Getting some U5 boys to play some soccer

Here's the deal. We have six U5 boys.

• One is the perfect player. He plays hard, he listens and tries new things. He's into the game. Needless to say, it shows on the pitch.
  
• Another player has a great "play hard" attitude. He can be a bit hard-headed when it comes to listening and trying to improve his game, but he's still a big impact player.
• Another one loves to dribble, but moves at a snails pace. He's creative, but easily distracted.
• Another one is a perfectionist. In order to avoid "failure", he would rather "not try".
• Another one is a most enthusiastic supporter of his team, but when it comes to actually winning the ball, well he would rather step away from that situation.
• Finally, the remaining boy just doesn't seem to have the ability to keep a sense of direction. In addition to avoiding the ball, when he does kick it, it could just as well be into our goal as theirs.

So that's the situation. Needless to say, we often end up playing 1 v 3 with the other 2 players on the field for our team either distracted, disengaged, or diffident.

So for the last game of the season, I had an idea. As the grinch would say, a wonderful, awful idea. I want my boys to be intrinsically motivated by a love of playing soccer, but for this game I broke that rule.

I asked the boys, "Do you know who Luke Skywalker is?"

They responded with an emphatic, "Yes".

"Is he a Jedi?", I asked.

Another, "Yes."

"Was he a great Jedi at first?"

"No, I guess not."

"Did he have a coach?"

"Yes, Qui Jon Jin (or however you spell his name). No, Yoda"

"Boys, I am your Yoda." (They thought that was funny.) "Right now, you are level 0 Jedi Knights. I'm going to tell you how to get to level 1, 2, 3, 4, and even level 5."

• Level 1 - Run fast.
• Level 2 - Run fast to a cover position.
• Level 3 - Run fast to a cover position and win the ball.
• Level 4 - Run fast to a cover position, win the ball, and dribble toward the goal.
• Level 5 - Run fast to a cover position, win the ball, dribble toward the goal, and score!

So what happened after that speech? Not two minutes into the game, the only player on the team never to have scored a goal in 15 games scored his first goal. And it was not a tap in. He had to take it from midfield and put it in the net under some pressure. "You're a level 5!" I yelled from the sideline. A few minutes later, the same boy made a nice run and almost scored again. Later that same half, another player that hadn't scored since last season dribbled it up the sideline and into the goal. Amazing! One of the "diffident" boys was playing so boldly, that when a boy a good 12 inches taller than him was about to score a goal, he stepped in front of him and cleared the ball away. I'm telling you, it was their best game of the season. Was it the speech? I'll never know for sure, but it would seem to be the case.

-Bill