appoo, I need to post something at your thread well my opinion is that this is true about soccer dad.. unfortunately many daddies in the USA (and not only there) dream about big career of their kids in soccer and they do everything just to make this dream true...someday they forgot to ask their kids is this was their dream as well.. some american daddies live this soccer enthusiasm more than their kids..and put them a bit under pressure...try to get best tryouts..and if it does not work, kids are disappointed and daddies are mad at their kids...I know it a bit...my father also used to be a coach of youth team, well he had normal job, but in spare time he used to spend a lot of time with kids and helped to coach them...it was in Munich....and he often said that some parents had very high expectations on their kids....some kids felt overhelmed..only if a child or young player want to be successful, they will be successful in soccer.....I know that it is common in the USA than many daddies try to help coach teams of their children...and in some way "mix" into their soccer career a lot......they should give children full freedom....sometimes it is better when kids have another coach then own daddy...sometimes they want to be simply left alone and play for themself....it is o.k for daddies to watch them how to play..but it is not o.k to put them under pressure or tell them what they need to do...something like this...if you are not good, you will not go to England or another european club or top MLS club.....yes I think ameriacan daddies who are interested in soccer or played soccer themself have high expectations on kids....i think kids their parents have no idea about soccer, but they only support them and give them freedom, are better players...I´m not sure about it...just my feeling.. bltleo who like appoo
I'm just curious, but do you have refs at your games? Or are these friendlies for the little guys? I'm concerned if there were refs that if what you're describing is true, they are not warning these other players on their bad behavior. If there isn't refs, why not speak with the opposing coach in a nice/civil manner after the game, and see what he says. Maybe he doesn't realize what some of his players are doing. And then maybe he's a prick like you said and does. If he stays in this sport for any length of time coaching, eventually he'll be put in his place by others in the sport (parent/player/other coaches). And his "Prick Hall of Fame" reputation will follow him wherever he goes and eventually he'll start losing players and support.
Right - if both teams score several goals the kids will usually decide they won or it was a tie. I simply refuse to keep track of the goals - so when they ask me I can just say 'I think it's close' and leave it at that. They know when they are getting worked which is what I meant by losing. My limited experience is that the mismatches in score are dictated by how much fun the other coach sucks out of the game and not the relative ability of the teams. That blows! I could coach them to win but they wouldn't learn anything and it would mean the two big fast kids score all the goals and the others have to stick to their spots. The league tried to control these idiots in the 'coaches' meeting but they persist. I hope we have very few in the league.
No, the coaches "reffed" the game. 1. I didn't really trust myself to not do something that would get picked up on video camera and end up on PTI. 2. Like I wrote, if it was one, or even two things...but the whole buffet of prickish behavior made this an open and shut case, especially when the parents of the other team were telling him how great he was. I don't think he would have been receptive to my message.
Alright, maybe this is my bad coaching, but I see your kids might not be having a lot fun losing. If you want to win, don't give them positions. Let's say the other team spreads out their players. Well, everytime your team goes for the ball there will be 7 players versus their 1. The 7 will win most of the time. Even if the 1 wins the ball, the farthest he can kick is probably 5 yards. The 7 will get it back. Besides, putting them in positions is asking for a lot patience from kids who just want a chance to kick the ball. While it is all good teaching them the right soccer, the goal should be to have fun. That way they come back next year and can teach them more.
Wait til the parents start complaining that you are losing and start trying to take over practice and pregame stuff. It gets worse. I coached U-8 girls and I will never coach below U-12 or U-14 again. Absolute hell.
Jose, no offense, but have you ever seen U-7s play? It's very common to be able to put a hula hoop around 3 players on one team and two on the other. The game is 4v4, on a field that's 96'x120'. If the other team gets a 7v1, they're REALLY cheating. The assistant coach is already telling the kids who get the ball to just whack it up the field. I hope that by having a practice dedicated to getting kids in a position where the player with the ball has a passing option will enable me to shut that down. There's two reasons whacking the ball up the field immediately is a bad idea. 1. It's not teaching them the sport. 2. It's no fun for the kids to always be chasing the ball. He also was trying to get me to match the other coach's sweeper tactics.
I think the kids do think it's fun to chase the ball, they always chase every ball no matter what position you put them in. I'm surprised the sweeper actually worked b/c most kids that age would get bored and wander towards the ball.
At the U-7 level there are plenty of kids who do not want to be there or the kids who look at the butterflys, pick grass, wave at their mommy etc.
My kids are 6, 8 and 10, and I've coached at all these levels in rec league and club. Don't go into a tailspin over the first week and change everything you know these kids need to learn. I'm guessing your kids were basically a young team for this age group, effectively playing up vs. kids a year older last week. The kids are probably disconsolate because they see that the behavior of the other team/coach was bumming you out, so they get bummed out. The most important thing you can do is really convince yourself that your job is to help them learn to play regardless of whether they win. These kids are too young to be competing in a legitimate sporting competition like you remember when you were 10 or 12. Don't try to make that happen. Trust me, you aren't going to see competent combination play until U8 or U9. Trying to teach U7s not bunch up and to pass usually has the unfortunate consequence of taking away their aggressiveness and initiative. If your kids get good at dribbling with their heads up, traping a ball, kicking the ball, shielding from a defender and make some basic direction changes with the ball at their feet, you will have served them very, very, very well (even if they all bang into each other in the games, fall down, and the other team runs down undefended and scores). Do me a favor and try this drill with your 7 year olds. First part is called marbles. Every kid has a ball in an enclosed circle and they have to just keep dribbling, avoiding the other players (thats the marbles part). After a while, you change to "fox in the hen house". Same space, but make one or two kids a fox (they don't have a ball, and try and knock out the other kids balls until one kid is left). Then make everyone the fox , but with a ball and they are trying to both protect their ball and knock out the other kids. If they are all too careful, they you become a fox and make them move, turn, run. The kids will practice dribbling, turning, keeping their heads up, awareness and ball winning. And there is very little standing around. Works much better than dribbling cones.
I started a thread on the youth forum for just running rants/problems/issues as we encounter them during U7 or similar coaching this season (as opposed to general philosophical issues regarding youth development in general). If you're interested.
I would agree with that. I recall U8 competitive, with players who had played rec league as U6s and U7s. Some of the players were starting to recognize that they had teammates, some did not. The worst player on the team with regards to field recognition was a shifty dribbler who was good on the ball. He would kill bad teams by dribbling solo, would get his head beaten in against good teams, losing the ball off the dribble every single time. Drove the other parents and sometimes the coach mad. Now he's 13 1/2 years old, still shifty on the dribble, and the model of the team player. As it turned out, he's not athletic enough to be a solo dribble killer at this age, this level of competitiveness ... but he figured that out long ago. So he uses the skills to create space and make the simple pass. Moral of the story? Technique and enthusiasm is what counts at this age. Tactics are nice to haves, no more.
I coached a U10 team a couple of years ago that was just a great bunch of kids. We had a nice balance of speed, skill and athleticism. Did a lot of drills to develop touch and spacing and rotated four different players through the keeper spot. Kids played attacking and defending postions every match. We started out the season on fire. I was constantly pulling my better players back to defensive spots to prevent blow outs. Then it happened...the parents wanted more glory for their son. "Why doesn't Johnny play forward more?" "Billy's not getting to score as many goals as other kids." "Jesse's turn at forward is late in the match so we aren't attacking as aggresively." Keep in mind, every kid on the team except one (who didn't want the opportunity) scored at least one goal during the season. Probably half of these kids had never scored before in an organized match. The parents tore the team apart with petty jealousy. We ended up in second place but it really hurt to watch a great team turn mediocre as the kids were taught their personal glory was more important than being a team.
So is there some validity to the concept that if you can get the kid dedicated personal instruction from someone who is qualified, so he does things the right way, kids up until maybe 10 or so would just be better off the rst of the time playing mostly pick up soccer and leaving the club scene to the nutjob parents? Or are your faced to subject yourself and, more importantly, your kid to that kind of environment? I dunno, I guess there's some motivational value to have your parents cheering for you on the sidelines. I mean everybody has an ego and sports have always been one of the most popular ways to feed it. Do we lose something in the translation if we suppress that aspect too much?
Sure. You wouldn't need a whole lot of personal instruction, either, just enough such that the fundamentals were sound. An hour here, an hour there. Nothing too substantial. However ... you'd need a few other kids around who really wanted to play. Because I don't see this happening with a boy messing around with the ball on his own. You need an opponent, since the critical early skill (and late skill, I suppose) is 1v1 attacking/defending. Perhaps a very dedicated dad could fulfill that role. But probably for the kid to get the hours he would need, as well as the variety, he'd need to be in a soccer-filled neighborhood.
Teach the children well? Nice headline.. however I would ask following question how many kids really want to play soccer because THEY WANT and they HAVE OWN GOALS... and how many kids play soccer only to make pleasure for their parents they push them to play soccer and try to "TEACH THEM"...how many kids play soccer only to fill goals of their parents? I have noticed that mostly kids who are super successful are kids that parents was not involved in their coaching children themself should decide what they want to do and what not... bltleo GERMANY
You are touching on a broader issue for kids in the USA these days. Kids lives are built around structured activities. It makes people weak and dependent upon others. Not just in soccer. In school, work, everything. Early training in "making up your own mind" is severely lacking.
hops...no idea what you mean... maybe I misunderstood the meaning of the text....I had something else in my mind...
Well, it was week 2, not week 1. No, this is CASL, all the kids are the same age, unless for some reason the other team had a kid playing a year up. No, they were disconsolate because the other team racked up 10 goals in 3 quarters and were ahead 10-0, and the sweeper tactic is just deadly at that age. I can barely get any of my kids (besides my own his one contribution) to pass the ball. Almost every goal is scored on a funny defensive mistake, or one kid breaking from the pack and getting a breakaway. Well, you play with a sweeper, and there are no breakaways. The kids don't have close control on the dribble, they almost never pass, so the sweeper just attacks the ball and cleans up a loose dribble. Again, my aim is to ensure they can compete. Win, lose, I don't care. They barely know the score unless a-hole parents are calling it out. I just want to give them a chance to be competent out there. That's what I remember as being fun, mastering something. I wasn't much of a football player, but I was a great blitzer from linebacker. Why? I figured out, on my own, that the best way to blitz was not to try to run over the center like our dumbass coaches taught, but to jump between the center and the guard. That was the only thing I liked about little league football, because it was the only thing I was really good at. If I can teach these kids to "win" a ball, take it wide, and get it up the line to a teammate, and then they see that teammate take it in and score, that'll be fun for them. Oh I agree. My goal is to get them to pass. Once. I swear to God, that team that crushed us, I don't think they completed a single thing that we would recognize as a pass. Not one. The whole game. Now, if Wyatt wins the ball and passes it up the line to Nicholas, who dribbles toward the goal and is facing three defenders, and he lays it off to Fredis for a tap in, if we make two passes on the same play, I swear I'll jizz myself. Believe me, my goals are realistic. Maybe. But previously, I was coaching a 2nd half of the season U-5 team (meaning many of the kids were already 5.) There weren't many kids there one week, so I got to work with 3 kids in my drill. We had a drill where they tried to score on me. Now, I played defense like a 5 year old. I chased, I didn't play angles. At first, they couldn't score, but they figured it out. Then we got to the "game" portion, where half the kids put on pinnies. At this point of the season, I knew the kids, and I figured my kids would lose. They had better players. But my kids had really absorbed the lessons, and spread out and passed the ball. On "breakaway" goals we lost, as I expected, maybe by two goals. Something like that. But on "passing" goals we won something like 4-0. The 0 was a normal number, the 4 was freakish. And it was all because a bunch of kids who were old 4s or young 5s had spent 15 minutes trying to score 3v1 on me. So I think U7s can get the concept of passing. All I'm looking for is for them to learn to pass it up the wing when deep in their end, and knock it into the middle toward their goal when confronted with 2 defenders. (In a bit of irony, all I want is for them to master the Reyna "pass it out of pressure" pass.) Of course, I've got to get a player to be out on the wing to receive the pass, and another to be running toward the goal. But they'll come to practice more and play at home more if they like soccer, and they'll like soccer more if they feel competent at it. That's my view anyway. It may sound fine to spend 90% of practice time on ballwork, but I just don't think that's gonna work. Last week, we had better "soccer" player, but they had the killer tactic, and guess what? We got killed. I've never had them do that.
Yeah well, that's Germany. Soccer on TV everywhere. Role models. In the U.S., at least in the suburbs, it's the opposite. Daddy's kids are far and away overrepresented. Jonathan Spector of West Ham is the most successful Illinois player since 34-year old Brian McBride. Coached and trained by daddy as a youngster. At a lower and younger level, five of the eight Regional Pool ODP kids from Illinois at my son's age group are coaches' sons. Not rec league coaches, but competitive soccer coaches. 'Tis the way of the U.S. No surprise, really. Go through the profiles of NFL, NBA, or major league baseball stars and you'll see a lot of guys whose daddies brought them up to play the sport. Golf, too. Ask Tiger.
voros, one of the changes in American society since I was my son's age (in the early 70s) is that the home is much more of an investment than it used to be. And people are getting married and having kids later. What that means is that neighborhoods are filled with old people like my parents, who hold onto their house because of its investment power, when their parents would have moved into an apartment. And oldsters are more affluent, so they can hire people to keep up the yard, and healthier, so they have more years in the house without kids before they have to go to a home of some type. At the other end, young adults are far more common to buy a home on their own. So neighborhoods aren't filled with kids like they used to be. I really resent the fact that in suburbia/exurbia, any goddamn thing you want your child to do, you have to drive them somewhere and pay someone for it. I mean, my 3 year old girl is doing gymnastics at $50/mo. When my sister was her age, she was out with her friends doing somersaults and very bad cartwheels in the grass. The option you lay out there as preferrable is akin to saying a unicorn is preferrable to a pony, as a pet.
You are probably not aware, but that's a takeoff on a popular song from the late 60's. Was it Crosby Stills Nash and Young? "Parents teach...your children well...."
That is true. I live on a short block with only about 15 houses. Still, only two of the houses have children -- mine and one across the street with two kids who are several years younger than him. That's it. And this is a classic kiddie suburb, with no apartment buildings, a well-known school system that attracts people to the neighborhood, and steep property taxes to fund the schools. If you tried to gather together half a dozen boys who are roughly my son's age so as to get a pickup soccer game, you'd need to scour several blocks. And to get a game with kids who actually would be willing to play and who are a bit athletic, you'd need to scour pretty close to a square mile.
yeah maybe german and american way of youth soccer is different... yeah, our boys have their own role model...they want to be beckham, ballack etc....maybe american kids want to be just like their daddies....in some way daddies can be also role models.. anyway your comment persuaded me.. I liked you mentioned "ROLE MODELS"..they are very important in career of eveyone, not just in soccer...it is very good to have role model....I always have had one role model....and it helped me a lot to develop my personality.. many thanks John for comment. Bltleo