Team Formation Policy

Scope:

This policy applies to:

– NSC Junior Academy (1st & 2nd grades)

– NSC Champions League (3rd – 6th grades non-travel)

– Balanced teams for 7th & 8th grades.

This policy does not apply to BAYS travel teams (aside from 7th/8th ‘balanced’), which are selected via a separate process.

Philosophy:

Needham Soccer Club strives, for all players, to encourage passion and enthusiasm for the game of soccer, and to promote respect for teammates, opponents, coaches, referees, fans, and self. We strive to operate programs that are age and skill appropriate that support both physical and social development. In order to achieve our mission, we work to create teams that are balanced in ability and experience, diversified among the various schools, and that allow participants to experience a variety of coaches throughout their time playing for NSC.

Process:

Our main team formation criteria in order of priority:

1. Players will be placed on the same team as their parent who is coaching (head coach or assistant coach). One friend request will be honored for only the head coach’s children, where practical.

2. Player evaluations will be used to create teams relatively equal in skill and experience. This does not apply to First Grade fall season.

3. Teams will have a balance of schools attended, in order to encourage players to meet new children and to avoid dominant teams.

4. Teams will be fairly balanced between grade levels, except for Junior Academy, and roster sizes will be equal.

5. Teams will be mixed up from spring to fall and will not stay together from one year to the next. Teams will typically stay similar between fall and spring; however, they may be broken up from fall to spring when necessary, such as due to coach and player registration, or to address an identified imbalance among teams. New friend requests or team moves, will not be entertained between fall and spring.

6. After following the above criteria to create teams, we will consider ONE non-head coach friend request overlay. We will do our best to pair players up with a friend requested during registration. It is not feasible to honor all friend requests.

Once teams are released for a new season, we are not able to make changes to rosters for any reason, other than adding late registrations/new players to teams where there is space. Late registrations may include a friend request as with any other registration (see point 6 above), but they cannot register with the expectation to play on a specific team.