ahead of it and start thinking about it and identifying the the sort of degree of of change possible, the more you communicate it with people so that they're less fearful of it and they understand more even when there is some that's going to be unknown for still a long time, the better. And then the last thing I think I would say is don't be afraid to have individual discussions about what is right for a player, and maybe even what apparent you know what they think is right for a player, because maybe even what a parent you know what they think is right for a player, because that is an important piece of it. But if you do those three things, you're going to put yourself in a better spot as a club, a coach and even a parent than if you just sit here, you're not thinking about it, you're not communicating about it, you're not talking about it.
Speaker 3:I think this is also where it's really important to have a strong club infrastructure where coaches can communicate and talk, because this is going to, because we all know there are clubs out there that have coaches who are, I would say, territorial to some degree, and this is a really important time for club, you know, for a strong club infrastructure to handle a change like this, because it might not just be conflict and disruption with players, but also with coaches and what coaches think. And so, not only communicating with the the, with the players and the parents, but also communicating with your coaches, so that you guys are all you know, everybody's on the same page. I don't see how you could graduate this in gradually, do this, or grandfather teams. I just don't see how you could do that.
Speaker 2:Um no, but unless you have massive player pools.
Speaker 2:No, I mean, but you've said that I agree with that.
Speaker 2:But what I could see, I could see that over the course of a year or two, there's some players that move down in year one and others that don't, and then, year two, there's some of those players that didn't move down and immediately moved down the second year, and so it's a little bit gradually drawn out based on individualized factors and on the factors of the team.
Speaker 2:I don't. I don't see that it has to be a hundred percent for a variety of reasons. So, yeah, I guess what we, what I would say because I think we can maybe wrap this topic up is that, as, as people have questions and concerns on this, it might be interesting to talk about it from very, very specific. You know scenarios and examples, so we welcome those questions because, you know, I think what we've done today is touch on the big picture, give some general ideas about how it may be approached. But you know, we may hear from some clubs that how they're going to handle it, that may be slightly different, and we may hear from some parents, and you know slightly nuanced scenarios.
Speaker 1:Time for our first break, and a word from a couple ECNL partners.
Speaker 4:Did you know ECNL provides free recovery sessions? Ecnl has partnered with MarkPro, a staple for recovery in professional sports. Markpro is a unique, safe, portable e-stim device that feeds sore muscles and removes metabolic waste. Stop by the recovery zone during your next event, next event. Soccercom is proud to partner with the ECNL to support the continued development of soccer in the US at the highest levels. They've been delivering quality soccer equipment and apparel to players, fans and coaches since 1984. Living and breathing the beautiful game ourselves. The goal at Soccercom is to inspire you to play better, cheer louder and have more fun. Visit Soccercom today to check out our unmatched selection of gear, expert advice and stories of greatness at every level of the game.
Speaker 1:Welcome back to Breaking the Line, the Eastin Out podcast with Christian Labors and Doug Bracken. All right, Christian, what?
Speaker 3:is next.
Speaker 2:Next question here, and maybe I'll let you introduce this one, but we're talking about making decisions about moving teams or moving clubs. How do you want to describe?
Speaker 3:this, or how do you want to set this stage stage, I would say this is a conversation about balancing the participation and factors of a team versus an individual player's desires and needs. When I thought about this topic and this question, what came to me is this is probably someone who is trying to figure out.
Speaker 2:There's a question submitted to us. Yeah, it was yes correct.
Speaker 3:This is a person trying to figure out when do I know my kid is in the right environment versus when do I know that it might be time to find a new environment or a higher level for my player.
Speaker 2:So we're talking about that decision of is my kid in a good spot or should they look to move to a different spot, which usually is probably a club move right Again, I would say the first piece of contextual information that's important is the age, because I do think it is different from old to young. At young, I would say there's two things that overwhelm everything else. Number one is are they enjoying it? And number two is are they learning and improving in their level of play and their technical proficiency?
Speaker 3:I think there's times that both of those things are true, and you are the best player on the team, and I think to your point there? No, I don't. I think sometimes people think automatically hey, if I'm, if my kid is the best player on the team. And we're talking about these younger ages right now because I think, there is a different difference.
Speaker 2:Should we call this 11 and down?
Speaker 3:Yeah, is that fair? Yeah, I think it might even be more than that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, could be, could be yeah. I would even say easily 10 and down, there's not even a question about it. As you get older there's other factors, but again, that that may be still relevant. You know, tell you 13, 14, 15, even to some degree, but unpack what you're saying because I think, I think, I agree yeah, I think it's.
Speaker 3:The most important thing is is the player continuing to develop a passion and love and enjoyment of the game, and is the player getting better?
Speaker 2:and, but by the way, those are two different questions that can go together. Right, but if you're, if he's enjoying it but he's not getting better, that is a different scenario than enjoying it and getting better, regardless of wins or losses.
Speaker 3:Sure, no question about that. So I think, but those are the two questions that you have to, I think, ask yourself. And again, simply being the best player on the team doesn't mean that you should move to a better team. I think you could see players who are, who are high performers on their teams that are continuing to do things and and get better at at you know, and their development is continuing to move forward.
Speaker 2:Doug, let's compare that to the example you used earlier about the U15, U16 kid. And if he's going to stand out and be a star on age group up, then it may make sense to move him up. But in the same way, if you're the best player on a team, there's a different expectation on that player. You know, regardless of age group. You know because it's just a fact of life. There's a different experience for that player in terms of what they are able to do, what they have the confidence to do, how they almost default into a leadership position by being the best player on the team. And those can be really really positive.
Speaker 2:And it would be a really negative thing for the player who is currently the best player to then go to the next quote-unquote best team and just be dead average. I don't think that's a scenario that a lot of people want. Now, there there becomes more reality, more reality as you get older and you try and say, hey, what level do I aspire to play at? But you can make that transition too early where being the best player, with the expectations, with the freedom and sort of leadership that tends to come with that, help you develop faster than just being another player on a team and no longer having that positive expectation that, that confidence and leadership that generally, just by default, comes to the better players yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think when you look at, you know answering this question when is the when is it time?
Speaker 2:then you, you know, you obviously go to the opposite, which is not necessarily the enjoyment piece, but when there's a stagnation, or a player is not, you know, moving forward and there is a time when it can be too easy yeah, if you're the best player and it is too easy that it starts to create boredom or it starts to create bad habits. And and when I say bad habits I say that carefully I mean if, if there's no, there's no ability to stop this player from outrageous success, that's not going to help them long-term. That's different from being the best player on a team where you still encounter and I'll use this word again resistance, resistance. That is hard. It's the same thing with goal setting.
Speaker 2:One of the first principles of goal setting is make it a realistic goal, but it's a stretch goal. Yeah, you know, don't make it too hard. But a goal that's too easy isn't going to, isn't going to help being the best player. Where you, the kid has to work hard to be the best player and the kid still has significant resistance to be the best player, that's not a bad spot. When the kid has very little resistance and they're the best player and it's not hard, they don't have to work that hard to be the best player that that becomes a different issue in terms of probably a calculus for change.
Speaker 3:I would throw a caveat in there that there is a big difference between being physically overwhelming because that can happen at young age groups and you can be dominant purely from your physical, what you bring as an early you know you're an early developer or whatever and you know being in an environment where you can be challenged to solve the game in ways outside of just your strength and power and speed and that stuff I think is really important because at some point the physical pieces of it will balance and then you'll find out I always used to say this to people at some point the scales are going to balance physically and then we're going to find out who can play and who can't play. So I think that's another thing to think about in this. As you are looking at your kid in an environment, are they dominant because of their physical attributes? And if that's the case, are they in an environment where they're going to be challenged to rely on things other than just their physical attributes to solve the game?
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think for parents sometimes who may struggle to decide, is it dominance because of physicality or dominance because of something else? When we're talking about quote-unquote, something else, that means a player who is dominant because their brain puts them in really good positions and they get the ball in positions that other players just don't find. It's a player who solves things with skill for lack of a better word tricks on the ball, you know, the ability to manipulate the ball by dribbling or passing. That is different than the player who takes heavy touches and runs by everybody, or the player that is taller and stronger and just knocks people over and comes out of scrums. And, by the way, scoring goals is not really a good metric in determining how dominant, because you can score a lot of goals just by being faster and stronger.
Speaker 2:Don't default to statistics in that regard. The other thing I would say, in the same way that we said don't assume that the older age group team is always better than the younger age group team in any sense. Don't assume that the older age group team is always better than the younger age group team in any sense. Don't assume that the teams that are winning more is a better environment than the team that may not be winning as much. Where you are, what are you?
Speaker 3:sacrificing in order to win. I mean listen, we all know and maybe it's nothing right, but maybe you're not playing everybody and giving them a chance, all the players a chance to develop. Maybe you're relying on the physical attributes of the players.
Speaker 2:Yeah, maybe you just simply have the best players, but there's not a lot of learning, and that is a fact. I mean, youth soccer is filled with a history of teams that have been built through parent recruitment to get the best players from an area together at a young age and then they beat everybody. And there may be very little teaching and organization going on because they just got all the best players who individually developed in a variety of different ways and reasons, some being older brothers and sisters, some being really good clubs. They came from some just being genetics, grace of God. But if you put them all together on a field because somebody was able to get them to agree to all join one team, you can put a lot of people and clowns who can coach them and they're still going to beat everybody, and that's not going to be better than a place where you have a really good coach who is teaching and helping players continue to grow their potential and skill level, regardless of of wins and losses.
Speaker 3:I do think there is something to be said for being around players who are of your like ability and also your like aspirations, because that's going to drive you. But yeah, to your point if you can do that the older you are, the more important that yes and I was going to say we need to pivot to the older. But if you can do that with a good coach, it's it's a good thing, rather than the opposite.
Speaker 2:It can be true at younger age groups as well, because there can be a wide variety of emotional and mental maturity. Putting very mature, emotional kids mentally and emotionally mature kids in a team of kids who are really immature emotionally is not a good scenario either. It's a very different environment to manage for the coach and it can be very frustrating for a player as well. So you know all of these, we're vulnerable to the accusation and all of these issues, doug, that we're not giving any clear, bright line answer because there is not a clear, bright line.
Speaker 3:Answer in any of these. It's a complex idea. Now. I think it's more clear when you get older, because I do think pool of players who are really talented I mean obviously depending. I mean if you live where you live it's a bigger pool than where I live, let's say, but as they get older that pool of players it gets smaller. I would say right, Because kids fall away, they don't develop whatever. And I do think in the older age groups it becomes more important to be on good teams with good coaches. If your aspirations are to play at a higher level, whether that be college or national teams or whatever, I do think it's more important to be with players who are like-minded, like ability, to the degree that you can, in teams that are competing in things that are both challenging and give you the opportunity opportunities that you would need as you get older, proxies like hey, what league are you in?
Speaker 2:can give you some guidance, although, again, they're proxies, they're not. They're not maxims for contrast, uh. But I think again, if we had to go back and say what are some principles of how you make these decisions, I would say the first one is you need to have conversations with the coach or the director, or both, in the clubs that you are in and with any clubs that you are interested in, and you need to kind of get a sense of do I believe these people and trust these people? Do they sound like they know what they're talking about, or is there a lot of generality and gobbledygook, generic statements? Do I have a sense that they have expertise in what they're talking about?
Speaker 2:Because you can hear expertise in almost any topic, right, you don't need to be an expert in the topic to be able to say, well, that person really knows, seems to know, what they're talking about. I might not be able to parse details with them, but I can tell that their depth of knowledge is, you know, substantial. And if you're in a place where you do not trust the coach or the parent, I'm sorry, or the director and their depth of knowledge, or their understanding and experience in your conversations with them, then that's a pretty good sign. You should probably look somewhere else, because if you don't trust the people that are coaching, you're going to have a large amount of problems down the road, irregardless of anything else.
Speaker 3:I also think you got to look at, you got to think about again what are my aspirations here and then, what are the track records of these clubs, teams, coaches, as a way to benchmark and figure it all out? I think it does become a lot more important, particularly at the college you know, with the college stuff and the college recruitment, that you are in a situation where you can be seen this idea this idea that you, no matter what who you play for, they will find you. Is that's not true? No, you can't prove.
Speaker 2:You can't prove a negative, so there's always going to be somebody. But I mean generally 16, 17 and 18. Uh, you need to be in the best possible environment in terms of competition daily. That means the best players possible around you playing at the best level. Now, if you're player number 18 and you never get on the field and you're just, you know, struggling, that's not a great spot for you.
Speaker 2:You're better better off in some scenarios to be, you know, player number 10, if you can stay at the same level on a team that is performing lower than it is to be player number 18, who hardly gets on the field. That's another gray area you've got to figure out. But if you're not in an environment at 16, 17, and 18, that is competitive. And again, that doesn't mean you can't be the best player, but it needs to is competitive. And again, that doesn't mean you can't be the best player, but it needs to be competitive. If you're the best player, there needs to be resistance. You know, if you're number 18, there needs to be realistic resistance where you can still have success. But if you're not in an environment of competition in those ages, you're going to have a hard time achieving goals of playing at the next level.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I do advocate. You said 16, 17, 18. I do advocate 15 as the number because I think I have found and you can, you know we can debate this if you disagree that there is always a transition period of one year when you go to a new environment and so I would say you want to be kind of up and running, if you will, by that u16 time and it to me it takes you one year.
Speaker 2:Well, and again, I hate to keep making this grayer and grayer and grayer, but it is just there's no, trying to give definitive answers here christian, I know there's no listen all of this, this, this context that we're just saying about 15 and above and being in that competitive environment of appropriate resistance, that is all well and good, but it's based on the assumption that let's just say we're saying in 15, at 14 and below, you're in an environment of growth and you're in an environment that is properly teaching you and where, again, you have appropriate resistance so that when you make this change if a change is necessary, when you make this change you're capable of success. Because we have all seen, you know, we'll go to the other end of the continuum, the proverbial player who just stays in there, whether it's local or longstanding club environment, to a certain age before they change. And when they change they find out how far behind they are, because that environment was comfortable but there wasn't appropriate resistance, there wasn't appropriate teaching. And then when they go to a more competitive environment, an environment of higher standards of performance, more competitive environment, an environment of higher standards of performance, they are not capable of success and they it's sort of like walking into a buzzsaw and then it's hey, you're a year or two years behind in some of these things and you know there's a lot of players who wait too late to make a change, find out the competitive level is too big of a jump for them to make in the time they have.
Speaker 2:But that's generally more a reflection of the environment you were in before you. Weren't you, parents, player whoever? Weren't having those conversations with the director, weren't opening your eyes to the level of resistance, weren't accurately assessing is my player learning and growing as fast as they should in this environment? And comfort in that regard can be a very negative thing. You know, just comfortably being the best player at a lower level of competition without additional adversity. Resistance, stress, whatever it may be, does not prepare you to compete at a higher level.
Speaker 3:The one thing I'm going to say about this is and this could be a wrap on this, but it is really important that you find, as a parent who's trying to help your child navigate this, the proper resources to navigate it, because I think sometimes parents ask other parents and rely on other parents opinions, and I'm not sure that those people are equipped to give good.
Speaker 2:Oh my gosh man, the number of parents of 10 year olds who think that they know everything because they've got a 10 year old when they're dealing with their seven year old. It's like hey. Let me tell you about my two years of experience on this. Take that with a large gallon of salt Find a resource that knows Everybody has opinions.
Speaker 3:but finding a resource that is a little bit more educated on the pathway in this regard, I think, is a really important thing to do, and it doesn't necessarily even have to be someone always in the same sport, but just somebody who understands like the pathway it's, it's and it's usually not. You know Susie's mom or dad who you know.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I mean ask questions. Again I go back to. If you ask good questions, specific questions, and you get good answers that make sense to you, that's a positive thing, that's a good sign that you're in, you're getting close to the right environment. If you get generic answers, if you get platitudes, if you get oh you know, susie's just great, she's just doing great here and you know you don't need to worry about it, that's a sign that you're not over the target zone.
Speaker 2:Most likely you need specific answers of what the future holds, what's specific about that future to your son or daughter with respect to what they're really good at, what they need to improve at and why and how that's going to happen. And a coach or a director who can't give you those specifics is not going to be the one that helps your son or daughter take those steps, is not going to be the one that helps your son or daughter take those steps. The coach or director who can give you them in specific, actionable steps that make sense to you is a pretty good sign that your environment is positive and that's again I go back coaches that can answer those questions well with parents, tended to create better environments and have more long term success in developing players than coaches who cannot. And I would encourage parents to ask those questions. Don't do it in a judgmental way. Don't do it in a way that you're assuming the answers before you ask the questions.
Speaker 3:Be open-minded, ask questions and and be ready to hear answers and to be critical of whether the answer is is what you feel is to the degree of specific actionable quality, as you as you would expect from somebody in any other profession and I will point this to coaches be willing to have those conversations and answer those questions, because I think building a wall, trying to build a wall between you and and parents, who are a major stakeholder in this whole thing, is a flawed way to do it. Be willing and open to have those conversations, and they don't. You know you don't always have to agree and you know you're going to have your perspective and sometimes parents and players are going to have their perspective. But being willing to have those conversations I think says a lot about your leadership and, to Christian's point, probably says a lot about the environment that you're going to create.
Speaker 2:Maybe that's another topic for another day when we start talking about the parent-coach dialogue and good, bad questions, interactions, do's and don'ts. I think maybe that's a segue for next week. I love that.
Speaker 1:I love it too, and I love Bracken's Brain Buster. We'll have Bracken's Brain Buster after hearing from a couple more ECNL corporate partners.
Speaker 4:The ECNL is pleased to announce Quick Goal as the official goal provider and partner for ECNL girls and 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. 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 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. Nike is a proud sponsor of ECNL. Nothing can stop what we do together to bring positive change to our communities. You can't stop sport because hashtag. You can't stop our voices. Follow Nike on Instagram, facebook and Twitter.
Speaker 1:It's that time. Time for the Bracken Brain Buster.
Speaker 3:Well, I know you missed Bracken's Brain Buster last week, so I did. I've been eagerly awaiting all week, eagerly awaiting. I'm going to go a little curveball away from a different football, what's called american football football, big time of year, because we just started ohio state buckeyes put it on texas. I don't know if you saw that I'm sure you did see.
Speaker 2:I did see that I didn't really care. I mean, I was busy watching bryce underwood, right? I'm sure you?
Speaker 3:were um. Who did they play? Like school, craft, junior college or no, no, they played new mexico, by the way.
Speaker 2:By the way, speaking of new mexico had 75 new players. Think about that. Think about the age of change, of college sports. I mean, I don't think you're allowed more than 100 in football, so don't fact check me on that but there is a roster limit that's not much bigger than 75. I mean, that's incredible.
Speaker 3:I thought it was 85. I thought they shrunk it to 85. They may have I could be wrong.
Speaker 2:And, by the way, they were the number two school in most change. So there's a school out there in Division I that had more than 75 new players in one season. I that had more than 75 new players in one season. I can't even imagine that type of turnover. How do?
Speaker 3:you coach in that environment.
Speaker 2:That's tough. Well, you know what they say. Doug, If you want to be a good coach, get good players.
Speaker 3:Get 75 new players. If you want to be a good coach, get 75 new players.
Speaker 2:That's the other question. Who's the best coach? I don't know who's got the best players. Yeah right, that's a little wrinkle to everything we just said at the end of the day, because they are not correlated necessarily.
Speaker 3:They are not so I'm going to ask you which you prefer because, uh, the nfl kicks off on thursday and we have.
Speaker 2:Is that cowboys eagles, is that?
Speaker 3:thursday night cowboys, eagles. Thursday night should be exciting. Got my fingers crossed for the Bengals, as I do every year, and I've been crossed for a number of years now. So which do you prefer? Do you prefer, and why, college football or NFL football?
Speaker 2:Let's go, jacob, I'm going to go first no, let's go.
Speaker 3:Jacob. Yeah, let's go, jacob.
Speaker 5:What's actually funny is that Ryan and Ashley and I have had this conversation earlier this week of which we prefer, uh, and we kind of came down to college. Football has way more shenanigans and therefore is more fun, but the nfl is more serious and have higher stakes. I tend to enjoy the nfl more than college just because the talent range is so wide in college versus the nfl, but really I enjoy watching both.
Speaker 3:That is a complete non-answer, but thank you for that. Go. Chiefs Go, chiefs Christian, what do you got?
Speaker 2:I would say I agree the emotional variation in college football you don't see very often in the NFL the range of performance swings within a game or the momentum shifts in a game, like you do in college, which I think is emotional, probably maturity to some degree. I actually think that answer that question is getting harder to answer because, let's be honest, college football is becoming a version of pro football and so I think they're becoming more and more similar. I'm not sure I like the super conference in college football. I'm not a big fan of coast-to-coast conferences and these matchups that used to be so unique and special are now every single week. So I like watching both. You know I complain about that, but I like watching both. To me it's about teams. I watch Michigan football and the Green Bay Packers and I'll watch them any day. I guess if the choice is a generic game of college football or NFL, I'm probably more likely to watch the generic college football game than the generic NFL game.
Speaker 3:Okay, I'm going to go pro football. I just have a respect for anything being played at the highest level. So I love the NFL. I love watching it. Having said that, what I will say is I have no interest in going to NFL football games and watching them live. I don't think it's a great sport to watch live. But I think it's a really great sport to watch on TV, which is weird Because if you go to a soccer match, you would always love to be there and see it. I just think the game of American football is much better digested on TV, In my opinion. That's all I got. Happy to be back. Good discussion.
Speaker 2:All right, moving on. Thank you very much and we'll talk to everybody in a week or two.
Speaker 1:Thank you, christian Doug, jacob Bourne and Colin Thrash and everybody at the ECNL, including all of you that are listening to Breaking the Line at the ECNL, including all of you that are listening to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast. We'll see you in two weeks. Thank you for listening to Breaking the Line, the ECNL podcast and remember, if you have a question that you want answered on Breaking the Line the ECNL podcast, email us at info at theecnlcom.