Team Selection/Placement Process Info

Placement Process:

One of the most important processes within the BSA is our placement process. We have gone to great lengths to make this process as open and transparent as possible for all of our participants.

It is not the philosophy of Belmont Soccer for teams to remain the same season after season.  

The most commonly asked question is, "How did my child end up on the team that they are on?”

The second most commonly asked question is, “What do I do if I’m unhappy about my child’s placement?”

Please read through our placement process below and both questions will be answered.

For clarification: 

U9=3rd grade, U10=4th grade, U11=5th grade, U12=6th grade, U14=7th & 8th grade.

U9 & U10 play 6v6 on a small field.  U11 & U12 play 8v8 on a medium field.  U14 play 11v11 on a large field.

Where it all starts… Indoor Placements (in May):

Everyone must attend a mandatory indoor placement session, except for incoming 9th-12th graders.  While incoming 3rd & 4th graders have the option of playing Town League or Travel, they all attend the same placement sessions and are rated against each other, regardless of whether they register for Town League or Travel.  Everyone will be placed on a team, regardless of their skill level, playing experience or size and everyone can play Travel if they so choose.  The benefit of Town League for 3rd & 4th graders is that all games are played in Belmont whereas the Travel teams play five home and five away games, with most away games within 20-25 minutes of Belmont.  FYI:  The Town League Shirt is different than the Travel shirt.

In May each year, children attend a mandatory indoor placement session. We offer two dates for each age group to allow for potential conflicts.  Each child is given a number instead of a name to minimize name recognition in the evaluation process.  At the placement session there are three drills in which they are evaluated:

 1) Cone drill – captures ball control and dribbling speed.

 2) Wall drill – captures kicking, ball control and trapping ability.

 3) 4v4 scrimmage – captures overall ability in a realistic playing situation.  Professional coaches are used for this drill.

The data is tabulated using a formula created by a mathematician (a former BSA board member).  This results in a rank order of the children in each age group (U9, U10, U11, U12 and U14).

Coaches Rating forms:  After each season all coaches complete an evaluation form for their team where they rank the children.  Coaches are encouraged to provide comments for each child.

Team formation:  After all the data is tabulated, a subset of the Belmont Soccer Association board meets to form the teams.  This group consists of the BSA President, Vice President, Secretary, Age Group Coordinators and Registrar. 

For U9-U11 the Indoor Placement results are used first and foremost to form the teams.  We do ask all coaches to submit rating forms each season, but for U9-U11 those forms are only consulted as a reality check to check for anomalies.  The data from the coaches rating forms is not used in the tabulation for the U9-U11 age groups.  An example of how the coaches rating forms are used in U9-U11 team formation is as follows:  Tommy played on a Team #1 of 7 Boys U10 teams in the Spring.  At the indoor placement session Tommy finished 60th of 75 boys, but his coach rated him as one of the top players on his team.  It’s apparent that something out of the ordinary happened at placements (perhaps Tommy was sick, injured or just had a bad day).  It is in cases like this where we reconcile the data points to properly place Tommy.

For U12 & U14 the Indoor Placement results are worth 60% and the Coaches Rating is worth 40%.  Using the same process as above we form the teams.

In addition to the process above, for the U14 group, once all the results are tabulated, we hold an outdoor scrimmage for children that placed in the top 28 to help us better determine where they should be placed.  Five or six board members and coaches attend the scrimmage and rate the kids.  That data is tabulated and used in conjunction with the placement and coaches ratings to form the U14 teams.

For U14 teams, a child’s grade is irrelevant, so 7th graders don’t get any more or less consideration than 8th graders when forming the teams.  Please keep in mind that because U14 is a dual age group, children moving from 6th to 7th grade are no longer just being compared against their grademates, but against 8th graders as well.  This usually results in many 7th graders’ placements being lower than when they were in the single age group.

In Spring 2010 we added a Goalkeeper evaluation for any children in the U12 & U14 age group who want to specialize as Goalkeepers.  This data is not factored into the ratings.  We use this information only to let their new coaches know who is interested in playing Goalkeeper.  It is expected that children who attend the Goalkeeper evaluation will play at least ½ of each game in goal.  We do expect these children to play in the field as well, so coaches are told they should have at least two goalkeepers play per game.

Children playing on Town League teams participate in the same placement process as those children who choose to play on traveling teams.  However, the objective when forming teams for Town League is to have all Town League teams be of equivalent ability, in contrast to the traveling teams (where the intent is to group players of similar ability to play against like skilled teams from other towns).  The purpose for doing so is to level the playing field so that no Town League team dominates any other Town League team or vice versa. Our goal is for each Town League team to have a .500 record. 

The objective when forming teams for the Travel league is to group players of similar ability to play against like skilled teams from other towns.  The goal is for each Travel team is to have a .500 record. 

Children are not penalized if they didn’t play the previous season.  Such children obviously wouldn’t have a coaches rating for the previous season.  For children who don’t play in the Spring, we only factor in the child’s Indoor Placement results. 

Children are not moved up or down based on who does or doesn’t volunteer to coach.  There have been cases where five parents have volunteered to coach Team Y and where nobody volunteered to coach Team X.  We don’t move a child “down” to Team X just to fill a coaching hole.  In such instances, we email all the parents of Team X and ask for volunteers. 

Team rosters are dynamic, changing year after year, even season after season in response to each individual child's skill level. Actually, your child's team placement is guaranteed for the current season only. There are often team changes season to season for a variety of reasons.

The most common are as follows: 

1.     The number of children in an age group changes from fall to spring. For example, if we had 4 teams in an age group that were overloaded in the fall and we had six new registrants for the spring we would need to create a fifth team. Or, conversely we had barely enough players for four teams and several children do not re-register for the spring. When either of these situations occurs, it creates a domino effect displacing several players from each team as we expand or shrink the group. 

2.    Travel program - A child has either a difficult time playing at the level they are currently at or are significantly more skilled then the balance of their team. We correct these errors in our placement process between seasons. It is detrimental for a child to be placed either too high or too low for many reasons, most importantly, self esteem and ability to enjoy the experience. 

3.    Town League program - A team is too strong or too weak in the fall. Children will be moved to even out the rosters and keep the age group competitive. It is imperative that the Town League Program, where the children play against their school peers, be competitive.  It is demoralizing for a team to lose week after week. That loss of confidence can result in children either failing to reach their full potential or in them leaving soccer entirely. 

4.    In extreme cases only: A personality conflict develops between a coach and a child. We strive toward the goal that all of our participants will enjoy the experience.  

 “What do I do if I’m unhappy about my child’s placement?”   The answer is to encourage your child to have fun on the team in which they were assigned.  If your child was not placed on a “higher” team as you or he/she feels they deserved, encourage your child to be a team leader, to work hard and maybe next season or next year their placement may be more to their liking. 

If you absolutely need to speak with someone at Belmont Soccer about your child’s placement – please contact the appropriate Age Group Coordinator as found on our website here.

FYI:  Coaches don’t have the authority to approve or authorize any moves.  It is not up to coaches where children are placed.  Once team assignments are made, the only reason moves are made at that point is if there are late withdrawals and a team is left with too few players. 

If a child doesn’t attend placements and doesn’t have a valid, pre-approved excuse, they may not be placed on a Division 1 or 2 teams. 

BAYS (Travel) Divisions and Sections:  “My child was placed on a team in 2A or 3M.  What does that mean?”

We would like to take a moment to explain what the BAYS Divisions and Sections signify.   

Belmont Soccer plays in the Boston Area Youth Soccer league (www.bays.org), which has over 50 member towns in eastern Mass.

To be clear, there are very few Division 1 teams in all of BAYS.  Most age groups have only 1 or 2 sections in Division 1 (6 to 12 teams in the entire age group).  In U9 there is no Division 1. 

Historically, Belmont Soccer has had very few, if any Division 1 teams due to the size of our town compared to other large BAYS towns (Framingham, Newton, Wellesley, etc.). 

The Divisions (1, 2, 3, 4) and Sections (A, B, C… M) consist of a number and letter.  Starting with Division 2A and going through Division 4C.  Most Division 2 sections run through Section H or thereabouts, so teams would be denoted as being in 2A, 2B, through 2H.   Next is Division 3 and then Division 4.  More often than not, there are only a few sections in Division 4.  The higher the skill level, the lower the number, so Division 1 has the most skilled players and Division 4 has the least skilled players. 

Special requests:  Belmont Soccer doesn’t honor requests to be with specific children, friends, coaches or teams.  There are too many kids in our program (800+) for us to do so.   

We do however honor requests for siblings in the same age group to be placed on the same team.  In such cases, the siblings are placed on the team in which the lesser skilled child would have been placed. 

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