What is Traveling Soccer???

What have you gotten yourselves involved with? When you first become involved with competitive travel soccer, there are so many new things you will hear about and should begin to understand. Along the way your family is bound to enjoy many new experiences, meet some really wonderful people, make new friends, travel to places you never would have imagined, watch your child grow and develop, and, hopefully - you all will learn to understand and love the game of soccer!

In an attempt to help begin to educate many of you who are seeking answers to your questions, this page will give you some of the basics. Ever wonder what all the fuss was about age brackets, divisions, flights, and seasonal years? ... What'''' is all this talk about "U" teams, 11v11 and 8v8? ... What'''' is a League? ... The questions go on and on (those were just some simple ones) - and it is not always the newcomers that need some answers!! As you read this page it will probably spark more questions.

The General Structure: The first basic is to understand the general structural hierarchy: A player is affiliated with a team, a team with a club, a club with a league, a league with a state organization, a state organization with a national organization. Your childs Team is sponsored by PLRSA. We are a member of MCYSA - Morris County Youth Soccer Association. MCYSA is a league that is affiliated with the state organization, NJYS - New Jersey Youth Soccer. NJYS is affiliated with the national organization, USYS - United States Youth Soccer. There are rules and laws that govern everyone involved.

Now that you have that understood (well, you can always re-read it later) .. let''''s go on ...

Seasonal Year: Understand that this is NOT the familiar January-December calendar year. Travel Soccer is played during two seasons of the year, Fall and Spring. Fall is season 1, Spring is season 2. These two seasons make up the Seasonal Year and players are carded to a team for the entire Seasonal Year.
Technically a Seasonal Year begins September 1 and ends August 31. If a team plays both seasons, players are carded in the Fall. Older teams may not play the Fall season - usually due to High School sports conflicts - and may form and card in the Spring.

Divisions: Are made up of Age Brackets. Divisions never change, they always contain the same age brackets. (Division 1 is made up of 3 age brackets - all the others are made up of 2 age brackets.)

Age Brackets: Are simply the age of the team. The age bracket of the oldest player on a team determines the team''''s age bracket. This is usually the most often confused element. Age brackets are determined by birth dates that fall between the period of August 1 and July 31. (Again, not the normal January-December calendar year!)

Flights: Often indicates the skill level of a team. Teams in each Age Bracket or Division are grouped in one or more flights. The higher the flight, the more competitive and experienced the teams will be. Teams are re-flighted each season within their respective age bracket or division. We will not get into all that goes into flighting teams other than it is based on the past history of a team, the type of information about the team that is available, the number of teams playing each season, etc. This is a very long and difficult process that every league wrestles with each season. If teams in a flight are at the same competitive level one should expect a 50/50 season.