Balanced Teams

At least once a year an AYSO region has a primary play, open registration season and forms teams as evenly balanced as possible.

Implied in this is the fact that no major or minor teams can be formed; thus creating differentiated (by skill) divisions. Only age and gender (and possibly dispersed geographic area) can be used to create a grouping from which balanced teams are formed. Age and gender groupings are termed divisions. This is probably the most controversial of the AYSO tenets as it is difficult to implement due to quickly changing youth players' abilities.

No player is tied to any team as they are reformed every season. Although National rules state only the head coach's child is tied to the team, it is the head coach and their child that define the team and differentiate it from the others. Hence, no child is tied to the team.

The team balancing goal is similar to how pick-up games in a park are formed. Generally, two captains are selected and they pick their team members alternatively like a draft. Very visible by this process though is the best players (or friends) are picked first and the worse players (or loners) are last. AYSO regions attempt to form as equal and balanced teams within an age / gender division as possible but without the stigma of this public selection process. The highest skilled and lowest skilled players are spread across the available teams, usually by a division coordinator, anonymously.

Once a balanced teams season is held, a region may opt to offer Secondary Play season that year where cuts and tryouts may be used. Players in such Secondary Play must have participated in the previous open registration, balanced team season to be eligible. Now in pilot form is the extension of this to be concurrent with the Primary play season — termed Flex Play. Even skill based teams are expected to be balanced, possibly across a wider geographic region, but this does introduce major and minor team classifications. It should be noted that a soccer year starts 1 August and extends to 31 July.

Some regions support keeping siblings together (either twins or close enough in age that a two year age division can incorporate them both) to assist the family. Although not a guarantee, this can often be honored. As such, the sibling field is on the AYSO National player registration form.

Additionally, some regions extend this mechanism to allow parents to specify one friend of their child. This to again support having a familiar face and likely car pool partner on the team. While this can often be accommodated and still keep teams balanced, it begins to disrupt the process. This especially if the region allows a coach to specify a co-head or assistant coach. Now there are potentially 4 players (or more) tied together in a block.

Regions are thus urged not to offer any mechanism other than the sibling request. If coaches wish to specify to be together, require they use the sibling request mechanism through their players to indicate this.

Obviously a key and important part of balancing is getting good player evaluations. ...

While every effort is made to balance teams at the start of the season, it can never be a perfect system. Children grow in spurts and can change dramatically during the course of a season. Absences can dramatically affect the make-up of the team. In our experience, only about 5% of the players score 95% of the goals. If those few goal scorers are spread around, and one is absent from a team that day, the resultant play can be quite different for that team.

As a result, it is up to the coaches to work behind the scenes, like they do at practice, to achieve balance during the game itself. This especially if a blow-out? is occurring. ....

• Draft
• Lottery and "blind hat" draws
• Ratings and other skill measurements
• Computerized (taking into account additional factors such as school, age, etc)

One of the biggest problems in the process is regions have upwards of 10 to 20% of the players registering late (or possibly dropping as they find other sports or activities). As such, regions need to be cognizant of how to keep teams as balanced as possible. A cut-off date for registration needs to be defined after which team formation starts. Players registering before that cut-off should be taken on a first come, first serve basis. Only exception is if the parent fulfills a key shortage in coach or referee volunteer pool. After the cut-off, players must be pulled from the wait list with balance as the highest priority. So wait lists get reduced by moving players to teams until full while keeping team balance the highest priority for deciding who is placed.

In club soccer, a coach must usually form a team and then apply to the club for membership. The players and coach may stay together for years. The team may chose to switch clubs or may advance in skill ranking as they get challenged and play other teams across the club, league, and state. While teams are constantly looking for a challenge, they also want "easy" wins for confidence and standings improvement in tournaments and leagues. So blow-out? games with score differentials of 6 or more are more common. The coach decides who stays and goes, so cuts are possible and tryouts are inevitable. A coach may simply take kids he can mold and help along or be more crafty and look for the best skilled players in each position from the start.

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