It is 9:40 on a Saturday morning at Eisenhower Park and you are standing behind a field that looks wrong. The goals are shrunk. There are seven kids out there instead of eleven, on a rectangle laid crossways inside a bigger one. Somebody’s dad is muttering that this is not real soccer. Your eight-year-old is in the middle of it wearing a jersey that says U9, and she does not turn nine until March. Nobody handed you a rulebook when you registered. Here is the whole ladder, the numbers the league actually prints, and what you should be able to see from the fence at every rung.
Written by Fernando, founder of Tiempo Soccer Academy (Rockville Centre, NY). Last reviewed: September 2026.
The short answer: 7v7 is a national rule, not a local shortcut
Your eight-year-old plays 7v7 because U.S. Soccer’s small-sided standards have been mandatory for every member organization since August 2017, and the Long Island Junior Soccer League reprints that same ladder in its rulebook every season: 4v4 below U9, 7v7 at U9 and U10, 9v9 at U11 and U12, 11v11 from U13 up. No coach in Nassau County chose it. No club is running an experiment on your kid. It came down from the national federation, and LIJSL wrote it into the book that governs every travel game played on this island.
The scale is worth knowing, because it tells you how many families are standing on this same ladder. LIJSL runs roughly 60,000 players across 97 member clubs and more than 3,500 teams, over 1,600 of them travel teams (NY Red Bulls / LIJSL, 2026). Above it, US Youth Soccer registers about 2.5 million players across 54 state associations and roughly 10,000 clubs (US Youth Soccer, 2026). Same four rungs, top to bottom.
If you are still assembling the map of how rec, travel, academy and the rest fit together, the Long Island youth soccer development guide is the wide shot. This page is the narrow one: what game your kid actually plays on Saturday, and why it is built that way.
The four rungs, with the numbers LIJSL prints
Here is the ladder as it appears in the LIJSL 2025-26 Rules and Regulations and the league’s published 2025-26 age-group chart, alongside the U.S. Soccer standard the league is implementing.
| Age group | Format | Field (yards) | Goal | Ball | Halves | On field / max roster |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| U8 and below (town rec) | 4v4, no goalkeeper | 25-35 x 15-25 | 4 ft x 6 ft | Size 3 | Set by the town | 4 / set by the town |
| U9-U10 | 7v7 with goalkeeper | 55-65 x 35-45 | 6.5 ft x 18.5 ft | Size 4 | 2 x 25 min | 7 / 14 |
| U11-U12 | 9v9 with goalkeeper | 70-80 x 45-55 | 7 ft x 21 ft | Size 4 | 2 x 30 min | 9 / 18 |
| U13-U19 | 11v11 | 100-130 x 50-100 | 8 ft x 24 ft | Size 5 | 2 x 35 to 2 x 45 min | 11 / 22 |
Two things the table cannot show you. The first: LIJSL’s youngest bracket is U9. There is no U8 travel division on Long Island. That 4v4 row happens inside your town’s rec or in-house program, and the numbers in it come from the U.S. Soccer standard rather than the league rulebook, because your town sets its own game length and roster. Rockville Centre, Lynbrook, Valley Stream, Oceanside and Baldwin all run their own. If somebody is selling you a travel roster spot for a six-year-old, the age chart is the first thing to open.
The second: a match can start short. LIJSL needs a minimum of 5 players to play a U9 or U10 game, 6 at U11 and U12, and 7 from U13 up. A team that shows up with five at U9 plays 5v7 rather than forfeiting. You will see it happen in October.
Why the U-number is one higher than your kid’s age
This is the part nobody explains at registration, and it generates more confused parent emails than anything else in the system. LIJSL registers by birth year, not by birthday. The published 2025-26 chart puts every player born in calendar 2017 into U9, 2016 into U10, 2015 into U11, 2014 into U12, and 2013 into U13.
Run the arithmetic and the rule falls out. The U-number is the age your kid turns during the calendar year the season finishes. A 2017 kid turns nine in 2026, so she is U9 for the 2025-26 season, and she spends the entire fall being eight years old in a group named for nine. In the spring she catches up to her own label.
Two things follow. First, “my eight-year-old plays U9” is not a clerical error, it is the design. Second, the eligibility column runs one direction only: the published U9 group accepts birth years 2017 through 2019, so a younger kid can be registered up, but an older kid can never be registered down. The league prints a fresh chart every season and every birth year above shifts by one, so the current LIJSL age chart is the source of truth, not this page.
The touches argument, measured with the league’s own tape
Everybody says small-sided games mean more touches. Almost nobody does the arithmetic in front of you. Here it is, using only numbers out of the LIJSL rulebook.
Ground per kid. A mid-range 7v7 field is 60 by 40 yards. That is 2,400 square yards split among 14 bodies, or about 170 square yards each. A mid-range 11v11 field is 110 by 70, which is 7,700 square yards split among 22, or about 350 each. Moving up to 11v11 roughly doubles the ground every kid is responsible for. Twice the ground means the ball is farther away more of the time, and a kid who is not near the ball is not learning soccer. She is learning to jog.
Clock per kid. A U9 game is two 25-minute halves, so 50 minutes with 14 players on the field. A U13 game is two 35s, so 70 minutes with 22. Divide the clock by the bodies and the U9 gets 3 minutes 34 seconds of arithmetic ball share. The U13 gets 3 minutes 11. The shorter game gives more.
Goal per attacker. The 7v7 goal is 6.5 feet by 18.5, about 120 square feet, for seven attackers. The 11v11 goal is 8 by 24, about 192 square feet, for eleven. That works out to roughly 17 square feet of goal per attacker at both ends of the ladder. Somebody sat down with a calculator. The ladder was scaled on purpose.
Which lands on the distinction this blog keeps circling back to. Technique is what your kid can do with a ball and nobody near her. Skill is what she can do with the ball while somebody real is trying to take it off her. A 60-by-40 field with fourteen bodies on it is a technique-to-skill conversion machine, because there is always a defender inside three yards. Put that same eight-year-old on a 110-yard field and she will spend the morning running to places the ball never arrives. The PaC Method guide covers what training should look like at each stage, from Pre-Foundations through Elite. This page is the same argument told from the game side of the fence.
Most training builds technique. Tiempo builds skill.
The build-out line is the whole philosophy in one chalk stripe
If you learn one marking on a 7v7 field, learn this one. At U9 and U10 a build-out line is painted across each half, midway between the top of the penalty area and the halfway line. Three rules hang off it, straight out of U.S. Soccer’s 7v7 modifications to the Laws of the Game:
- When the goalkeeper has the ball in her hands, the whole opposing team must move behind the build-out line until she puts it back into play. Same on every goal kick.
- She may pass, throw or roll it. Punts and drop kicks are not allowed. A punt inside the penalty area is an indirect free kick to the other team.
- The build-out line replaces the halfway line for offside. Nobody can be penalized offside between the halfway line and the build-out line.
Read that list again and you can see exactly what the federation was trying to kill. At U9, the fastest way to win a soccer game is to find your biggest kid, have him boot it as far as he can, and let a scrum decide. The build-out line takes that option off the table. The keeper has to find a teammate. The defenders have to receive it with nobody on them and then do something with it. It manufactures the exact moment that an eight-year-old almost never gets in an 11v11 game: ball at your feet, a decision to make, and a second to make it in.
One more U9-U10 rule worth carrying to the fence: no deliberate heading. Head it on purpose and the restart is an indirect free kick to the other team.
If your kid is the goalkeeper, the build-out line is the reason U9 keeping is mostly a feet job. The Long Island goalkeeper guide goes deeper on that. But here is the part I will say against my own industry: anybody selling your eight-year-old a specialist keeper package built around diving and shot-stopping is selling U14 training to a U9. She is not even allowed to punt. Buy that later.
7 things you should be able to see from the fence
1. “There are only seven of them out there. Is my kid actually touching the ball?”
Count it for one five-minute stretch. Not goals, not tackles. Touches. On a 60-by-40 field with fourteen kids, a player who is involved should be getting somewhere in the range of one to three touches a minute. If your kid goes five straight minutes without one in a 7v7 game, the format is not the problem. Where she is standing is, and where she stands is coachable.
2. “The other team keeps standing on the edge of our box when our keeper has it.”
That is a build-out line violation and the referee should be moving them back. At U9 and U10 the entire defending team retreats behind that line until the goalkeeper releases the ball. When it is not enforced, you get a worse game than the rules intended: the keeper panics, hoofs it, and twelve kids chase it into a corner.
3. “Our keeper punted it and got whistled.”
Correct call. Punts and drop kicks are banned at U9 and U10, and inside the penalty area the restart is an indirect free kick to the other team. It feels harsh the first time. It is the single rule doing the most developmental work on that field, and it is the reason your kid’s team has to learn to pass out of the back at eight instead of at fourteen.
4. “The goals look small and the ball looks small.”
They are, and it is deliberate. The 7v7 goal is 6.5 by 18.5 feet against 8 by 24 at U13, and the ball is a size 4 through U12 before it becomes a size 5. Scaling the equipment down is what makes a shot from an eight-year-old a real shot instead of a lob that a taller kid catches. A regulation goal on a U9 field would make goalkeeping impossible and shooting meaningless.
5. “Half the team is standing on the sideline.”
A LIJSL U9 roster can carry up to 14 players for a 7v7 game, and 18 for 9v9 at U11. Carrying a deep roster is how a club survives a birthday-party weekend, but it also means a coach with 14 kids and 50 minutes of clock is making playing-time decisions every Saturday. Ask what the rotation rule is. Ask in August, not in October.
6. “They all run to the ball in one clump.”
At U9 that is normal and it mostly fixes itself. At U11, in 9v9 on a field a third bigger, it does not. If your kid’s team is still swarming the ball at U11, the format moved up and the coaching did not. That is a fair and specific thing to raise with a coach, and it is a much better question than asking whether your kid is getting enough playing time.
7. “My kid moved up to 9v9 and suddenly looks lost.”
Expected. U11 adds two players, roughly 1,300 more square yards of grass, five more minutes per half, and it removes the build-out line entirely, all in one September. Kids who thrived at 7v7 on quickness often have a hard season at 9v9 because the game starts asking them to see farther than they can run. Give it a full season before you conclude anything about your kid.
What the ladder looks like from Rockville Centre, Lynbrook and Valley Stream
Walk a Nassau County park on a Saturday and the geometry explains itself. A 55-to-65-yard 7v7 field fits crossways inside one full-size 11v11 field with room left over, which is why towns from Rockville Centre to Oceanside to Baldwin stripe two or three small fields inside a big one and run four games in the space that used to hold one. On Long Island the small-sided ladder is a development decision and a field-scarcity decision at the same time, and here those two things happen to agree.
What that means practically: before U9, the format decision belongs to your town. Rec and in-house programs in Lynbrook, East Rockaway, Malverne and Valley Stream write their own 4v4 and 5v5 rules, and they vary. At U9 the decision moves to LIJSL and stops being negotiable. The LIJSL guide decodes the league structure, the town-league-to-travel guide covers the jump itself, and the travel readiness guide covers the harder question of whether your kid should make that jump this year at all. If you are brand new to all of it, start with the first-time soccer parent guide.
And here is what I would actually say to you at the fence: U9 is the rung Long Island families overspend on. The uniform is new, the league is new, the standings are real for the first time, and it feels like the moment to add a private trainer. For most eight-year-olds it is not. Two 7v7 games and two practices a week is already a lot of soccer for a kid who is eight. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends delaying single-sport specialization until roughly age 12 (Brenner, AAP, Pediatrics 2016), and highly specialized youth athletes carry about 2.25 times the odds of an overuse injury compared with low-specialization peers (Post et al., American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2017). Adding volume at U9 is the most common way a family here spends more money and gets a worse outcome. When kids quit, they quit because it stopped being fun and stopped being theirs (Changing the Game Project) – not because they were under-trained at eight.
Where Tiempo fits
We are not a club. We do not run LIJSL travel teams and we do not compete in tournaments. We are the structured individual development layer that sits next to whatever your kid’s club or school program is already doing, and the rec vs travel vs academy vs ECNL breakdown lays out how that category differs from a club.
What we do with the format ladder is simple: we train one rung below the game your kid plays on Saturday. A U9 who plays 7v7 works in 1v1, 2v2, 3v3 and 4v4, because that is where the density of decisions is highest. A U12 who plays 9v9 works at 4v4 and 5v5. Smaller is not the point on its own. The point is how many times per hour your kid has to solve a real problem with the ball at her feet while somebody is actually trying to take it. Confianza, Responsabilidad, Habilidad, Pasion – those are not translated values, they are the four things we are grading, and the person-before-player piece explains why the first one is not soccer.
Now the honest part. If your kid already has two practices and two 7v7 games a week, we are probably not what she needs this season. She does not need more soccer. She needs more of the ball inside the soccer she already has, and the person best placed to give her that is the coach she already sees on Tuesday. That conversation costs nothing. Have it first. If nothing moves after a month, then call us.
FAQ
What format does my 8-year-old play on Long Island?
Almost certainly 7v7 with a goalkeeper. LIJSL’s published age chart puts 8-year-olds in the U9 bracket for the fall half of their season, and U9 and U10 both play 7v7 on a 55-to-65-yard field with a size 4 ball and two 25-minute halves. If your kid is in a town rec program rather than a travel club, the format below U9 is usually 4v4 with no goalkeeper, and your town sets those rules rather than the league.
Why doesn’t my kid play 11v11 yet?
Because 11v11 roughly doubles the ground per player – about 350 square yards each on a 110-by-70 field against about 170 on a 7v7 field – and a kid who is far from the ball is not developing. U.S. Soccer made small-sided formats mandatory for member organizations in August 2017 for exactly that reason, and LIJSL starts 11v11 at U13. The stage-by-stage training guide covers what should be happening in the years before it.
When does my kid move from 7v7 to 9v9?
At U11, per the LIJSL rulebook. The move adds two players, a bigger field at 70-80 by 45-55 yards, a 7-by-21-foot goal, 30-minute halves instead of 25, and rosters up to 18 – and it drops the build-out line. Expect an adjustment season. Kids who dominated 7v7 on quickness often need a year to learn to read a wider field.
What is the build-out line, in one paragraph?
It is a line painted across each half of a 7v7 field, midway between the top of the penalty area and the halfway line. When the goalkeeper has the ball in her hands, or a goal kick is coming, the defending team must retreat behind it. She may pass, throw or roll the ball, but not punt or drop-kick it. It also replaces the halfway line as the offside boundary. Its whole job is to stop U9 games being decided by whoever kicks it farthest.
Can my kid play up an age group?
Up, yes. Down, never. LIJSL’s eligibility column lets a younger player register into an older bracket, which is why the published U9 group accepts three birth years, but a player can never drop below their own. Whether she should is a different question from whether she can, and the answer usually turns on whether she will be a starter or a permanent substitute in the older group.
Does small-sided mean less competitive?
No. The LIJSL rulebook applies the same three-points-for-a-win standings system across its age groups, and games are officiated by certified referees from U9 up. What small-sided changes is what winning requires. On a 60-by-40 field with a build-out line, you cannot win by hoofing it, so the teams that win at U9 tend to be the ones that can pass out of the back. That is the feature, not a side effect.
Sources
- League rules, accessed September 2026: LIJSL, Rules and Regulations 2025-26 (PDF), LIJSL, 2025-26 Age Groups chart (PDF), Long Island Junior Soccer League.
- National standards: U.S. Soccer, Modifications to the Laws of the Game – 7v7 Small-Sided Games, 9U and 10U (copy hosted by Cal South), US Youth Soccer, About, 2026, New York Red Bulls, LIJSL league partner page, 2026.
- Research: Brenner JS, Sports Specialization and Intensive Training in Young Athletes, Pediatrics 2016;138(3):e20162148, Post et al., American Journal of Sports Medicine, 2017, Aspen Institute Project Play, State of Soccer NYC/NJ, 2026, Changing the Game Project, Why Kids Quit Sports.
LIJSL republishes its age chart and rulebook every season, and the birth years shift by one each year. The numbers on this page come from the league’s published 2025-26 documents and the U.S. Soccer small-sided standards behind them. Your club registrar and the current rulebook are the source of truth for the season you are registering for.
¿Prefiere leer en español? Lea esta guía en español: por qué su hijo juega 7v7 y cómo funciona la escalera de formatos en Long Island.
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– Fernando, Tiempo Soccer Academy · Rockville Centre, NY · tiemposoccer.com
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