Will coaches ever "get" the female mentality to inspire selfless teamwork and not field cliques?

My point is that the "girls are one way" and "boys are another" is not a hard and fast rule. And assuming that it is a universal or that certain traits are essentialized by gender is a problem.

For all of the personal experiences recounted in this thread, I can counter with my own. I was never on a team in HS, club, ODP, college where everyone (or even the majority) were tight friends. It still worked despite not the best or strongest coaches. The exception was one year in college where there was a particularly troublesome individual that caused many problems and we had very bad & inexperienced coach. (that player was also in the midst of an affair w/ a prof and was wrecking toxic havoc everywhere).

And the teams I was on where people let their personal issues get in the way? The adult men in some co-ed rec leagues teams I was on. And the worst youth team I ever encountered w/ the cliches and not putting it aside on the field? HS boys.

I am not saying boys & girls or men & women are exactly the same. What I am saying is that assuming things must be that way is wrong. And just b/c something is said a lot around here (or elsewhere) doesn't make it true.

 

You mean that there is not an overriding "the female mentality" that does not naturally engage in "selfless teamwork" and that that naturally tends towards "field cliques," such that the only way for women to have "selfless teamwork" and to avoid "field cliques" is for a coach to "get" them to do it?

 

IMO, the USWNT is one big clique. Somehow it seems to me that several players have a sense of entitlement. Don't ask me why I think that way. Just IMO, by their manuerisms.

That's why I'm not a fan of contracts with players like the USWNT does. I think that's an outdated concept that should have gone away with the 99ers.

Pay them per game. Pay as you play. Make them earn their next call-up.

 

They certainly seem to keep some players around long after their time has passed. Are they telling us that no younger player could not have replaced Shannon Boxx or Christie Rampone by now? Surely there are hundreds of women in their early 20s, in their athletic primes who can do their jobs better at this point.

Getting back to the topic, do you think the USWNT newbies are given the "clique" treatment by their teammates? For example, based on what you've seen do you think Alex Morgan is less likely to receive a ball than, say, Amy Rodriguez?

 

You guys are really into this "clique" thing. Again, not really my experience.

The WNT is like any other team, except they've been doing it longer than youth and college players.

You want a spot on the team and hopefully on the field. There was a time when someone else had that spot. Now you have it. There's always someone else who wants it. You fight them off as long as you can.

If you win the fight, parents and fans of the player who didn't win complain that the tryout was rigged, the coach is a biased incompetent and cliques have formed against their player. You smile and play on.

Then one day you can't hold onto your spot, and you're done.

 

FIFA did some charts about this which I saved as PDF's. I'm not sure how to post them here, but it is true that we were the oldest team. The grid resolution is 6 months, so I'll do a little interpolating.

USA 27 3/4 ... second place

I smile when I see that, because if Rampone was dropped the USA might have been under 27, but she is still our best defender by far

Sweden 27 1/2 ... At least the dot touches the line...third place

So two of the three medalists were 27 1/2+

The dots for Germany, England, and France ( fourth place) all touch the 26 1/2 line

Which makes three of the final four 26 1/2 +


Brazil is just under that. Call it 26 1/3


Then Canada at 26

Everyone else was younger, with the winner Japan coming in next at around 25 3/4 years.


Australia was the only younger team to make the final 8. They were 22 1/2


The youngest team was Korea, at just under 21 years of age. That may be wrong, since I seem to recall they brought a younger team in at the last minute. ( lightning strike, you know)

But the team ages of all the medal contenders were within 2 years of each other, or about half of a Cup cycle.

Three of the four medal contenders were within about a year and a quarter of each other, or perhaps a quarter Cup cycle.


Not sure what that all says about the virtues of youth. Looks like 26 3/4 was the sweet spot. We missed by a year.

 

By the way...

The biggest clique I can think of was the 91'ers.

How come this wasn't discussed then?

 

Regarding the Morgan/Rodriguez question, not a chance.

Regarding the Boxx question, are you forgetting that Boxx was on the 2011 All-WWC team?

 

Yes but should we not be looking to the future? A lot of talented players in the men's game leave international competition long before they are not effective players anymore.

 

This thread is probably headed off in a direction best pursued in WNT posts, but we set the bar Very High for USWNT. We want players who can contribute to a team that will win the Olympics and challenge robustly for each WWC. When you look at who is left playing in WPS (which has been a savage winnowing machine to select for only the most talented young players), and take out all the foreign players and everyone 30 and above, it is not clear to me that the player pool is that deep to feed a World Champion team? There is a lot more depth in the men's game, hence the more rapid turnover. There is a world of difference between a clique and playing your best players. Not to say that USWNT has not been loyal to players past their prime, but I'd say most of the senior players earn their spots.

 

(Note: I'm going to veer so far off topic here I'll probably kill the thread. Apologies in advance.)

I have a hard time believing that, UNC4EVER. The USWNT should have perhaps the deepest pool in the world given the participation in this country, the superior state of women's equality in the United States compared with almost every country in the world, and the presence of Title IX. We have had a huge head start over almost every other country in the world.

The youth ranks in the U.S. are teeming with young girls eager to progress through the ranks and get their chance to play at the highest level possible. Here's where the USWNT has gone wrong: They were spoiled at first, given the large pool of talent and created teams that were built on power and size rather than skill and the ability to function as a team. As the rest of the world has begun to catch up, we're seeing a more efficient, more technical style of soccer overseas. And so far the U.S. doesn't have an answer for it.

France dominated us in possession in the World Cup thanks to superior technical play but didn't have the guns to put us away. Given that their team receives only marginal support from their country while the USWNT receives massive support, it was a great accomplishment to show they could go toe to toe with the U.S. Then Japan, another technical team who could put the ball away, proved that the brute style of soccer used by the U.S. and Germany was not the only way to win.

Yes, this thread is veering off course into WNT territory, but to take it back to the college game and cliques, I have a couple of points: 1) Until the USWNT takes notice and starts extracting more technical players from the college ranks similar to the players we see playing for France, Japan, and Brazil, they're going to begin to see our grasp slip, and 2) the longer we commit to the physical style used by most college programs, the faster we will see our dominance slip.

The college game is the feeder program for women. For men, the best players don't even play college soccer. They get recruited at age 16-18 to play for a pro club. For women, college is finishing school. They progress to the pros and national pool after college. And for the most part, college ball is in a pretty sorry state when it comes to the sophistication of the game. Only a handful of schools play the more technical style that will be required for us to maintain our dominance in world competition.

College coaches are there to win and win now. It's not easy to develop a sophisticated style of play that will foster superior players for national competition. Yet a few coaches have done it. To take it back to the origin of this thread, dabeautifulgame was complaining about the choice of players and "sacred cows." Coaches are choosing the players who they feel can help them win in the short run. They have no long-term development plan because the players are gone so quickly.

 

If coaches use irrational criteria to decide who gets time on the field, they are simply bad coaches. The time to identify a bad coach is not when the bad coaching effects your player. The time to identify who is a good or bad coach is before your player commits to the team. The same holds true for spouses, also.

 

Well, I know a few programs where the best 11 are truly not on the field. This is not personal because I have no longer have kids in the game. A couple are right here in Kentucky and always talk about lofty NCAA tournament goals...only to make some bonehead move of weird subs in the heat of battle. The kids don't know until they get there how bad the game management is, especially if they lucked into a good weekend on visits. Decent coaching is present part of the time, but when it is crunch time it all goes south.
On another note, saw Penn State/Ohio State. FSU should have done whatever it took to keep McNulty. Great GK. (Don't know if that one was a clique thing or what (wouldnt think MK would buy that). But with PSU she is clicking on all cylinders.)

 

With some anxiety, I'm gonna weigh back in.

For those posters who were objecting to gender sterotyping: So was anyone suggesting that males don't have problems with ego, and constructive team-solidarity? If so, please lead me to your planet. I'd like to imigrate. .

What I found interesting about this (original) post was that women might (and in my opinion DO) have different ways of Expressing their desire for approval, acceptance and dominance within a team than do men. If (predominately) male coaches then under-address this behavior (esp. at D1 level), either because of (i) their own gender sterotyping; (ii) lack of gender sensitivity to the issue or its signifigance; (iii) weak coaching without regard to gender coached; then the team can suffer significant harm. Coaches Need to be on top of interpersonal player dynamics if they are to have successful teams. If they don't "get" girls, or are not aggressive in understanding the backstory on their particular team, they will (IMO) struggle. I thought that was the point of the original post, and I continue to think it represents a reasonable thread and a thoughful challenge for coaches in women's programs.

 

I'm just going to throw a couple things out there as devil's advocate to see what debate might be sparked.

We'd all agree, I think, that most of us have only a vague perception of what is really going on day to day within a program. Even if we have kids on a team we're only hearing their perspective on things and as parents we all know how that can go. So do we automatically leap to conclusions when coaches make decisions that go against our perception that a player is a favorite of the coach or that the coach is making a bad decision? In some, if not many cases, could the coach actually be making a sound decision based on his/her day to day observations and interactions with the team? We see only a very small part and perhaps only hear a bit more so is it a bit rash to think we've figured out why a coach is doing what they do?

Second one, and I think this is a big one--is it necessarily the coaches fault in every case when cliques form? Do we not think the players have the power, if they choose to exercise it, to undermine the coach or the team if they see fit? Could, despite the best intentions of the coach, a player or group of players be so selfish as to choose what they want to do over what might be best for the team or not even realize that what they're doing is detrimental?

I suppose you could say that a coach that let's the above happen is a bad coach, though perhaps it's more of a case of being a bad recruiter or judge of character in that process for bringing such players into the program. But there are definitely scenarios where a few bad apples can spoil the bunch and sometimes those apples can be very difficult to simply throw out.

I'm not saying that coaches never make bad decisions or don't exacerbate clique issues, but I also think there is another side to the puzzle that is team chemistry that's worth considering.

 

I think this is an terrific post.

I also think this is an issue worthy of discussion, but I think it is one where hyperbole -- not by Lensois, who has done just the opposite of engaging in hyperbole -- is most unhelpful.

 

Good points. Coaching choices are highly subjective. Even though we see the Player A runs faster, shoots better, passes better, and just overall appears to be a better soccer player by our perceptions, a coach will have his subjective reasons to believe that Player B is the right choice.

Could be a chemistry thing. Could be that she's in there because she's the best at getting balls to his star player. Could be that she's more well liked.

No matter how much we rail against the coach for this decision, arguing the merits of Player A is like arguing how many angels fit on the head of a pin. His reasons are based on opinion and therefore are incontrovertible.

I don't think anyone was saying that male athletes don't have issues. They certainly do. It's just that they are different issues. When my daughter played club soccer, I once heard a coach say that boys always think they're better than they are and that girls don't think they are as good as they are. Girls require more building up than boys due to emotional issues and that boys need more ego management to make them cooperative. Sweeping generalizations? Sure they are! But they have a grain of truth!

A coach who does not know and practice techniques to address the different psychology of a female athlete is very likely to fail. Or at the very least underperform.

 

Really? You don't think the players have anything to do with it? They don't resist the best intentions of a coach and fail to buy in for whatever reason? You think coaches know EVERYTHING that goes on within a team to affect the dynamics and chemistry of a team? The coach might be the nominal leader but I would argue that unless there is good player leadership on the team the best coach in the world may very well struggle with the chemistry issue.

 

A coach does set the tone and the difference between men and women are way overblown especially on the male sides. Most wisdom set apart for women teams would be best followed for male teams also.

I disagree that the men are more egotistical than women they are just more individualistic in their thinking. (I play well I will fit in)

Women are more group think. (once I fit in I will play well)

yes you should be aware of these differences but as a coach you want a player no matter what gender playing with confidence other wise they will not play their best.

What I find funny about the OP is that what they are talking about is conjecture and rumor from the outside looking in. It easy to say with (limited soccer knowledge) that this player is a "sacred cow" the coach is creating cliques my kid is not getting a fair shake. It just sounds like you are not looking at the situation objectively. This comes across with the reason you give that are weak at best and invalid at worst.

To get back to the bigger topic you see it in every sport when a coach loses the team it is time for the coach to go no matter how good the coach is. The difference in college over pro is that the team can change drastically from year to year.

 

I am right in the real world. You have to figure out how things really are. I'm not saying it is easy. But if you go in thinking your perception is true, and it is not, then things tend not to work out the way you want.

The following quote is from a play written in 1693:

Thus grief still treads upon the heels of pleasure:
Married in haste, we may repent at leisure.

 

The turnover is quicker than that, it's every six months or so. Seniors usually leave after the fall season, frosh come in to start the year in August and those subtractions/additions will always cause a shift in dynamics.