How LaceUp Works

A plain-English tour of how evaluations, age groups, targets, and the AI plan fit together. Skim it in a couple of minutes, or jump to a section.

The evaluation loop

A coach rates a player on a set of skills. The family gets a clear report and a plan for what to work on next. The coach re-rates every few weeks, so the report shows real movement over a season. One snapshot shows where a player stands today. A steady rhythm shows whether they are developing, which is what every family wants to know.

Clubs already do the developing on the field. The gap LaceUp fills is the measurement rhythm around it, so the work a coach is already doing becomes something a family can see, season over season.

The skills and the five levels

An outfield player is evaluated on 29 skills, grouped into Technical, Tactical, Physical, Psychological, and Character. Goalkeepers have their own keeper-specific set so a keeper is judged on the job they actually do, not on an outfield checklist.

Every skill is rated on the same five levels, from earliest to most developed:

1Emerging2Developing3Competent4Proficient5Advanced

The full list of skills, with what each level looks like at each age, lives on the Skill Framework page.

How age groups work

Every player is scored against an age group, from U6 up to U19, not against a single birthday. A target is the level a typical player in that age group is expected to reach, so a U10 is measured against U10 expectations.

We do it this way on purpose. Scoring against an age band means we never need to store a child's date of birth to produce a report, which is less personal information held on a kid. It also keeps the report fair: a player is compared to where their age group should be, not ranked against the other children on the team.

A player can sit on more than one team, for example a club team and a skills group. The report still reads against one age group, and when a new season starts the age group rolls forward so the targets keep pace with the player.

Where the age targets come from

The targets are not made up. Each one is drawn from established youth development standards:

  • US Soccer Player Development Framework the national federation's grassroots guidance for what players should be working toward by age.
  • United Soccer Coaches Competency Matrix the stage-by-stage coaching standard, formerly known as the NSCAA matrix.
  • AYSO coaching standards age-appropriate expectations from one of the largest US youth soccer programs.

On the Skill Framework page, each age target shows the source it came from, so you can check the homework for any skill at any age.

What changed recently

In June 2026 we reviewed the 1v1 attacking and defending expectations for the younger age groups and adjusted them so the targets match how 1v1 actually develops, rather than moving in a straight line every year. The change came out of coach feedback on what a real player at those ages can be expected to do.

You can see the current 1v1 targets, age by age and with their sources, on the Skill Framework page.

How the AI development plan works

When a coach finishes rating a player, an AI assistant reads only those rubric scores and drafts a short development plan: the skills to focus on next and a simple way to work on them. It does not see anything else about the child. It works from the coach's ratings, nothing more.

The plan is a draft for the coach, not the final word. The coach reviews it, adjusts anything that does not fit the player they know, and only then is it part of the report a family sees. The coach stays the expert. The AI just saves them the blank page.

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