Cal South CEO President’s Summit Provides Insights for Clubs on How to Handle the Impact
Cal South is highly recognized as the leading US Youth Soccer state association in competitive soccer – more teams from Cal South have won National Championships than any other state. With more than 204,000 members in 12,500 teams and 300+ plus youth soccer clubs, Cal South is clearly a leader in soccer in America. With the new U.S. Soccer mandates impacting youth soccer, Cal South’s CEO Johnnie Garza and DOC Steve Hoffman helped top clubs understand the impact of the new player development initiatives and discussed the challenges ahead.
Soccer News: Cal South held their annual Presidents’ Summit at the StubHub Center on Sunday, September 27, 2015 and addressed the new U.S. Soccer Federation (USSF) initiatives to help Southern California soccer clubs and leagues understand and benefit from the upcoming changes.
Related Article: Cal South President’s Summit Recap
Cal South CEO, Johnnie Garza and Steve Hoffman, Cal South Director of Coaching gave an inspiring talk on the new initiatives from USSF. The new USSF mandates, especially the reorganization of youth soccer teams by birth year instead of by school year, have created a great deal of discussion in the world of youth soccer.
INITIATIVE 1 – Small Sided Progression and Standards
The table below presents the progressions and standards that all youth Clubs must have in place by August 2017 and are suggested as best practices by August 2016.
The reasons behind moving to the new standard is supported by the overwhelming majority of soccer education experts across the country with many coaches citing the obvious benefits of small sided games on smaller fields.
A player’s love of soccer as well as his or her player development is enhanced with the:
1. Enormous increase in number of touches per game and therefore increased skill development.
2. Field sizes and distances that their developing youth bodies can actually deal with.
3. Tactical problems 2v1, 2v2 3v2 that their developing minds can cope with more readily than the chaos of 11v11.
4. More touches are more fun as it leads to more direct involvement in the game for all players.
To give perspective on this change, Hoffman shared an interesting and mostly unknown fact; “US Soccer’s largest enrollment age group is U5 … and the largest drop-out age group is U6.” Part of what the US Soccer Federation is trying to do, is keep more kids in the game by promoting better soccer.
INITIATIVE 2 – Calendar Birth Year Registration
By August 2017 all teams must be formed on calendar birth year. The simple objective of this change is to bring a uniform approach to youth and national team programs. Birth-year registration calendars will now align with the start of the calendar year and run from January to December, rather than August to July as it had previously. The main objective is to align with international standards.
When asked what these changes accomplished, Tab Ramos, U.S. Youth Technical Director and U-20 Men’s National Team head coach explained, ““It makes the process easier. Over the years you go through coaching youth soccer and you are constantly finding parents and players confused about what age group players belong in. The current August 1 cutoff meant that two players born in the same year could be in different age groups. To make it more confusing, different school systems have different cutoff months for going into the new grades. It was just very difficult for parents to take it all in. This new calendar year system makes soccer easier. If you’re born in a certain year you belong in that certain age group. Simple. It also puts our players on the same age-playing calendar as the rest of the world so they will be used to competing in the right age group. That makes it much easier for us to scout for the National Teams and find players ready to compete internationally.”
Cal South assured their youth soccer club presidents attending the 2015 Presidents Summit that they realize it is a huge change. “We are working to provide club data on the impact of this mandate, so that everyone can assess the impact to their clubs,” said Garza.
The youth soccer market has been a blaze about how to integrate these changes. Demonstrating clear leadership, Garza explained in detail the impact the mandates will have.
U10 Division
One of the age ranges most impacted is the U10 age bracket.
Cal South addressed a specific challenge with current U10 players as this could be the most impacted age group depending on the implementation strategy.
“Currently, U10 players are playing 8×8,” said Garza. “If no implementation is taken next year, they will mature to U11 and play 11×11. In 2017 when implementation is mandated, they will then mature to U12 and play 9v9. We see this as a problematic challenge.”
Cal South is evaluating a possible solution by accelerating implementation of the age mandates a year early, however discussions are still going on to determine if early implementation should take place for just the U10 age group or globally.
U19 Division
When the U19 division changes to birth year registration in the 2016/2017 season, there will be the challenge of the older, former U19s who will age out and could potentially lose about 6 months of eligibility. “One of the options we are considering is looking to extending cup tournaments to U20,” said Garza. “This will allow our U19’s to have a transition period.”
Roster Continuity
As the birth year registration period is implemented, teams could be drastically impacted. As an example, a team’s full roster of 18 players may be split in half due to birth year registration and the requirement to compete in the national championship series is with a 9 player retention. “We are looking to discuss at the State and League level,” said Garza. “It will not be seamless. We will have to work our way through this.”
The business of youth soccer is big business
More than 21 million kids play under-17 competitive sports in the U.S., according to ESPN.com. These families spend a lot of money – an estimated $5 billion a year on sports organizations, an analysis by the Columbus Dispatch shows, and another $7 billion on related travel, says a National Association of Sports Commissions study.
Youth soccer in particular has boomed in popularity with more young kids playing the sport than any other. The U.S. Youth Soccer Association is now the largest youth-sports organization in the country. In the Southern California area alone there are more than 300 soccer clubs and leagues.
It is clear the leadership at Cal South is deeply involved in determining the best road ahead and how to handle the challenges of the USSF mandates. Garza and Hoffman provided an inspiring vision of the future of youth soccer, while not ignoring the issues. Cal South has been asking for feedback from area soccer club Presidents and top soccer coaches before establishing guidelines for implementation on the USSF initiatives.