You tell him that there are more important things than soccer in life... and if he is still crying, tell him to go to his room and stfu.
How long has he been crying? A couple of hours, couple of days, longer? If it's just a couple of hours, let him cry. If he's still despondent, let him know that he's got more soccer in his future. It's OK for him to be sad if the things that he cares about don't work out as he would like. Let him know you don't care about the result, even if he had a poor game or didn't play to his potential because failure is not the big deal, but rather how we face failure that matters. If he's blaming his teammates, well, then you've got to work on that. Soccer is a team game and he'll have to learn that blaming others for failure is rarely an option. Those are mostly platitudes, and for that I am sorry. But we all have to learn to live with disappointment.
If he's past the third grade or so, you can tell him boys have no business crying. He will continue to do so on occasion (even as an adult, maybe, in cases of family death or a loss in a major competition) but he'll get the bigger picture and it won't happen as often.
That limb will hold you. My dad's a great father. Dude said the kid cried non stop (for another thread, I suppose, but that may mean something else is wrong). Didn't say he'd been told to stop crying. So tell him. And yeah, IMO it's okay to say to a boy that boys don't cry. It won't stop him every time, but he'll do less of it, and it'll still happen when it's necessary. Anyway... who are you and what have you done with the Stilton who posts in P&CE?
didnt that guy landon donovan and that gangster Clint dempsey cry after being eliminated from last years WC?
Hug him. Take him for ice cream. Hard to cry & eat ice cream at the same time. If he does do both, it will look funny & you can laugh.
