Celtic adapts to US Soccer mandates
By Patrick Z. McGavin
Lily Spotak is a bright and inquisitive 11-year-old who loves soccer, and is skilled enough to play on the U-12 Palatine Celtic Soccer Club Select team. She represents the next vanguard of young athletes who play the game with passion, joy and the chance to forge deep bonds with friends and teammates.
Celtic is a unique entity with its own culture, perspective and values. No soccer club exists in a void or a vacuum. Now young players like Lily and clubs like Celtic are dealing with the repercussions of new mandates being unveiled by US Soccer.
Programs across the country are being asked to implement the new initiatives by the fall before the changes become mandatory next year.
The first mandate is a small-sided games initiative that attempts to create a more uniform standard in the youth soccer landscape.
The U-8 teams are set to group four players to a side without keepers. In the U-9 and U-10 divisions, the number of players for each side will remain 7-v.-7 with keepers.
Celtic technical director Brian Colicchia explained, “the fields are going to have build-out lines for keepers to more easily distribute short passes. This will let teams start to build out of the back without immediate pressure.”
In the past, Colicchia said U-12 and younger games lacked national standards. Rules differed geographically and created confusion and uncertainty. Some states played 5-v.-5 and 8-v.-8, while others played 7-v.-7 and 9-v.-9.
Most soccer observers, coaches, and studies agree that decreasing the numbers on each side helps players develop more cognitively and enjoy a higher rate of touches.
Colicchia noted, “More touches and more decisions in each game will help players to learn and to understand the game.”
The more disruptive and sweeping US Soccer change involves age eligibility and how the different divisions are organized. In the past the group utilized the academic calendar from August 1 to July 31, aligning classification and age groups by school graduation years.
US Soccer will now shift the timeline to the calendar year, or birth-year age group of January 1 to December 31. For instance, players born in the year 2000 are automatically designated as U-17, with each subsequent age division grouped accordingly.
Tab Ramos, the US Soccer youth technical director, said: “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.”
Celtic convened a series of meetings with parents in late February and early March to explain the changes and help produce a more seamless transition. Locally and nationally, the age group change has elicited a strong emotional response in clubs. Celtic is no different.
Kelly Spotak is Lily’s mother and also has daughter Emma, a Fremd freshman, in the Celtic program at U-15.
“Celtic did a very good job of communicating to the parents and the kids,” said Kelly Spotak, who is a team manager for the U-12 girls team. “I think my older daughter Emma is going to be fine with this. Once they are in high school the teams adapt, and there’s more flexibility.”
But Lily was a different story.
Colicchia explained that the new age group changes mean it is no longer a guarantee that players like Lily are going to play with the same players they have learned the game with and developed a close connection or special affinity. That dawning realization was much more unsettling.
“For the younger kids the change is going to hit the hardest," Kelly Spotak said. "As Brian started to explain to her, immediately the tears started [with Lily]. This is going to be her fourth year of travel. She has pretty much grown up with the same kids. If it is going to be played out the way it is supposed to, that could mean splitting up half of the team.”
Here is the conundrum. The rationale for the national change was to be better able to identify and cultivate the top young prospects. That contradicts the culture of Celtic, which is predicated on teaching and developing long-term technical and tactical understanding of the game.
Soccer’s expansive growth has many factors: an intrinsic appeal to both boys and girls. One of the factors inherent with soccer teams is the development of lasting friendships and common interests through the game.
Kelly Spotak said her greatest concerns as Lily's parent is that her daughter must not only confront the possibility of playing with a group of players who are unfamiliar to her, but that she could lose interest while she adjusts to a new team and coach.
“On the flip side, one of the lifelong goals as a parent is teaching your kids how to cope and have them realize that just because we are their parents, we can’t fix everything for them, and they have to learn to roll with it,” she said.
Jennifer Castelli has a broad perspective on the matter as a parent with four players — three daughters and a son. They include her oldest daughter, Mary Ann, a sophomore at Saint Viator, and a seventh-grader, fourth-grader and third-grader.
“As a parent I was definitely not happy with the situation,” Castelli said. “All four of the kids were born at the end of the year, and now all are going to be the very youngest in their age group. Even though my own kids are very good players I’m not a fan of them having to skip an age group.”
She also reiterated Kelly Spotak’s concern that the oldest players, those born in January or February, might become disengaged from the game or feel unchallenged by the new dynamics.
In canvassing the opinions of colleagues and friends, Castelli said no dominant pattern of thought has emerged.
“I don’t think there is a consensus,” she said.
Castelli is also a Celtic coach and the director of the U-8 and Junior Celtic Academy programs.
“Anywhere in the spectrum of the birth ages, there are people who are not fans of the change but then you have some who like it, because it will make things more uniform,” she said. “It’s a huge deal for some people, but after a year or two it’s forgotten and it becomes the new norm. Hockey already made these changes this year.”
In a letter that was sent to parents, Celtic officials made it clear players still have the option of playing up.
“We wanted to make sure we were getting the information out to the parents, so there weren’t many unknowns,” Colicchia said. “That will help them process the change and help the players.
"We wanted to make sure that we were going to be able to answer their questions and explain how we’re going to do the tryout process in May and group the teams for the coming season.”
Change is difficult and complex, he concedes. Philosophically the club is doing everything possible to ease any collective anxiety and utilize the changes to make the program stronger and healthier.
“I can’t speak for everybody, but if I had to give my own personal opinion I feel like this gives us more flexibility for how we group teams,” Colicchia said.
“The change is coming, whether we like it or not, and we have to find ways to continue to serve our players and their families. I think it will allow us to be more flexible, and that’s a good thing.
"We can keep more players because maybe they fit more with their birth year and not their grade. We’re trying to look for ways we can make our program better because of it, instead of trying to look at it as a limiting factor. The kids will have the same Celtic experience they are expecting."
By Patrick Z. McGavin
Lily Spotak is a bright and inquisitive 11-year-old who loves soccer, and is skilled enough to play on the U-12 Palatine Celtic Soccer Club Select team. She represents the next vanguard of young athletes who play the game with passion, joy and the chance to forge deep bonds with friends and teammates.
Celtic is a unique entity with its own culture, perspective and values. No soccer club exists in a void or a vacuum. Now young players like Lily and clubs like Celtic are dealing with the repercussions of new mandates being unveiled by US Soccer.
Programs across the country are being asked to implement the new initiatives by the fall before the changes become mandatory next year.
The first mandate is a small-sided games initiative that attempts to create a more uniform standard in the youth soccer landscape.
The U-8 teams are set to group four players to a side without keepers. In the U-9 and U-10 divisions, the number of players for each side will remain 7-v.-7 with keepers.
Celtic technical director Brian Colicchia explained, “the fields are going to have build-out lines for keepers to more easily distribute short passes. This will let teams start to build out of the back without immediate pressure.”
In the past, Colicchia said U-12 and younger games lacked national standards. Rules differed geographically and created confusion and uncertainty. Some states played 5-v.-5 and 8-v.-8, while others played 7-v.-7 and 9-v.-9.
Most soccer observers, coaches, and studies agree that decreasing the numbers on each side helps players develop more cognitively and enjoy a higher rate of touches.
Colicchia noted, “More touches and more decisions in each game will help players to learn and to understand the game.”
The more disruptive and sweeping US Soccer change involves age eligibility and how the different divisions are organized. In the past the group utilized the academic calendar from August 1 to July 31, aligning classification and age groups by school graduation years.
US Soccer will now shift the timeline to the calendar year, or birth-year age group of January 1 to December 31. For instance, players born in the year 2000 are automatically designated as U-17, with each subsequent age division grouped accordingly.
Tab Ramos, the US Soccer youth technical director, said: “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.”
Celtic convened a series of meetings with parents in late February and early March to explain the changes and help produce a more seamless transition. Locally and nationally, the age group change has elicited a strong emotional response in clubs. Celtic is no different.
Kelly Spotak is Lily’s mother and also has daughter Emma, a Fremd freshman, in the Celtic program at U-15.
“Celtic did a very good job of communicating to the parents and the kids,” said Kelly Spotak, who is a team manager for the U-12 girls team. “I think my older daughter Emma is going to be fine with this. Once they are in high school the teams adapt, and there’s more flexibility.”
But Lily was a different story.
Colicchia explained that the new age group changes mean it is no longer a guarantee that players like Lily are going to play with the same players they have learned the game with and developed a close connection or special affinity. That dawning realization was much more unsettling.
“For the younger kids the change is going to hit the hardest," Kelly Spotak said. "As Brian started to explain to her, immediately the tears started [with Lily]. This is going to be her fourth year of travel. She has pretty much grown up with the same kids. If it is going to be played out the way it is supposed to, that could mean splitting up half of the team.”
Here is the conundrum. The rationale for the national change was to be better able to identify and cultivate the top young prospects. That contradicts the culture of Celtic, which is predicated on teaching and developing long-term technical and tactical understanding of the game.
Soccer’s expansive growth has many factors: an intrinsic appeal to both boys and girls. One of the factors inherent with soccer teams is the development of lasting friendships and common interests through the game.
Kelly Spotak said her greatest concerns as Lily's parent is that her daughter must not only confront the possibility of playing with a group of players who are unfamiliar to her, but that she could lose interest while she adjusts to a new team and coach.
“On the flip side, one of the lifelong goals as a parent is teaching your kids how to cope and have them realize that just because we are their parents, we can’t fix everything for them, and they have to learn to roll with it,” she said.
Jennifer Castelli has a broad perspective on the matter as a parent with four players — three daughters and a son. They include her oldest daughter, Mary Ann, a sophomore at Saint Viator, and a seventh-grader, fourth-grader and third-grader.
“As a parent I was definitely not happy with the situation,” Castelli said. “All four of the kids were born at the end of the year, and now all are going to be the very youngest in their age group. Even though my own kids are very good players I’m not a fan of them having to skip an age group.”
She also reiterated Kelly Spotak’s concern that the oldest players, those born in January or February, might become disengaged from the game or feel unchallenged by the new dynamics.
In canvassing the opinions of colleagues and friends, Castelli said no dominant pattern of thought has emerged.
“I don’t think there is a consensus,” she said.
Castelli is also a Celtic coach and the director of the U-8 and Junior Celtic Academy programs.
“Anywhere in the spectrum of the birth ages, there are people who are not fans of the change but then you have some who like it, because it will make things more uniform,” she said. “It’s a huge deal for some people, but after a year or two it’s forgotten and it becomes the new norm. Hockey already made these changes this year.”
In a letter that was sent to parents, Celtic officials made it clear players still have the option of playing up.
“We wanted to make sure we were getting the information out to the parents, so there weren’t many unknowns,” Colicchia said. “That will help them process the change and help the players.
"We wanted to make sure that we were going to be able to answer their questions and explain how we’re going to do the tryout process in May and group the teams for the coming season.”
Change is difficult and complex, he concedes. Philosophically the club is doing everything possible to ease any collective anxiety and utilize the changes to make the program stronger and healthier.
“I can’t speak for everybody, but if I had to give my own personal opinion I feel like this gives us more flexibility for how we group teams,” Colicchia said.
“The change is coming, whether we like it or not, and we have to find ways to continue to serve our players and their families. I think it will allow us to be more flexible, and that’s a good thing.
"We can keep more players because maybe they fit more with their birth year and not their grade. We’re trying to look for ways we can make our program better because of it, instead of trying to look at it as a limiting factor. The kids will have the same Celtic experience they are expecting."
