Re: Arrrgggghhh! Parents! How could you even suggest it's the parents? Just kidding, I found out the parents of one of the girls on my U11 team were paying her something like $5 for every goal scored. No wonder she was taking shots on goal when she was a yard off the goal line on the edge of the penalty area (totally ignoring the fact a teammate was wide open in the box). Same parents are convinced that their daughter needs to be on a big club team if she is to have a chance at playing in high school.
in the league i ref in, coaches get fined for scoring when they already have a 6 goal lead. i wish as refs, we could end the game if the score gets to be 5-0 at half. but what i would do is play with less players, do the "in game scoring rules" (like pass 10 times in a row) or when you shoot, miss on purpose. i wouldnt mmove players around. if theyre a striker, you want them working on being a striker. same for halfbacks and fullbacks.
Re: Arrrgggghhh! Parents! I had this happen with my U8s. Parent/guardian offered $5 or $10 to her kid for a goal. Goals don't always come easy. In fact we only had 4 out of 12 on the team score this season. And the players in question weren't among them. So what happens of course? Player(s) get depressed when I play them up top and don't score, and get mopey and disinterested when I play them in the back. "Rewards" like that reinforce in their mind that the only important thing on a soccer team is scoring...not good goalkeeping, transitioning the ball up the field, passing or defending. I took the parent aside after the game and told her that ultimately I could do nothing about it, but the end result was their kid not enjoying the game for the game's sake. I said if she must reward them with money, do it for a nice save or a sweet move in the midfield or takeaway on defense. Not just for one thing.
I don't think I really agree with many of your points. I understand the idea behind the fine, but that to me is just stupid. Are you really going to fine coaches if a kid scores? What ages are these kids anyway? Kids should lose, and yes, kids should get their asses handed to them on a platter once in a while. It keeps them in check. If a team is constantly losing 10-0 and the coach is just having a rough go at it, then it can be looked at and maybe change something around. But to fine a coach, that is a bit much. I agree with playing down a man, but missing on purpose? What on earth does that teach except for a kid to not do what he is coached to do. And how do you think that keeper feels knowing that now all kids are just going to wind up and rip it wide of the net? Also, why not change players up. The worst thing you can do is stereotype a kid into a certain position too early. Yes, strikers are strikers, and defenders are defenders, but they all should learn how to play certain positions. Nothing is worse than a defender getting a great overlapping run and having a look at goal only to hit the worst shot ever, or a forward tracking back to help out getting absolutly owned on a simple deke move. Even for older kids this can help. I switch my HS kids around for a few practices and make them get used to playing another position. It just makes them think a bit different and also see the game from a different perspective.
Sometimes it's more important to learn how to lose. Winning teaches you nothing when it comes too easy.
Hi That is the strangest league I have ever heard of. Surely a coaches job is to develop there own team of players. You can't start worrying about every other team. It's hard enough improving and developing your own players. If at the end of the season your players have improved, you have done your job. Its not about winning and losing at that age its about improving. whether they win 8-0 or lose 8-0 they learn to lose and they learn to win. Matches aren't important at that age, in most cases they won't play a important match until they're about 18 and getting paid to play. To many coaches want there teams to win so much it becomes the be all and end all, just so they can big themselves up "what a great coach I am" Some will recruit all the best players and think they are great coaches cos they win all there matches. You also get coaches (and parents) shouting at a child because he dribbled the ball and tried to beat a opponent and lost the ball. So what, no wonder there are not many great dribblers of the ball out there anymore. Children should be encouraged to take players on and beat them. Who said the coach is right with the players best position. Children should rotate playing in every position when they are young. They learn so much about the roles involved in playing in every position. They should not, at that age be pigeon holed, for example as a striker. Whose to say 3 years down the road he/she could of made a better defender but missed out on learning the basics of defending. A defender can learn a lot playing against a good striker ( his/her movement, the way he/she used there body when controlling the ball. All the things that made defending difficult) and when they play as a striker they can try and implement all the tips they learned. Vicer versa as well. As for missing Shots on purpose............. Don't really know who that would benefit. Cheers John
sorry for my ideas. as for not moving players around: im thinking if players want to go on further in soccer, they should excel at a certain position. Maybe i was wrong a bit. my bad. i was thinking of older players. (u 15 and above) for u-littles i would surely move some players around to get them overall better at soccer, before specific training. as for my other points. they keep the game interesting. I ref soccer. as a ref and spectator (sometimes in real boring youth games) i would like to see more than "keep away" or "dont shoot" mentality.
Hi Sorry if I sounded like I was having a go, just trying to be constructive. Unfortunetly there is no cure to a team getting thrashed, it happens and has been happening since football, sorry soccer began. If you're in the team that gets trashed, you suffer it and get over it. If it happens every week then you leave, if you wish, and find your own level. If you can't find your own level and you get despondent and feel you have had enough you quit. Like in all walks of life you can't keep everyone happy. Teams have been getting thrashed for years, and will carry on getting thrashed for years to come. It might be boring to watch or ref but its part of the game. To much tinkering goes on in the beautiful game and I can't see to much wrong with it overall, so as the saying goes "if it ain't broken don't try and fix it" Once again sorry if I offended you Cheers John
Another thing that may work is to add more players. I.e., clog it up. Ask the other coach if they want to go to 9 players each. The extra two can actually make it harder for your team to score.
Re: Arrrgggghhh! Parents! I had parents on one of my teams doing that. I told them they had to either stop or also pay the same amount for an assist.
Glad I found this thread. I got berated today by the other teams coach after winning 11-0. I coach a U8 boys team.Heres the story: to keep it short, we were up about 4-0 at the beginning of the 3rd quarter, so i started pulling my strikers back to play defense, and my defense moved up top. I put my top goalscorers as GKs for 2 quarters each, and i was taking out some of our other better players. Other coach came up to me and asked me to start playing our weaker players. They were already playing, and subbing is hard because we play 7v7 and my roster has 8 kids. We scored four more making it 8-0. At that point, i told my kids to only shoot and dribble with their weaker foot. Scored three more making it 11-0. Other coach thinks i didnt do enough to stop my team from pressing forward, and i really think i did. He even suggested that i should have let his team score. He threw a pretty bad temper tantrum in front of my kids and parents saying it was bad sportsmanship. I told him i did what i could, and that my kids are just aggressive and we'rent going to sit back. That angered him more. The funny part is I saw this coach and team play a few weeks ago were, due to small rosters, he played a team made up of 6 players. To my surprise he played them 7v6, and once they were up 4-0, he started shouting for his players to keep scoring and made some awful comments about the other team. I feel i did what i could, but a part of me feels bad. The other part is tremendously happy to see my kids develop. We lost our first game 4-0.
You probably should have played a man down once you got to about 6 or 7. You could have pulled it off with only 8 players. But, it seems like you did a lot to try and minimize the score anyway. You shouldn't feel too upset. As for other coach, tell him that "you can only coach one team at a team", and he'll have to coach his own team by himself. (Bobby Bowden once famously told this to Lou Holtz. Holtz was first shocked and then later agreed with the comment.) You can't be responsible for anything more than your own players. It's the other coaches responsibility to improve his team to a standard that doesn't get beat by 10+ goals, so he shouldn't be mad at you.
I disagree that a developmental coach should ever deliberately play down because of the score. You are in effect penalizing the development of his players and sending an unintended message to the kids that sometimes scoring is a bad thing. Let the other team add players instead. At older ages you can also adjust team tactics, but that is too sophisticated for Ulittles where I don't expect the team knows more than one system or knows the difference between high pressure and delayed high pressure defense.
It can be hard to do at times. If we get up by four I start making adjustments so we try to avoid a blow out. But we've had 10 of 12 players score at least one goal last season and 6 of 10 this season, so even if I rotate my primary strikers out, there's no guarantee that the girls I put in their place aren't going to score. And I'm not going to deny a player the chance to score their first ever goal, in some of these cases, and I will rotate them back afterward. That's not running up the score in my definition , and it's only happened a couple of times (7-0, 7-2). If the other coach sees you making the necessary rotations and making a conscious effort to keep the margin reasonable, that should be enough, even if the final score goes up more than you planned.
That's an interesting concept to add players to the other team. I'll have to give that a try sometime.
Wouldn't adding players tend to translate to fewer touches and less space to work with for the team that added a player? Sure, it would put more bodies in the way of the team that was scoring a lot, but would it give the "added player" team any real advantage? If they can pass to the open man and maintain some semblance of space I could see it working, but with ULittles it would be mostly route one, single-player on the ball, whether it was with one more player or not. I'm not saying it doesn't work, I just haven't seen it in practice.
Adding players... interesting way to solve the problem but as a former coach and now ref I don't think that will fly. Reason being, nearly every competition authority (read league, association, etc) sets forth the number of players on the pitch. Unless they specifically authorize adding players above the set amount, it is not allowable. The LOTG are set up the same way. 11 a side max, less is allowable to a point. Face it, you will always have a team on your schedule that is no competition. Use that match to work on a specific skill. Having the discipline to not score can be instructive in itself.
These are little kids - 6 and 7 year olds. Some of them don't even have the discipline not to run into the street when the ice cream truck rolls by. But, good point about the LotG. You might not be able to have a team play with more than 7 in a 7v7 contest.
Which is a problem in and of itself. Many people confuse competitive matches with playing to win. I believe that the younger kids should not ordinarily be playing in competitions. Matches should be for training just as much as team "practices" are. The games should be friendlies, and the players should be playing to win. No scores kept, but scoring goals is the players' objective. Player development is the coaches' objective. No league standings kept so every day starts with a clean slate. In a friendly it doesn't matter if the coaches lend players to even up sides, play extra men, or take water breaks on a hot day. As to your comment about the LOTG, the maximum of 11 a side would not prevent teams from playing 8 or 9 or 10 or 11 v 7. In a competitive match you are correct, the rules of the competition should be enforced no matter how much they hinder player development or safety. In matters of safety or a short roster the competive match is not played rather than accomodations made to avoid problems. Someone else was concerned that the number of touches per player would be fewer with added players. If number of touches were the primary concern, then the kids shouldn't be playing a match to start with.
Re: Arrrgggghhh! Parents! Unless the field is tiny and the goals are huge, this should not happen. I was going to suggest what others have already said (strongest players on the back line, the only shoot with your left foot idea, etc) but if the other team can't keep their keeper awake for the game there isn't much that is going to prevent a blowout.
Re: Arrrgggghhh! Parents! My post is over a year old and I don't coach that team any more... in any case, I taught the team to fight hard for the ball when the other team has it, so that's how the scored quickly when the other team kicked off in the center circle. The point being, it's hard to tell kids in practice to be more aggressive and try to get the ball from the other team, and then tell them to take it easy after they're up a few goals. Of course I did do the other things such as moving the better players to defense(thus making it harder for the other team to score), telling them only to shoot outside the penalty area, etc. But there's only so much you can do. As for adding more players, I know my league would not allow it.