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:
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.
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:
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:
Comments/thoughts/input on any/all of this?
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
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:
Comments/thoughts/input on any/all of this?