Assasin & others, who have kids playing

[USAF]

youth soccer in the U.S. - 2 changes have been made to the U.S. youth development system.

http://www.mlssoccer.com/news/articl...nt-initiatives

[Peter R]

I understand the rationale for changing the dates to align with international norms, but how does this change combat the bias mentioned in the quote below?: This "bias" is particularly evident at younger ages of course.

The international cutoff date, however, is Jan. 1. Monday’s announcement brings the US in line with the rest of the world and creates a system that US Soccer believes will combat relative age effect – the bias that favors more physically mature players who were born earlier in the year

[Assasin]

Is there any uniformity with this field size thing? At U8-10 in GA we play 6 players including goalie. At the U11 there are 8 players on the a big field.

Not sure if the states follow US soccer on this.
On the age thing is changes things as it went by the school year. Now you find the kids who were older in the age group will be the younger ones. It changes things there. Normally a kid born say from September to December would now be in a different group from kids who were born the following year.

ODP has also been on a regular calendar.

[Assasin]

good spot sir. Good question

[Paul Marin]

I understand the rationale for changing the dates to align with international norms, but how does this change combat the bias mentioned in the quote below?: This "bias" is particularly evident at younger ages of course.

The international cutoff date, however, is Jan. 1. Monday’s announcement brings the US in line with the rest of the world and creates a system that US Soccer believes will combat relative age effect – the bias that favors more physically mature players who were born earlier in the year

It doesn't, except that they let the older ones play up where they show promise...just like they do now.

[OJ]

Fits about time

[OJ]

They will need to mandate the field sizes. You guys are a bit behind eh!

[Paul Marin]

They will need to mandate the field sizes. You guys are a bit behind eh!

The problem is the individual state associations are poorly run.