Looking to see how how others do this. Last night our Rec Program Committee discussed a proposal to stop publicly reporting standings at the U9/U10 levels. We'd still ask coaches to report scores, so we could rebalance divisions each season but stop publishing them. The idea is that doing this would somehow help to change coach behavior to focus on winning the division to focus on player development. If you could share the practices of your rec programs that would be great.
Our inhouse program - no scores, no standings. The big problem I see, people don't know how to evaluate soccer. They equate winning must be good. If you weren't good, you wouldn't win, right? I've started using the checklist here for parent education - putting it in the inhouse coach slides we do every season, linking it from the club website in the "Parents" section: How many times were they able to stop the ball and turn away from pressure? Which dribbling moves were attempted? Did they look to dribble towards open space? How many times was the weak foot used to either dribble or stop the ball? How often did they change direction while dribbling? Did they change speed after making a dribbling move? How many passes were made? (for U10-U12) https://www.soccerparenting.com/parents-guide-analyzing-youth-soccer-game/ I'd like to setup something like a local version of the GoPlayBetter system. Identify some local goal - help a charity, maybe fund end of season party - give parents clickers to track take-ons, passes, turns, shots, etc.
we don't keep standings until our 14U league. we do report scores for all leagues though. that's mainly to give our sponsors publicity in the local media.
I would strongly advise not keeping standings until at least U12 (I would prefer even older). Locally, the old club I used to coach in, publishes standings for U8. I think that is one of the reasons it has become more of a travel club than an open rec club. It sorted out "winning" players and coaches early in rec and they went on to form travel teams leaving the rec program in shambles. When it comes to rebalancing divisions I would recommend shuffling the kids to different teams every season. Yes, as a coach, keeping the same players for a couple of seasons makes it easier, but I always thought a rec program would benefit from a standard curriculum that each coach can follow. Know what to teach at each developmental stage. That way, coaches have an idea what most of the players are capable of. Of course, you'll run into a couple of kids who have never touch a soccer ball before, but that's the fun part.
Our league is part of a city-wide association that provides the refs. Scores are reported to them, mostly to ensure teams move up-or-down in the divisions as needed, and to follow up if blow-outs are too extreme. I can understand all of the arguments for focusing on things other than winning, and we try, but our boys (U10 rec) are very competitive and are used to following MLS and Premier League tables. They know exactly what our record is, despite our efforts to tell them it is about having fun and playing "our game" (spread out, move the ball effectively, use proper defensive techniques). I don't know that not displaying the results and tables helps much in the end.
I don't think you do understand all of the arguments. The idea is that developmental coaches focus on player development. Nobody said that the players weren't suppose to focus on winning. Not keeping official standings allows all the kids to brag about their wins and reduces the likelihood of negative comments about other teams. It also officially recognizes that every match is a new beginning. Development is about the future. When I played little league baseball (more than half a century ago) no official batting averages were tracked by the official scorekeepers, but every kid knew his own batting average. There is enough competitive pressure on kids without adults adding to it.
i think not keeping standings for younger kids helps to de-emphasize the winning-over-all-else mentality. you don't want to eliminate the desire to win, but you do want your coaches to give everyone equal playing time at all positions across the field. you want to let kids play instead of being the "kick it to the italians" coach. it's about teaching everyone the game, not making sure your best 4/7/9 are always on the field so you get a trophy at the end of the season. i haven't seen the movie kicking and screaming in forever, but that's what comes to mind when i think of things i want to avoid with my club. you're always going to have coaches who don't get it, but hopefully most of them understand what you're trying to accomplish.
Any chance I get to post this old video of Stan Van Gundy, I take it. I think the first time I saw it was on a thread here years and years ago. Makes me realize it's universal. He touches on what coaches do to win at the youth level that hurts development. I'm sure all of us can list analogous things we've seen coaches do to win their youth soccer league.
We have a standard curriculum that we ask coaches to follow (hard to require/police anything with volunteers). We likely won't ever shift to shuffling kids to new teams every season. Our teams are generally organized by school so shifting kids means moving them from the team with their friends which always causes an issue. In most age groups we have 2+ teams per school so it is possible to move to a different team and still be with kids you know. Also our practice spaces are allocated by neighborhood so moving kids inevitable makes it harder for them to get to practice.
@jmnva though this is not exactly the same, introducing a minimum playing time % could also help with coaches becoming less results-driven. For example, at my former club, at 7 v 7 and 9 v 9, players were to receive a minimum of 50% playing time per game. This was at 'competitive' level. At Recmy belief is that this should be balanced, but of course, your board would decide on what is best there. Our coaches had an assistant whose sole role on game days was to monitor playing time so that it fit in with the club philosophy. Once again, whether you have the volunteers to do this only you can answer. Those worried about kids losing the will to win...no chance. England are the u17 and U20 World Cup champions, yet Academies don't keep score until U18. Players play to win. It's a sad state of affairs that rules like this have to come in to calm the adults down
Minimum playing time standards are universal here in the US, not by a national edict but because everyone supports them. I have never heard of any development program or recreational program in the US that didn't have a policy on playing time.
As @rca2 noted, we already have playing time requirements. To close this out-- we are implementing it for 3rd grade (AKA U9s) in the fall of 2018 and then for U10s in the fall of 2019
I coach for a pay to play club, but also on the board of my area rec/travel club. At the Rec/Travel we did away with teams for below U10s. We train each age group as a pool, late in the week they get their field and shirt color assignment. They come, they play. If the score gets lopsided, we mix the teams up. We've also been able to mix groups according to ability (A/B/C rankings) so some weeks are more challenging. But most weeks we keep it a random mix. Obviously, there are no scores or standings to keep. Works really well. The number of players we've identified and developed from rec that can play in travel has grown considerably using this method. Teams are naturally small, so getting lots of playing time is no issue. Every club should try this approach. Frankly, it's liberating. We didn't invent it—we saw it bandied about on message boards for years and decided we were going to go for it and implement it. It also doubles as a way to train and indoctrinate your volunteer coaches. We assign two experienced lead coaches per age group. And they train the other coaches as much as they train the players.
been involved in 2 leagues in our town. both rec, my kids like to do other things than soccer. I've coached in both. the big rec league in our suburbia has a lot of teams for the younger folks up to u10 and they post scores and standings after they graduate from u6 to u8. The talent range is so diverse I wish they didn't, but they attempt to sell tournament spots at the end of each season. We entered the spring tournament once and they tried to talk us out of it because our team didn't win many games in the course of the season. we went 1-2 in the tourney, and one of our games was quite respectable, although we did get blown out in the first one. Anyhow, the logic of keeping track was for tourney placement. The parents seem to get more excited and the goal of the rec league admittedly is to transition players to competitive play. the other league we got involved with is more laid back and doesn't do tourneys. the kids have time for other activities and the parents don't yell. it truly is a rec league.
The travel district that my club participates in has decided to do away with standings for the spring. The initial proposal was to do away with keeping/recording scores also. this is for community travel in wht are considered "development" divisions that stay within a district (roughly 1 hr commutes) and not for the competitive division that covers all 7 districts. Shockingly, in the fall, the u9/10 coaches had their players 5 across the build out line jumping on the initial short distribution. Who could have predicted Because everyone will remember that u10 top of the table finish....
who posted the stan van gundy video a while back? he asked something along the lines of "what's more important: that youth league trophy or developing good players?"
We've had to prompt refs when teams are doing that and they are good about instructing players to back off. The purpose of the build out line isn't so they can "gegenpress" the short distribution. I hate people.
You may recall I said years ago that 1 of the things I would change in coaching U10s, if I had a do-over, was to use a lower line of confrontation for pressing. I had them high pressing and, after they learned how, we dominated the matches to the point where the players were getting no experience in playing in the middle third, much less the defensive third. Setting the line of confrontation in the middle third is better for development of the players on both teams.