Bio-banding is the practice of grouping young players according to their biological maturity rather than their chronological age. Traditionally, players are grouped by birth year: U13 U14 U15 However, two 13-year-olds can be at very different stages of physical development. One player may: be 170cm tall have gone through puberty be physically powerful Another may: be 150cm tall still be pre-puberty be physically immature Bio-banding aims to reduce these developmental differen

The Relative Age Effect (RAE) is one of the most talked about phrases in Youth Football today, unlike a lot of other buzzwords and phrases, RAE is worth our attention. Arsenal's wonderkid, Max Dowman, goes against the grain of RAE being born in December. For those not familiar with RAE, this is the advantage players can have when they are born earlier in the selection year compared to players born later in the same year group. For example, if the age cut-off is January 1st: A