Kante
PREMIER
December and late bloomer is two-fer. But feel your pain...Good on him. Hopefully the skills he picked up along the way just to get by will now serve serve him well. bets of luck!
DA Boys - Relative Age Effect, Late DOBs/Developers, Bio-banding and the future of US soccer: An information clearinghouse and discussion group
- Thread starter Kante
- Start date
Kante
PREMIER
Solid! and thank you!
A new item in the article was the concept of Placeholder Theory, where many early developers at u13-u15 are effectively keeping the "seat warm" for new, better players who come along at u17+. This is a piece - where early developers are also being ill-served by the current system - that USSDA talked when they first announced their bio-banding initiative a couple years back. Can think of a number of u15 SoCal players who are starting to hit this ceiling and it's too bad.
Anecdotally, looking at a handful u17 rosters vs the u13/u14/u15 rosters for the same birth year, this churn completely shows up w/ SoCal teams. Some clubs seemingly more so than others, but haven't looked at all teams yet so won't name names.
Completely sold that every elementary school in the US should have at least one outdoor futsal court. The ability get opptys for free play soccer is definitely limited in some areas, and this is a clear disadvantage we have vs ROW. The Latino leagues help but futsal everywhere would be awesome.
It's a great article pointing out the flaws in the system, but, as with most of these, a little light on the solutions side. (I'm not sure it's our "need to develop" that's responsible for the front-loading of teams / academies, it's the placeholder, need to win part.)
As far as I can tell, the only way we get competitive at the highest level internationally is if we find a way to get our best athletes into soccer. Currently, more of the best choose basketball or football.
foreveryoung
SILVER ELITE
Although the data certainly doesn’t tell the whole story and can be very misleading. One of many examples: If a coach gets tired of losing and just starts playing the bigger faster stronger players the team might appear to be getting better.
I have found in life that where you focus your attention and time tends to be what is or what becomes most important. I relish the day when we can collectively refocus our attention on how our kids performed and the level of passion, joy and creativity that they play with versus the outcome.
Reviving this thread since I think @Kante asked whether relative age effect or late developers would be incorporated into the new MLS Next league. I noticed that in the Nomads MLS Next bracket rules, they mention allow three late bloomers to be rostered with a team and mention completing an "MLS Late Bloomer application form." Not sure if this is only for this tournament since they are classified as friendlies, but if there really is an MLS form prepared for this, perhaps late bloomers are allowed to play down during league play too.
https://www.nomadssoccer.org/rules
https://www.nomadssoccer.org/rules
At every turn, school sports are effectively rigged for children born soon after the school start cutoff date — which varies by state in the U.S. but is most commonly around Sept. 1 — and against later-born children. Yet in the NBA, James Harden1 and Kobe Bryant2 are among the former MVPs born in August, putting them among the youngest in their school year group. In baseball, Mike Trout and Cody Bellinger were each just 17 years old when they were drafted; Tom Brady and Barry Sanders are among the NFL MVPs who were young for their cohorts.
These athletes embody a notable paradox: Once they reach professional levels, younger-born players tend to be more successful and are overrepresented among “super-elite” athletes.This phenomenon, found across a range of sports and explored in “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made,” a book I co-authored, is known as the underdog effect. Essentially, it is harder for later-born children to become professional athletes — but if they do become professional, they have a higher chance of becoming among the very best players in their sport.
A study of the most valuable male players in professional soccer, ice hockey, baseball and Australian rules football analyzed their birth dates relative to the selection year for the sport in their country. The finding was the opposite of the relative age effect: Players born later for their year were overrepresented among the very elite, accounting for a combined 55 percent of players.
“Award-winning athletes were more likely to be born late in the selection year than early in the year,” wrote Paul Ford and Mark Williams, the authors of the study. “The relatively younger athletes in our sample were able to stay in a developmental system that discriminated against them.” The authors suggested that “to survive in the system, relatively younger athletes must develop some other performance advantage, which is likely to be skill and its attributes, such as speed, technique and decision making. During their development, these younger athletes may benefit further in skill acquisition by playing the sport with relatively older athletes.”
In other words, the very same factor that worked against athletes young for their selection year became an advantage if they could hold on in the system. Among super-elite athletes, the relative age effect not only fades but reverses.
The difficulties faced by later-born children on the sports field can help them develop in advantageous ways. A study of Premier League soccer academies found that players who were later maturing for their year — sometimes because they are young for their selection group, but also because they are physically late maturers — are more adept at self-analyzing their games and improving their weaknesses. German youth soccer players born in the last quarter of the selection year were found to perform worse than others in their age group — but, when taking relative age into account, the players born in the last quarter were, on average, better performers. “The superior abilities of late-maturing or quarter-four players is due to the greater challenges experienced and superior skills that are required to overcome these,” said Sean Cumming, a co-author of the Premier League paper.
Failing to recognize the talents of later-born children can be costly. At the age of 8, a young Harry Kane was released from the academy of the soccer team he supported, Arsenal. “He was a bit chubby, he wasn’t very athletic,” Liam Brady, Arsenal’s former academy director, told The Telegraph in 2018. Kane was both young for his school year — born on July 28, one month before the end of the English school year — and was also a late developer biologically for his age. After being released by Arsenal, Kane was signed by the academy of Tottenham Hotspur. He has now scored more than 200 goals for Tottenham and is valued at well over $100 million.
These athletes embody a notable paradox: Once they reach professional levels, younger-born players tend to be more successful and are overrepresented among “super-elite” athletes.This phenomenon, found across a range of sports and explored in “The Best: How Elite Athletes Are Made,” a book I co-authored, is known as the underdog effect. Essentially, it is harder for later-born children to become professional athletes — but if they do become professional, they have a higher chance of becoming among the very best players in their sport.
A study of the most valuable male players in professional soccer, ice hockey, baseball and Australian rules football analyzed their birth dates relative to the selection year for the sport in their country. The finding was the opposite of the relative age effect: Players born later for their year were overrepresented among the very elite, accounting for a combined 55 percent of players.
“Award-winning athletes were more likely to be born late in the selection year than early in the year,” wrote Paul Ford and Mark Williams, the authors of the study. “The relatively younger athletes in our sample were able to stay in a developmental system that discriminated against them.” The authors suggested that “to survive in the system, relatively younger athletes must develop some other performance advantage, which is likely to be skill and its attributes, such as speed, technique and decision making. During their development, these younger athletes may benefit further in skill acquisition by playing the sport with relatively older athletes.”
In other words, the very same factor that worked against athletes young for their selection year became an advantage if they could hold on in the system. Among super-elite athletes, the relative age effect not only fades but reverses.
The difficulties faced by later-born children on the sports field can help them develop in advantageous ways. A study of Premier League soccer academies found that players who were later maturing for their year — sometimes because they are young for their selection group, but also because they are physically late maturers — are more adept at self-analyzing their games and improving their weaknesses. German youth soccer players born in the last quarter of the selection year were found to perform worse than others in their age group — but, when taking relative age into account, the players born in the last quarter were, on average, better performers. “The superior abilities of late-maturing or quarter-four players is due to the greater challenges experienced and superior skills that are required to overcome these,” said Sean Cumming, a co-author of the Premier League paper.
Failing to recognize the talents of later-born children can be costly. At the age of 8, a young Harry Kane was released from the academy of the soccer team he supported, Arsenal. “He was a bit chubby, he wasn’t very athletic,” Liam Brady, Arsenal’s former academy director, told The Telegraph in 2018. Kane was both young for his school year — born on July 28, one month before the end of the English school year — and was also a late developer biologically for his age. After being released by Arsenal, Kane was signed by the academy of Tottenham Hotspur. He has now scored more than 200 goals for Tottenham and is valued at well over $100 million.
Thanks for the article, I think its spot on. The problem is not RAE, its player identification and I don't think that can be solved by bio-banding tournaments, etc. Let's be honest player size and not skill or IQ is a often the determining factor in choosing kids for the "first" team. This is particularly noticeable in U-13 to U-15 where the range of sizes differs primarily as a result of puberty. You can have a 4'8" and a 6'2" that are the same age. We need a change in philosophy, but I have no clue how that happens.
Part of the problem is lack of development within clubs. Instead of developing a kid from a lower team to play on the top team, clubs typically choose a shiny new object from another club as opposed to promoting from within. Typically that shiny new object is gone after a year or two because they are club chasers.