This last weekend I was a volunteer to observe games at our association's tournament. I really love watching the games and seeing the kids play. Let me note just a few quick observations:
- In the U9 girls age group (the age group of my daughter's team), their was a huge gap between the top teams and the rest. 4 very strong teams entered the tournament and won their games by an average goal delta of 7 to 8 goals allowing 0 to 1 goal per game. This is not a lot of fun for either team. These top 4 teams, when they played each other, had very competitive matches. Ten teams signed up for this bracket. After a 3 game round robin, here are the total goal differentials for the teams: 24, 29, 8, -28, -17, -16, 16, 13, -3, -26. Several of these games were not a lot of fun. Also, the results were very predictable. Every coach in this age group knew how these mismatched games would turn out. I can't quite put my finger on it, but there must be a better way to group the teams to ensure most matches are close.
- I have to say the kids on the top teams do play with some impressive skills (though some of those teams played outside the rules as well which is not admirable). They win the ball with confidence and play with a tremendous amount of speed. It is fun to watch.
- I only noticed a couple of coaches in an older age group that used degrading comments to "motivate" their team. Clearly the competitive juices were flowing and frustration was getting the better of them. I know how that feels, but as a recreational coach, you don't insult your players. However, most of the coaching was perfectly fine with the emphasis on just letting the girls play.
We used to play the tournaments. I think we'll play again at U11 when the playing field should be leveled again.
-Bill
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