DA Boys - Relative Age Effect, Late DOBs/Developers, Bio-banding and the future of US soccer: An information clearinghouse and discussion group

Kante

Kante

PREMIER
Having read thru and posted to a number of threads on RAE, thought it might be good time to restart a RAE-specific thread (here's link the previous thread that petered out... - )

Background:
  • The primary audience for this thread is parents of boys who were born Oct 1 thru Dec 31.
  • While reasonable comments are welcome from all, comments from some have not been constructive. Please be considerate.
  • Looking forward, because this discussion can get a little emotional, will try to be very fact-based, data-driven on the posts
Goal:
To raise awareness and increase the focus on helping all players develop to the best of their potential.

Assumptions:
Without more awareness and focus, the status quo will likely continue.
  • From a USSDA/USSF pov, status quo means that the YNT and USMNT teams do not have the best possible players on their roster since late DOBs are significantly under-represented.
  • From a family/player pov, late DOB players don't have nearly the same opportunities as early DOB players, most importantly for college.
  • Neither of these items is acceptable.

First Post:
The big catalyst for this thread was a comment from old podcast featuring Sebastian Abbott, author of The Away Game (a great xmas present if you and yours haven't given it read btw). Abbott was asked about relative age effect in this podcast and said two things.

First, Abbott mentioned the expansive set of research documenting the relative age affect in schools and sports. (If you don't agree with/stipulate this research, you should probably stop reading now, and go sit w/ the same folks who deny climate change)

Second, and this is a point had heard only in bits and pieces but never heard proved as succinctly, Abbott said that looking at player DOBs, it was the later DOBs who actually are more successful and dominant at the highest, professional level.

Abbott's proof point, that was new, was "look at the Ballon d'Or Nominees." This podcast aired last May so Abbott was talking about the 2018 Ballon D'or, but last evening looked up the dobs for the 2019 Ballon d'Or nominees.

Key takeaways from looking this data:

1) it's a small sample - only 30 players an only one year (will check previous year nominees next week)

2) having said that, there are 5x more Ballon D'or nominees w/ December birthdays than January birthdays...

(pause for a minute here and think about this... when looking at the best soccer players in the world, five times as many have December birthdays than have January birthdays... am 100% positive that this is the exact opposite distribution when looking at DA player DOB's)

If this data holds up across multiple years of Ballon D'or nominees, it seems that countries who want to become top soccer nations - like the USA for example - might really look at making support for late DOB players a core/fundamental piece of their player development efforts.

USSDA was taking small steps towards doing this in the last couple of years, but these efforts mostly came to a full stop in the 2018-19 season. To be fair, per RedDevilDad (thx!), reportedly, there is a USSDA "biobanding" event this coming January at Silverlakes, so maybe support might be coming back... Here's RedDevilDad's info (again, thx!) on the January biobanding event:

"In April, Lonestar, Texans, FC Dallas and some other TX clubs participated in a "bio-banding event." They played 2 or 3 games according to their bio-banded age. I don't know if it was bio-banded teams vs bio-banded teams... or a bio-banded U15 team vs an actual U15 team...The Silverlakes event is the second one and I assume it will be similar. The clubs participating are: SD Surf (Boys & Girls), Real So Cal (Boys & Girls), LAG (Girls), San Jose (Girls), LAFC (Boys), Pats (Boys). The dates are January 11-12th."​

will see how this goes. (if anyone has more info here, it would be appreciated either via post or DM)

here's the Ballon d'Or nominees with date of birth:

1576171667857.png

Comments/thoughts/input on any/all of this?
 
outside! said:
I wonder if players with later birthdates somehow gain an advantage from having developed while being disadvantaged in size/speed/maturity? This may have forced them to develop better technique, work harder and play smarter.
Click to expand...

Same as playing up in my experience does/did help my Nov son. However, seen it go the other way as well where kids can't take it, get overwhelmed, don't enjoy or perform to their capabilities consistently.

I don't know what the age cutoffs should be ? boys and girls are likely not the same in that regard but for boys I would say 16 and after that I don't think it makes that much of a difference. HS has always been mixed ages up to 3 year spread on most varisty squads and even more so for college age so diminishing returns after a certain point /age.
 
outside! said:
I wonder if players with later birthdates somehow gain an advantage from having developed while being disadvantaged in size/speed/maturity? This may have forced them to develop better technique, work harder and play smarter.
Click to expand...
valid point. playing up can significantly help player development, and players with late dobs can benefit by being required to effectively play a year up every year, but, looking at the data, it's only a very small minority - relative to the % of the population they make up - who make it thru, even to college.

More often, younger DOBs are winnowed out early on by coaches and clubs.

Some of this is short-sighted "win now" thinking, some of is just inherent bias (the "what's his birthday?" question), but most of it is the lack of a legitimate "late developer" development path, metrics to measure potential and meaningful initiative to drive widespread awareness/urgency of the opportunity with late DOB players with coaches and clubs at the DA level.

Will grant that more data is needed but it is an interesting correlation that, for 2019, France has three December DOB players nominated for Ballon d'Or - vs one March DOB - and also implemented, several years back, a late developer ID/development path program.

jpeter said:
Same as playing up in my experience does/did help my Nov son. However, seen it go the other way as well where kids can't take it, get overwhelmed, don't enjoy or perform to their capabilities consistently.

I don't know what the age cutoffs should be ? boys and girls are likely not the same in that regard but for boys I would say 16 and after that I don't think it makes that much of a difference. HS has always been mixed ages up to 3 year spread on most varsity squads and even more so for college age so diminishing returns after a certain point /age.
Click to expand...
With all due respect (and you know I genuinely appreciate you man), "when should age cut-offs occur?" is not the right discussion.

Yes, having a u16 single year age group would help, but this is doing only the very minimum.

(Will also stipulate that after u17, the large majority of boys are much closer in physical development regardless of DOB.)

(to vent, that USSDA have a u16 single year age group on the girls side - where, according to the CDC, they don't have nearly as much age-based physical discrepancy after about u15 - is - imo - a marketing decision, not a soccer decision, that USSDA was forced into by the strength of the ECNL on the girls side.)

On no u16 age single year age group, and, to be fair, this is reading tea leaves, USSDA is continuing with only u17 (and not having a u16 age group) in 2020-21 because:

1) imo, based on club (primarily MLS club) feedback that clubs don't want to pay for another team

2) (again, imo) European-centric US Soccer staff see the USA's large population and geography as a liability rather than an asset.

On the high school point, they have three levels of competitive play. however, for this discussion, would also argue that high school is moot since most colleges don't recruit players who are not playing DA at least thru u17.

At college, while the older players still have some age-based developmental advantages, these advantages are significantly less than the developmental advantages enjoyed by older DOB players from u13 thru u17.
____

And thank you both, Jpeter and Outside! for good comments.
 
jpeter said:
I don't know what the age cutoffs should be ? boys and girls are likely not the same in that regard but for boys I would say 16 and after that I don't think it makes that much of a difference.
Click to expand...
Many boys have their last big growth spurt between 17 and 19. I grew more than 6" my senior year in HS and remember being surprised that I was looking down at former bullies who suddenly became polite.
 
I was told by a Doc of a DA that the only way the club can allow a player to play up is if the YNT coaches tell the club to do it? Is that true? Thanks for any information out there. Boys or Girls.
 
outside! said:
Many boys have their last big growth spurt between 17 and 19. I grew more than 6" my senior year in HS and remember being surprised that I was looking down at former bullies who suddenly became polite.
Click to expand...
fair point. this year, found out that Thing 1's uncle on wife's side grew 3-4 inches in college (after wondering for two years when the Nov dob boy was going to grow... )

FYI, to keep things simple, am referencing CDC growth pattern data as benchmark.

For same CY yob boys who will be similar size when they're adults, CDC has most of the younger boys getting within 1/2 inch in height of the older boys by u17-ish (but the youngers still give up ten pounds of muscle at this point), and then starting to catching up weight/muscle wise at u18/u19-ish.

(Weight gain/Muscle, however, can be accelerated w/ workouts.)

And then am using the physical development (easier to quantify) as an analogue for the intellectual and emotional development (as or more meaningful but harder to quantify).
 
newwavedave said:
I was told by a Doc of a DA that the only way the club can allow a player to play up is if the YNT coaches tell the club to do it? Is that true? Thanks for any information out there. Boys or Girls.
Click to expand...
have not. have always understood it to be coach discretion. but coaches, sometimes, can be bad communicators. but that's only one experience.
 
outside! said:
Many boys have their last big growth spurt between 17 and 19. I grew more than 6" my senior year in HS and remember being surprised that I was looking down at former bullies who suddenly became polite.
Click to expand...

I grew 6" after high school and was only average height during HS years but I also lettered in 3 sports and was first team league in two being a smaller player. Hardly anybody I knew grew or got any better after they junior year around age 16 although it was a good experience for me to play with them.

I actually got faster in college and better in one sport but don't know many that did so I think I was the exception, some people would be surprised to see me in my college years.

As far as college recruiting DA helps but then again our latest 2 local players that signed for UCLA recently didn't play DA so it's not the only avenue by a long stretch.
 
newwavedave said:
I was told by a Doc of a DA that the only way the club can allow a player to play up is if the YNT coaches tell the club to do it? Is that true? Thanks for any information out there. Boys or Girls.
Click to expand...

Nope for the boys always been 3 or more playing up on my sons teams for many years and same goes for the other orgs/ clubs.

Think that DOC has it twisted,. YNT candidates are highly recommend to play up and some say it required to be considered but that's about it. DA encourages playing up and you don't have to be a YNT player, candidate, or even a training invitee to do so but YMMV.
 
jpeter said:
Nope for the boys always been 3 or more playing up on my sons teams for many years and same goes for the other orgs/ clubs.

Think that DOC has it twisted,. YNT candidates are highly recommend to play up and some say it required to be considered but that's about it. DA encourages playing up and you don't have to be a YNT player, candidate, or even a training invitee to do so but YMMV.
Click to expand...
Interesting. My old Doc said Club had a policy no one plays up at club unless YNT coaches request it. I fell for that one......
 
outside! said:
I wonder if players with later birthdates somehow gain an advantage from having developed while being disadvantaged in size/speed/maturity? This may have forced them to develop better technique, work harder and play smarter.
Click to expand...
I wonder the exact same thing, I suspect there is some truth to it.

While its fun to analyze, the relative age effect (or the failure to recognize it) is not the problem with US soccer. Bio-banding (aka playing down) is akin to rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic. Looks good but won't make a measurable difference in developing US soccer players. Every kid is different, one kid may flourish in system where they're near the top on the team which gives them confidence, whereas another kid may be motivated to train harder because they're at the bottom end (my suspicion is most kids need a little bit of both). This shouldn't be addressed by manipulating age boundaries (like bio banding), but should be managed through the the levels of play (DA, flight 1 etc.)

Anecdotal, but I took a look at the roster of the most recent USMNT. 5 players were born in the first three months of the year and 6 in the last three months. 11 in first half of year and 12 in last half. Really doesn't get much more even than that.
 
Just to clarify, the events the USSDA put on in KC and will be putting on at Silverlakes are biobanding, which is different than just looking at early v. late birthdays. It's basically about separating out the kids who are going through or have already gone through puberty from the ones who don't look like they've even started yet. Although puberty is largely correlated with age and early birthdays are more likely to be farther along than later birthdays, it's only a proxy and biobanding is about actually examining each child's real age relative to puberty. Some of those Golden Ball finalists could have been early bloomers relative to their age. It stands to reason, for example, that Hugo Loris was a big boy for his age given where he ended up.

In countries that have used biobanding, it's only an occasional thing. They don't use it instead of age, but rather as a way to gauge how kids are developing if you control for puberty.
 
Agree the problem exists. Older half of the age group has a definite advantage.

Not sure about the solution. ( grouping kids by current height as fraction of final height for that kid = bio banding)

Is a 13 year old post growth spurt really similarly developed to a 15 year old? They may be the same height, but one has had 2 more years to practice. Odds are the 15 year old also has more muscle mass, despite the similar height. Seems to trade a bias that is easy to see (age) for a bias that is hard to see ( timing of height gain versus timing of muscle mass gain. )

When you have the density for it, like LA, you're probably better of just doing 6 month age bands.
 
This will be controversial and I don’t expect many to agree with me, but in my experience and opinion relative age effect is a non starter with elite athletes.

That said, I do think it plays a role in the average to good athletes.

I’ll do my best to explain. For the elite and even very good athletes, whether it be high school sports or club sports, most will have little issue with a to older kids as competition. Think freshmen and sophomore athletes that play varsity athletics. It is a very similar situation to top recruits stepping right in to a college and competing with little issue.

Now, if you are an average to good athlete, I think it does play a role. As a player that is on the edge of making a team, be it club or school - sometimes that extra 6-10 months can create a disadvantage. If a coach chooses an older kid because of grade, size or physical development a late birthday kid can lose out on a year of top quality development. That one year can be the difference of getting a scholarship or not. Where the concern is for me is at the younger ages - say 10-14. If we have kids that leave a certain sport because they are overlooked, that becomes an issue.

All in all, I don’t think it plays a role at the absolute top level, but certainly does for the everyday athlete.
 
I have given this topic a great deal of thought, as my son falls in this category (Oct-Dec birthday). He has attended YNT camps and plays on a top MLS academy team, so I am not coming at this from a sour grapes perspective.

I gravitate towards "all of the above". I think back to the shift from school year to calendar year. Someone has to be the youngest, so that by itself doesn't bother me. I think the two biggest negatives to the calendar year structure are (1) kids being forced to play with kids one grade higher (e.g. middle school 8th graders having to play with high school 9th graders makes no sense, not from a "playing with friends" standpoint, but because there are significant social and other differences that all come into play, and (2) as mentioned, the senseless 8th grade and 12th grade gaps for the younger calendar players (fortunately, my son avoided the 8th grade gap by playing DA, but there are many 8th graders each spring with no soccer because their club teammates are playing HS soccer). "Aligning w/international standards" is a trivial benefit by comparison. One more substantive benefit I see is that playing calendar year at the club level prepares players for the upper-level DA. I can imagine that if my son had played in a school year system all the way until U15, it would have been a rude awakening having to compete with older kids in a calendar year structure once he entered upper-age DA.

I have often described my son as essentially "playing up half a year" by playing in the calendar year system. It has been good for him.

I spoke with one of the lead US Soccer coaches/scouts (I won't name him, but you would all recognize the name). He was very insightful. Had his finger on the pulse of younger half/quarter kids who face the challenge of the growth spurt years. He said they have seen some of these younger and/or late bloomer kids turn out very well because they are forced to develop their skills and their minds to succeed.

But, the downside is that very few of them get that chance. Just look at some of the YNT rosters - some of them are skewed to the extreme towards older kids. Certainly not within statistical variance. Look at the rosters of some of the bigger DA clubs. Same thing - some of these rosters would generate crazy age distribution plots. Now, being younger doesn't always mean better, and being older doesn't always mean worse. But, there are some kids that any sophisticated eye can look at and tell that they are receiving YNT and/or DA playing privileges because of an early growth spurt and that their mental and physical skill set isn't going to translate into elite play over the long term when their growth advantage levels off. I am seeing this happen before my eyes, kids who were favored based on early growth who are starting to slide back to the pack. Those privileged spots are valuable and need to be preserved for developing talent that projects over the long term to the next level, and I don't think we are doing as well in the U.S. as we could with this. RAE is a very real factor in all of this, along with other factors such as coaches who are incentivized based on their won/loss record instead of developing players who generate transfer fees for the club, etc.
 
jpeter said:
I grew 6" after high school and was only average height during HS years but I also lettered in 3 sports and was first team league in two being a smaller player. Hardly anybody I knew grew or got any better after they junior year around age 16 although it was a good experience for me to play with them.

I actually got faster in college and better in one sport but don't know many that did so I think I was the exception, some people would be surprised to see me in my college years.

As far as college recruiting DA helps but then again our latest 2 local players that signed for UCLA recently didn't play DA so it's not the only avenue by a long stretch.
Click to expand...

"college recruiting DA..."is a tangent to this thread but is important discussion. (pivoting to from the tangent and away from topic)

Fair point that DA is not the only avenue to college. However, for players aspiring to go to ranked soccer colleges and ranked academic colleges, playing DA for US-based players is a critical /very significant for DA players in the college recruitment process.

Most of this is because DA makes scouting and recruitment simpler/less expensive for colleges (all of whom have limited scouting/recruitment budgets) because:

1) DA is an accepted standard. For example, if an assistant college coach pitches a DA player, the first question is where did they play DA, and if the answer is one of the known clubs then all is good. If an assistant coach pitches a non-DA player then there's more questions/discussions.

2) DA, a couple of times a year - showcase and play-offs - aggregates all the DA players in one location for matches, which significantly reduces travel costs for scouting and recruiting

3) DA mandates game video, and certain standards for game video, and makes that video available via HUDL. This may seem inconsequential, but player videos are key to the recruitment process.

In the UCLA example that was referenced, here's the 2019-20 roster:

1576516278043.png

Am assuming you're referencing the two players from Santa Monica United.

First of all, good on them for making it to UCLA. Any player who gets to that level deserves a ton of kudos.

Second, looking at the roster and doing the math, more than 85% of the UCLA roster either played DA or played internationally.

So, while, yes, DA is a not a requirement for US-based players to get into college soccer, again, it's fair to say that playing DA gives DA players a significant advantage in the college recruitment process.

Unfortunately, there's a ton of college level players - like Rincon and Soria - playing outside the DA system for any number of reasons, capable of college level academics, who go unseen and unrecruited.

(pivoting away from the tangent and back to topic)
 
Kante said:
"college recruiting DA..."is a tangent to this thread but is important discussion. (pivoting to from the tangent and away from topic)

Fair point that DA is not the only avenue to college. However, for players aspiring to go to ranked soccer colleges and ranked academic colleges, playing DA for US-based players is a critical /very significant for DA players in the college recruitment process.

Most of this is because DA makes scouting and recruitment simpler/less expensive for colleges (all of whom have limited scouting/recruitment budgets) because:

1) DA is an accepted standard. For example, if an assistant college coach pitches a DA player, the first question is where did they play DA, and if the answer is one of the known clubs then all is good. If an assistant coach pitches a non-DA player then there's more questions/discussions.

2) DA, a couple of times a year - showcase and play-offs - aggregates all the DA players in one location for matches, which significantly reduces travel costs for scouting and recruiting

3) DA mandates game video, and certain standards for game video, and makes that video available via HUDL. This may seem inconsequential, but player videos are key to the recruitment process.

In the UCLA example that was referenced, here's the 2019-20 roster:

View attachment 6024

Am assuming you're referencing the two players from Santa Monica United.

First of all, good on them for making it to UCLA. Any player who gets to that level deserves a ton of kudos.

Second, looking at the roster and doing the math, more than 85% of the UCLA roster either played DA or played internationally.

So, while, yes, DA is a not a requirement for US-based players to get into college soccer, again, it's fair to say that playing DA gives DA players a significant advantage in the college recruitment process.

Unfortunately, there's a ton of college level players - like Rincon and Soria - playing outside the DA system for any number of reasons, capable of college level academics, who go unseen and unrecruited.

(pivoting away from the tangent and back to topic)
Click to expand...

3 local players in the fall UCLA signings going there next year: AV, GD, MG none of them from DA.

GD played for LAG one season u14 never went back: beach & Loyola HS. AV never played DA, Strikers & this year u18/19 ECNL. MG beach ECNL just went to LAFC DA this fall after he committed to UCLA.

Not sure about any advantage in DA as you can see all three UCLA local players didn't get recruited due to DA. Sure it helps just like being in certain tournament, playoffs, or having a coach with connections but I won't say its significant over any of the other available options.

College coaches come out to HS tournaments games and there was a bunch at the addidas showcase this past weekend when my son watched one of his friends teams games.
 
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