The new web site design launched this week, but we’re also adding to the content here at TopDrawerSoccer.com.

One key area for this is our Players To Watch National Player Rankings, long one of the most popular features of the site. For some time now, we’ve posted a Top 100 listing for the two oldest classes in high school; that is, the class that would be graduated in the present school year, and the class after that.

As part of our commitment to better cover the world of college and elite youth soccer in North America, we’ve expanded both in size and scope. Today we release our first Top 150 list, expanding both the Boys and Girls rankings for the class of 2013. As the latest top 100 was just a couple of weeks ago, that part of the list remains static for now, but there are 50 new players for each gender.

This is just the beginning. Next week we start rolling out Top 150 rankings for the following three classes (2014, 2015 and 2016). That means we will rank every grade in high school, culminating in the senior class’s National Signing Day, at which point we’ll add the incoming group of freshmen. Given the way recruiting is focusing on younger age groups (especially girls) and the increased amount of prospecting among the boys by professional teams, this is wholly consistent with the national landscape.

We keep a national database of players as the starting point for our rankings (if you’re not in it, enter a profile here, you will be asked to register or Sign In first). We track an extensive list of selections to national team camps and other honors including USSF Development Academy, ECNL and U.S. Youth Soccer National League event and season awards, plus U.S. Soccer Training Centers, ODP, id2 and other player identification programs.

From there we look at additional signs of top player performance in a club environment, with the help of an extensive network of observers around the country, and of course college and club coaches on the ground. As a matter of policy, we never share which coaches said what about whom. Another policy is that parents’ opinions about their own children are not considered, but you are welcome to provide feedback about honors and other details that may be of help to us in sifting through thousands of players nationwide

In the end, there’s always some level of subjectivity about players, because after all, how good someone is relative someone else is largely a matter of opinion, but we do our best to make our rankings as educated an opinion as can be.

The rankings will now be updated every quarter. Keeping current rankings for 8 classes of 150 players each is no small task, and it is counterintuitive to think the rankings would change daily or weekly. We will announce each update.

So that’s it. You can read the newest version of the rankings here: 2013 Boys | 2013 Girls. As always, thank you for reading TopDrawerSoccer.com.

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