You make it sound like there is something wrong with playing a clean game. I enjoy clean games the most. The fastest paced game I ever played only had 3 fouls called. It was over ten years ago and I still remember how fun it was.
No, I did not say that. I am just saying that outdoor soccer is a sport where physical contact and aggressiveness are a crucial component. Not in every player, perhaps, but in general, for a team. That said, some games come out cleaner than other. In our state there are way too many fouls, some never sanctioned by the refs... We went to play in Japan this summer, and the players there are incredibly dynamic, aggressive, but they very rarely commit a foul. Yep 2 or 3 per game is their average. No, nothing wrong at all with playing a clean game, but -as said instead- there should be a compromise between playing too aggressive and not aggressive at all. Without body-to-body contact there's no soccer, in my opinion. For no-contact soccer, of course there is indoor futsal. But that's another story.
Okay. In my cultural context, "boy scout" would refer to someone that was law-abiding (perhaps naively), not a wimp. I think we agree that playing hard is part of the game. The way I put it is that there is enough physical contact in the game without going out of your way to add some.
Aw, then my bad too. With "Boy scout" I meant "too non-aggressive." With all the due respect for the boy scouts, of course
Maybe after you're up by 4 you can pull a player for each additional goal you go up by... looks like 8 v. 8, you go up by 5, play 7 v. 8, go up by 6 play 6 v. 8, etc... That way you can keep moving players in and out and the game should become balanced pretty quickly. And for the other team, losing 8-1 is about a million times better than losing 7-0, if you keep the full lineup out and just don't shoot it can still be demoralizing for the other group. Remember, scoring is fun. And your team won't care if they can consider that it is because you were sportsmanlike and were playing a few people down.
Play everyone in a different position after each goal. This has the benefit of breaking up any "flow" the boys can get into and also gives everyone a chance to play all the different positions. Becoming an all around player at a young age is much better than just being a striker or defender.