Post by randomparent on Jun 21, 2017 21:07:38 GMT -5
So everyone knows I was a big anti-age group mandate person. Still am....
How was the year though. Was it as bad as we thought. At younger agegroups, after the fallout of lack of depth at some clubs, seemed like business as usual. The mega club's seem to be gaining more and more players every year. I've heard of seniors now playing for random teams because their entire team has graduated. I didn't hear much this past year about the Spring u15s with half the kids being freshman and the other half being 8th graders.
Biggest gripe I still have is US soccer knew they were:
expanding boys DA agegroups to u12s
expanding boys DA agegroups to add u13/14 individual teams
expanding boys DA agegroups to u15s
expanding boys DA to new clubs
creating girls DA
Given all the above is based upon calendar year age groups, don't we think it would have been more important than ever to have an existing system that helped identify the fall and early birthdays.
Hell, DA has been in place for what 10 years, and we still have a 40 year old left back starting for the mens national team. Surely one defender could have been developed during this time period from this lauded program?
I have hear many times recently -- "man I miss our old team"
The switch was not a big deal for us. Of course we miss our old friends on game day but keep in touch with some of them and have made some new ones. Carpool was originally screwed up but has worked out. The only thing for the kids is a shift where the old Aug - Oct kids that had the advantage have lost it to the Jan - Mar kids. My kids span the entire year so it helps one a lot, neutral for the other, and detrimental to the third.
If I look at the switch on a macro level it makes sense to me. They could have used a better pr/communications system, maybe grandfathered some of the older teams. Other than that it seems to be a non issue.