Trying Something Different - With Success!

[masshysteria]

After moving to a new town with a relatively young soccer program, I was assigned to a U17 Girls team. The team roster was 14 players long with 7 of them never having played on a soccer team before. Suffice to say, I have my work cut out for me. Fortunately, the girls have great attitudes, support one another, and have a desire to improve.

However, we have yet to actually see any of our improvements reflected in the final score of our games. So, to help keep the girls from getting down about the results and to help them take risks and be creative at games, we keep track of our own score.

The girls, as a team, are awarded points for shots, attacks, possession in the opponents half, headers, saves, winning contested balls, and-just for fun-style points. We just keep track of our points and compare from first half to second half and from game to game.

Now, the girls come off the field and want to know how many points they scored and rarely care about the actual score of the game. Before, they shied away from headers. Now, they are jumping up trying to get the ball. We even give double points from things we want to work on or see more of.

So far it has been quite successful and keeps us competing against ourselves to do better. I'd definitely recommend this idea to coaches of younger teams where player development is crucial, to teams that are looking for ways to improve, and to teams that are down on their luck and need something else to focus on besides the final score.

Just thought I'd share. I would love to hear if anyone uses something similar and what they do., or if you give this a try and how it works for you.

[BigGuy]

After moving to a new town with a relatively young soccer program, I was assigned to a U17 Girls team. The team roster was 14 players long with 7 of them never having played on a soccer team before. Suffice to say, I have my work cut out for me. Fortunately, the girls have great attitudes, support one another, and have a desire to improve.

However, we have yet to actually see any of our improvements reflected in the final score of our games. So, to help keep the girls from getting down about the results and to help them take risks and be creative at games, we keep track of our own score.

The girls, as a team, are awarded points for shots, attacks, possession in the opponents half, headers, saves, winning contested balls, and-just for fun-style points. We just keep track of our points and compare from first half to second half and from game to game.

Now, the girls come off the field and want to know how many points they scored and rarely care about the actual score of the game. Before, they shied away from headers. Now, they are jumping up trying to get the ball. We even give double points from things we want to work on or see more of.

So far it has been quite successful and keeps us competing against ourselves to do better. I'd definitely recommend this idea to coaches of younger teams where player development is crucial, to teams that are looking for ways to improve, and to teams that are down on their luck and need something else to focus on besides the final score.

Just thought I'd share. I would love to hear if anyone uses something similar and what they do., or if you give this a try and how it works for you.

I will just like to say you got it together very smart.

[JoseP]

It sounds like a good idea.

How many people do you have helping you keep track of all these stats? It seems like you'd need a few people.

[masshysteria]

How many people do you have helping you keep track of all these stats? It seems like you'd need a few people.

It is just me, although the girls on the bench know what to look for and are quick to point out when a point is earned.

I carry a clipboard with a piece of paper with columns for each of the possibilities. When a point is earned, I just put a mark underneath the column header. The points are counted as a team, not individual players, so it isn't too hard to keep track of.