The Next Level Training Soccer Podcast with host Aaron Byrd and Jeff Suffolk
Oct 15, 2026 · 37 min · 8 segments
Jeff and Aaron get into the weeds on hot questions from our parent listeners. What exactly is being said on the sidelines?
And then, you know, episode 70, we dove into the, the, the pyramid, which drew a lot of questions from some of our listeners, and I think today we are going to tackle a couple of them right now.
And I'm dealing with it at a coaching level, and obviously, like, we live pretty far away from major metro, so it's complicated for us to put teams together on the fly.
And so when they switched from the birth year to the, the school year, or whatever you'd wanna call it, I guess it's the school year, August to August or August to July, it messed up a lot of teams.
And I think you're seeing it right now from a lot of different teams across the country where y- they're just in the wrong divisions, and I think that can explain some of the problems with, like, the crazy scorelines of, like, 10-nothing, 17-nothing, those types of things.
I think what they thought the con was, was that obviously the physical disparity within the age groups, but if a kid born in January and December, they have 12 months difference in U10, but they still have 12 months difference in U10.
So I, I, I read that and as one of the reasons I was like, "That makes zero sense." And then, but the, the school structure and the social structure, I get that.
But the messed up part of the whole thing is like, the high level leagues aren't even holding to it.
[chuckles] They're just like, "Well, that's cool, yeah, we're just keeping our..." You know, if you're a 2010, you're a 2010.
It's, for everybody else, they're, they're changing it, and that is because the MLS wants to be with Europe and the rest of the professional football world.
Well, and I think that's what the, you know, and that's, that was his, one of the g- the dad's follow-up questions was, you know, MLS NEXT Homegrown is staying birth age.
Do they eventually move to the school age like club? Why? It's a fair question, right? I mean, if MLS NEXT Homegrown is not...
And, and are they sanctioned by different groups? Like, are they both sanctioned by US Soccer?
And then, you know, episode 70, we dove into the, the, the pyramid, which drew a lot of questions from some of our listeners, and I think today we are going to tackle a couple of them right now.
And I'm dealing with it at a coaching level, and obviously, like, we live pretty far away from major metro, so it's complicated for us to put teams together on the fly.
And so when they switched from the birth year to the, the school year, or whatever you'd wanna call it, I guess it's the school year, August to August or August to July, it messed up a lot of teams.
And I think you're seeing it right now from a lot of different teams across the country where y- they're just in the wrong divisions, and I think that can explain some of the problems with, like, the crazy scorelines of, like, 10-nothing, 17-nothing, those types of things.
I think what they thought the con was, was that obviously the physical disparity within the age groups, but if a kid born in January and December, they have 12 months difference in U10, but they still have 12 months difference in U10.
So I, I, I read that and as one of the reasons I was like, "That makes zero sense." And then, but the, the school structure and the social structure, I get that.
But the messed up part of the whole thing is like, the high level leagues aren't even holding to it.
[chuckles] They're just like, "Well, that's cool, yeah, we're just keeping our..." You know, if you're a 2010, you're a 2010.
It's, for everybody else, they're, they're changing it, and that is because the MLS wants to be with Europe and the rest of the professional football world.
Well, and I think that's what the, you know, and that's, that was his, one of the g- the dad's follow-up questions was, you know, MLS NEXT Homegrown is staying birth age.
Do they eventually move to the school age like club? Why? It's a fair question, right? I mean, if MLS NEXT Homegrown is not...
And, and are they sanctioned by different groups? Like, are they both sanctioned by US Soccer?
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