There were strong rumours of my U17 team (who I had for a season already) leaving to go play for our rival club - simply because their HS coach is the coach of that club. He has promised them playing time for HS if they're at his club. He's also pressing the players to sign "Pre contract agreements" immediately after their tryouts to make them commit. Well, the kids realised whats what and decided to stay with me and my club. I'm over the moon. I'm doing something right, and now have my 3rd team! Get in.
Similar occurrence with my 3rd grade town team (2009,2010, 7v7) this weekend. We've been following the 3four3 methodology since September, and: against a low pressing (ie not bigger and faster than us) team against a team with only one sub (we had 4) with perfect turf and weather conditions ... by 10 minutes into the second half they were exhausted chasing our passes and the score went from 3-1 at half to 7-1 very quickly. The last 15 minutes were spent "playing our game BUT shoot wide of the goal - otherwise you're off for the rest of the game". One of our kids brought me tears of joy by suggesting "yeah, let's just rondo around them" Maximum goal difference is a league rule, but also learning a little empathy isn't a terrible thing once the other team collapses. It will happen to all of us eventually.
AFAIK everything is 'allowed' just not morally/ethically OK. Maybe he values results over everything. Personally I would rather develop all the players and become a better coach myself while doing so. Once you get to college and above then sure, do what you need to I guess. Funny thing is I used to be a coach at the same HS, except I encouraged 'outsiders' to play for the team and there was zero mention of precontracts or begging a player to switch clubs. I can only control what I do, I guess.
I know it's a no-win situation, but I can't think of a situation where I would encourage my players to shoot and miss on purpose. What's the benefit to your players from doing that? I can't remember ever being on the receiving end of a beat down and thinking I was thankful that the other team started tanking so we didn't get our feelings hurt.
Fair questions, and agreed there is no ideal situation. Since we reached the maximum goal differential per league rules, we had to turn *something* off. We're focusing as a team on possession, passing, movement, and shape, so turning off shooting makes the most sense for us. Trust me, those kids' feelings were plenty hurt already at 7-1 and they were done physically and emotionally. Scoring even more would serve no purpose for anyone, soccer-wise or any other "wise" I can think of.. And of course these approaches make sense for our team, age group, and the environment we operate in. I'm well aware they are not universal.
If it’s a huge rout and everyone on the team has a goal-I’m not against missing on purpose. You get to work on your build up and chance creation. Finishing is just hitting a target, so if you are purposefully missing just wide (instead of thumping the ball to the tree line) then it’s just like the real thing.
I think at some point you pull your high press back and let the other team build it out a bit more before pouncing on them. Have your team work on their own build out by winning it from the other team, then sending it around the horn through the keeper to practice...
If it weren't for adults running the competitions, it would be the easiest of fixes--split up the teams like little kids on the playground have the common sense to do.
Is the max goal difference the max that's reported or the max you're allowed without your team being penalized in some way? If it's the latter, that's a weird way to do it. This is what our rec leagues do. It works at that level.
I was on the board of a rec program that did this. The DOC had the vision to implement a lot of what USSF says. "We" (I just rubber stamped what he wanted to do) did away with the concept of teams and the program has almost doubled in size in 3 years. The club coaches the entire age group together. One or two qualified coaches and parent volunteers supervising. Teams are randomly selected each week. After a few weeks players are weighted (there's a phone app you can use now) so you can have all the better players playing better players or have balanced teams. At any point, if the score gets lopsided, we balance the teams out again. The vocal minority resisted at first but, clearly, it's been popular. Leagues (run by adults) are a problem too. Even if coaches were willing, the league prob would sanction any coach who tried to do this. Or parents would have a conniption (vocal minority). The club can get away with it because it's in-house. Sadly, we are at a different club right now because of logistics of getting my kids' to practices and games. I see the opposite. On adjacent fields this week (sorry, "bad coaching" "porn" coming up)... watched a team of 8/9 YOs go from "shooting practice" no technical correction, lines to corner kick practice with lines. On the other side I hear kids whining, then they run past me (doing laps) and I hear coach say, " . . . because you looked winded last game." We just had week 1 of the rec season. Yeah, they might be winded.
The latter: the coach and the town club get penalized by the league if the actual goal difference exceeds a limit. This local town travel team league posts all the scores online, even for third graders, which strikes me as absurd. Even our local pay-to-play club leagues don't post scores online until U11. I'll stop myself from my youth soccer rant despite rca2 creaking that door open with his astute comment , so I'll just jump to the conclusion and say we need solidarity payments and training compensation in this country ASAP. I don't comment on these boards often but find the conversations here super helpful.
The teams I have coached have been older and in a competitive league so blowouts are not that common. But one time my team was running riot on another and it got to the point of 'caring for the losing team'. I asked them to keep possession rather than shooting more, they didn't. It was too easy. So I ended up putting my forwards in defence and defenders up top, etc. The bloody defenders started shooting and banging them in. It was awkward. I think we won like 8-0 or something. I think I recall playing with 10 men also, to even it out. Theres only so much you can do but I wouldn't tell them to "miss".
I do this same drill but I don't call the second one a neutral. Its 2v1 + Goalies - one way and shooter stays (which forces shooter to not shoot from an angle). Then 2 new guys come on and attack the shooter. Up and down, back and forth. Today we were going to pump this same drill up to 3v2 + goalie with shooter and the last pass dropping in transition. But alas practice got cancelled as we got a few inches of snow. Week 2 of training and we stupidly have 2 games this weekend.
Not sure what age this is but one of my favorite things as a kid was when we got to coach ourselves. If they are younger assign 2 parents from the opposite team (parent of team A to be on team B) to help with subs but let the kids manage the positions, formation. Afterwards make a big deal of it.
In our league last year we were the team that got slapped around by 2 teams. We were the worst in our league but we held our own with 3 teams (unfortunately we only played them once). The top 2 teams we played 2x each. One of the 2 took it to us from beginning to end. I was fine with it. The second team was up 4-0 at half and frankly my kids looked defeated (it was freezing rain). Their coach instructed them to require 6 passes before shooting. Afterwards he came up and appologized as it was the best they had played all season (partially because of our ineptness) because the restriction forced them to really stretch the field and hold possession. I would bet they had possession 80% in the second half. First 2 games are this weekend with only 3 practices under our belt. Couple of inches of snow and then rain tomorrow may make our field unplayble which I am ok with.
Insurance rules may not let you do this. I think you need to have a regard adult on the bench. Even a manager
U6 Should we practice tomorrow if it continues to rain? Been raining all day today, rain forecast for the AM tomorrow, our fields get exceptionally muddy, and no games next weekend. Thoughts, feelings, random musings?
What did you do. We cancelled our u7 & u8 practice/scrimmages for the weekend due to it being 38 degrees and the forecast was for snow. It ended up not snowing but it was cold and windy and miserable for my U10 game an hour later.
It was for today. I cancelled it about an hour ago. I don't believe, based on experience, that it would've been a productive practice session since they are so young and the conditions way south of optimal.
I hate to cancel unless I absolutely have to. With 6Us or 8Us, the parents will decide if it's too gross out for their babies. A lot of times that means you have less players and can give the ones who do come more one on one attention. Of course, my experience with players that young are as an academy coach with several teams' players coming to the session so even if half of them don't show, I still have enough players there to make it worth my time.
I only have 7 on the roster, so if half don't show it's really hard to run a decent practice. It became moot anyway. I cancelled at noon, then the club closed the fields at 4:30 PM due to field conditions. My previous club runs it similarly as how you describe it. So you always had numbers to run a decent practice. 3 or 4 6U players—maybe I could go for 30 minutes. Maybe 40. Even with 6 last practice, they were wearing out after 50 minutes. Ability to pay attention was shot after the 50 minute mark last week. Partially their fault (haha), I plan on giving them 2-3 minute breaks but they just get a quick drink and run back on.
Speaking of 6Us, I listened to a "Way of Champions" podcast (#52) with Kris van Der Haegen of the Belgium FA about their approach for the youngest players. A lot of people are aware that they've switched to a 2v2 format for these players, but I wondered if any of your clubs are trying to replicate that. My biggest take away from the episode was for 6Us, we should be asking ourselves how players at this stage want to play the game. Kris says that's dribbling and scoring, and that makes sense. So they designed their program to encourage them to do what they love, hence the 2v2 format. He said if players are playing the way they want and having fun, they will fall in love with the game. Once they love the game, they can start to learn the game in an expanding way as they grow up. If I were king of my club, I would abolish formal games for our 6Us and just have training twice each week. Utilize a play-practice-play format for the sessions, and structure them so the kids are doing as much playing as possible in an even smaller format than the 4v4 the USSF recommends. If we have 30 kids in our 6U division, we should be able to use our 3 8U fields to run 2v2s for the whole group without having anyone on the side.