If you have been following youth soccer news recently, you likely know that a major shift is coming to how age groups are formed across the country. With our tryouts coming up the week of May 18th, we want to take a moment to outline these upcoming changes in detail, share our club philosophy behind these decisions, and explain exactly how tryouts will work during this transition.
For nearly a decade, youth soccer teams have been organized strictly by calendar birth year. Moving forward, the standard is officially transitioning to an academic year model covering a twelve month span from August 1 to July 31.
This adjustment is designed to better align soccer seasons with the standard school calendar. Instead of splitting kids from the same grade into different soccer age groups because they were born in different calendar years, this new system will allow classmates to stay together on the field.
Here at Dayton Futbol Academy, our philosophy is simple and focused on long term development: we want kids to play age appropriate soccer. We believe this is the absolute best path forward for several key reasons:
We want to align our teams with these new age appropriate bands to the greatest extent possible. However, we also understand that a shift of this magnitude will not happen all at once.
We know there are valid reasons why some kids will continue to play up. Factors such as overall roster construction, familiarity with a current team, and specific coaching alignments all play a major role in our decisions. For instance, if keeping a group together makes the most developmental sense, or if a change would prevent a viable team from forming, we will evaluate those situations on a case by case basis. We are actively working through this transition and are evaluating these unique situations thoughtfully alongside our coaching staff.
There are a lot of shifts currently happening in the local soccer landscape. We know that some other clubs are holding tryouts very early to capitalize on the uncertainty of this age transition, which puts players and families in a tough spot. We fundamentally disagree with this high pressure approach.
We are holding our tryouts the week of May 18th because our priority is respecting the current spring season. We want our players, coaches, and families to remain completely focused on their current teams and their spring goals without the looming distraction of early tryouts. While smaller clubs may be struggling with this shift, Dayton Futbol Academy remains a stable, growing home.
If you are part of a team that is splitting up or looking for a new home due to these landscape shifts, please continue to reach out to us. Several teams from the area have already contacted us about joining DFA, and we have the organization and infrastructure ready to welcome teams who want to play and grow in a stable environment.
As we approach our tryout week, we ask that you and your players come to the fields with an open mind. To help you prepare, we are putting the finishing touches on our staffing for next year and will be sharing our projected coaching assignments and overall team structure later this week.
To help us make the most informed decisions, we strongly encourage players to attend the tryout sessions for their new academic age band. This gives our coaches the best opportunity to evaluate them alongside their true grade level peers. Please remember that our focus during these evaluations is to find a spot for players to play and grow in our environment; we are not looking for reasons to sideline kids, cut them, or send them to another club.
Our ultimate goal is to keep our kids playing and growing within our club. Please know that we are doing everything we possibly can regarding staffing and roster construction to support all of our players and find a home for everyone who wants to play at Dayton Futbol Academy.
We are committed to navigating this transition period with care, transparency, and a strict focus on what is best for the kids. Thank you for your continued support, your patience during this time of change, and your dedication to Dayton Futbol Academy.
