For some teams, having one player miss the city playoffs could be the difference between a plaque and getting tossed in the first round. This year’s soccer city playoff teams were hit with a big surprise right before the action kicked off. A surprise that affected 32 teams in the tournament.

        One rule as a varsity soccer athlete is that you are not allowed to play with any other teams during the season, including Sunday leagues even if it is solely one day a week. After some snitching and searching, 32 teams were found to have players who played in other leagues. As this is against the rules, all the players involved were stated as ineligible for the city playoffs.                                                              

“It definitely opened the door for all the teams who didn’t have ineligible players,” exclaimed Wyatt Reynolds, ’19. 

Miles Hart, ‘19, noted, “it really sucks, especially for some of the seniors, but they have to accept the punishment”.

“I have never heard of this happening in any of the other sports,” said Jack Turken, ‘19.

The Whitney Varsity team only lost one player, while some other teams lost almost everyone. For some teams, a star player could be the goal scorer or lock-down defender at times, so losing either of them could be devastating. Taft came in the playoffs as the number 1 seed but also lost seven players which could prove to be highly problematic. Any athletes should be aware of this rule because no one wants to miss any part of their already short high school season. 

Photo by Bianca Munoz