team building info
Building the teams is not a small task. The RASA Recreational Fall and Spring Soccer Program has 1,500+ players, U4 to U14. Our goal is to try to keep a smile on everyone's face.
FIRST
Players are sorted into their respective age divisions either by birth year (U4 through U7) or by Grade Level (U11 and up). At U9 and up the players are sorted even more, between boy and girl.
REQUESTS
All requests that are made are not guaranteed. Unfortunately, it is simply impossible for us to meet the request of every single player.
All requests will be filled on a first come first served bases, based on the date of the completed registration. A completed registration is defined as a registration that has been completed in full, submitted, and a valid payment has been made and received.
ONCE A TEAM IS FULL, IT IS FULL
Each age division has a set limit of how many players can be on a team. This number is set to ensure that each player on that team gets a minimum of 50% playtime in games. If you exceed that roster maximum, you mathematically cannot give each player 50% playtime. This is why it is highly recommended that if you want to play on a specific team, even if you are returning to a team, to register early when registration first opens.
WHAT IF WE CAN'T FILL YOUR REQUEST? THEN WHAT?
Then we look at what school your player attends. When we build teams we try our very hardest to place at least 2 players or more from the same school onto a team. So if we are unable to fill your request for any reason we will try to find a team that has a schoolmate or two or three or four on it.
DIDN'T MAKE ANY REQUESTS?
No worries! Just like above, we will look at the school your player attends and will try to place your player onto a team with at least one or more players from the same school. This way they will recognize a friendly face or two when they go to their first practice.
REQUESTING TO CHANGE TEAMS
We understand that sometimes things just don't work out. You really wanted to play with little Jenny from school, or the practice night the coach picked out is the same night of violin lessons and you can't reschedule violin. We will try and do our best to work with you, however, please understand that sometimes we simply can not make the roster move. Either the team you want to move to is 100% full or if we move your player off of the team they are rostered to it will leave that team under-rostered and at a severe disadvantage. Again, we will try to work with you the best that we can and try to come to a solution.
U8 TEAMS MOVING INTO U9 IN THE FALL
Teams that were U8 in the Spring season and are now moving into U9 in the new Fall season are in a transition year.
This is the age that the teams and players go from playing coed to playing in separate Boys Divisions and Girls Divisions.
For the players moving into the U9 division. We keep the players that have requested to play with their same gender teammates together.
For Example: If your son was on the Ivory Coast team and requests at U9 to play on Ivory Coast, he will be placed with other boy Ivory Coast players. The same goes for the girls.
No teams in either the Boys Division or the Girls Division will have enough players to form a full team. We then need to merge teams together within the Boys Division and within the Girls Division to form the new U9 Boys teams and U9 Girls teams.
We then move on to fill the open spots on rosters with players that specific friend request of the same gender and the players who did not make any requests at all.
Because this is a transition year and a year when teams are blending and coming together, the U9 divisions are given a new theme all of the teams in U9 are given new team names This helps remove any sense of " you came onto my team" and helps build a sense of "this is our new team".
TEAMS STICKING TOGETHER
At RASA, in our recreational soccer program we do not break up teams season to season, year to year.* We believe in the social aspect that the recreational program brings and know personally the special bond that players and parents alike can carry away from their Rec Team family.
As long as players register and request to return to a team in a timely manner, they can stay together.* However, the requests are filled on a first come first served basis. So register early to make sure your request is filled.
In cases where only a few players return and it is not enough to field a full team, if we are able to make it work out those players will stay together and be absorbed by another team. If for rostering/numbers purposes we have to break up the players, we will distribute the players between the viable teams within the division, but try to keep at least 2 players from the team together.
*RASA will break up a team if there are severe and repeated disciplinary issues with a team, either with players, parents and/or coach behavior. For teams U8 moving into U9 in the fall, please see "U8 teams moving into U9 in the fall" section above.