Encouraging Recreational Soccer Match Parity

The league where we play recreational soccer doesn't keep standings until U9. At that point, official scores and standings are maintained by the league. Parity is highly encouraged by our league. One way they do this that the official goal differential for any match is limited to 3 goals. In other words, the winning team will never have more than a 3 goal lead for any game in the official standings.

Now your place in the standings does matter because it is the top 3 teams in the bracket who receive trophies. Often one of these positions will come down to a tie breaker. Head-to-Head is the first tie-breaker which is clearly good, but after that are goal-differential and goals-allowed.

Goal-differential is actually good because it is independent of the number of goals the opposing team scored so long as the difference is 3 or more. In other words, the better team if they are several goals up, can play in such a way that the other team may score some goals and still not make the goal differential less than 3.

Goals allowed, on the other hand, discourages the better team from allowing the other team to score any goals at all. A shutout is the best possible outcome from a tie-breaker standpoint. To top it off, if the goals allowed are equal, they actually use the number of shutouts as the next criteria.

Standings based on points (3 for win, etc), then head-to-head, then goal differential are excellent tie breakers, but in just the two and a half years I've coached since the girls turned U9, I've seen trophies come down to the goals-allowed tie breaker. It does happen, particularly in a 3-way tie. And having goals-allowed as a tie breaker will influence how "generous" a coach will be in those mismatches that will occur during the season.

Recreational league tie-breakers should not include goals-allowed or shutouts. Instead, base the final standings on fewest cautions during the season or a playoff shootout or something like that. Make it based on good sportsmanship or at least something fun rather than how well you kept the weaker teams out of the goal.

Playing to Win or Do We? (cont)

I was looking for studies / surveys of why kids play soccer to support / disprove my argument that we over-emphasize winning while coaching our kids. I found a good BBC blog article that supports that we are overemphasizing winning at a young age and it's killing England's ability to compete at the international level. (Fun is the Key to England's Football Future)

I have to believe we parents and coaches are overemphasizing winning. I'm including me. For example, we played a game this last season against a team that had the worst record in the bracket. I pulled the girls that usually score; I hate "punishing" them for being good players, but it gives the other girls a chance to step up; its good for the team. Still the game was one-sided. I put some girls up front that rarely score and moved the forwards to the back. Still the game was one-sided.

At this point I'm concerned about what I did (or didn't do). I think I should have pulled one of my girls and gone a player down. I rationalized not doing that by telling myself I was giving our less-inclined-to-score-players a great chance to learn a different aspect of the game. While this was true, the players at the back and the keeper were not challenged at all. Here is the point, where if I'd kept in mind that players enjoy the challenge (in the end) more than the victory, I would have done things differently.

The game is about entertainment. The game is about memories. If we'd gone a player or two down and the other team had scored some goals, would I have regretted it? Or would the great plays we would have made while playing short-sided been far better memories? (I'm not even considering the impact on the other team, but I have to assume they would have liked getting the ball out of their end even if they had a number advantage.)

I'm going to go with the opportunity to make great memories in the future.

Playing to Win or Do We?

We play to win. We try our hardest because we want to win. We practice, sweat, freeze, and sacrifice because we want to win. The coach feels the urge to win in his players and himself and does everything in his power to win. It so easy to forget, soccer isn't a job. Soccer may help prepare us for a job, it may help us do our job better, but soccer is not a job (at least for most of us). It is so easy to forget that you can win a championship, but if it wasn't fun, you're not coming back.

The studies show that winning isn't what keeps most players playing soccer. It's the challenge, the team atmosphere, the fun. Now if I could just find a reference to those studies...I'll have to look for them later.

Update: I found this article on the US Youth Soccer website with several references at the bottom. Youth Soccer in America - How do we measure success? There's a quote midway through the article that I thought summed up my thoughts well:

"Winning isn't everything, but trying to is!" – Rainer Martens, sports psychologist

First Things First - What to Coach First for Soccer

I have it from a reliable source (footy4kids) that a good set of skills for youth soccer players to develop first are the ball-holding skills.

In the spring, I'm going to emphasize these holding skills even more. I'm also going to emphasize the skill of waiting for the defender to take a stab at the ball and beating them with a quick touch.

We've done some work where the kids dribble toward a goal and a defender and try to beat that defender, but it has occurred to me that it might be good to learn to beat the back by standing still and reacting to the defender's first move. By removing the act of dribbling, it takes a lot of the timing and touch skills out of the equation and may make it easier for the kids to learn how to hold the ball while facing their opponent. Of course, they'll eventually need to learn to attack on the move, but I'm thinking practicing this "stand and wait" method may be a good incremental step.

Who Gets the Credit for the Goal?

I watch Barcelona whenever I can. It's a joy to watch them play soccer. One of their young forwards, Pedro, is a player I tell my kids to keep their eye on. Sure he scores plenty of goals, but I tell them to really keep their eye out for 2 things:

1. Watch how he hustles. His energy when he's pressuring the ball and off the ball movement when he's not are a great example to any kid.
2. Watch what he does when he scores. The first thing Pedro does after a goal is sprint to the player that passed him the ball and "give" that player the credit for the goal.
   

When my kids score, that's what they need to do; look for the teammate that helped make it happen and give them a big hug or high-five. I think Pedro's attitude is contagious within his team. I even saw David Villa run to Pedro after after scoring a goal assisted by a nice pass in from Pedro. It's moments like these that really make me smile.

Adding the overlapping run to our tactics

The girls did good the season. They've come a long way in the last 2 years when we basically started with half a new team.

(Before going into what we'll do next, let me apologize for not updating this blog much the last few months. It was one of those times when somethings had to drop off the list and sadly this was one of them. I'm getting back into the grove and I hope I can remember some of the things I wanted to say during the season.)

The girls' skills have certainly improved, but there is plenty of room for more improvement; however, if they're not kicking the ball around outside of practice, that improvement will come slowly. I don't complain. The fact is, even my own daughter doesn't even look at a soccer ball in the off season. I'm assuming we're all in the same boat, so let's move on.

Tactically, our back line (2 outside backs and a center sweeper) played fantastic. Pressure, cover, balance. I don't recall ever noting in a game this season that we were leaving a player unmarked in front of our goal. This was our biggest problem in previous seasons and it just went away. Was it coaching? Maturity and experience? I'll never know. Either way, it's time to challenge them again.

The big change I want to add next season is the overlapping run from the outside back. It will require not only coaching her to make the run and the forward to feed the ball into the space in front of her before she's offsides, it will require the other players to rotate around to cover for the vacancy created in the back. This will be interesting. If anyone has advice on this I'm all ears.

-Bill

A new soccer game that is a hit with the kids

I've got a new soccer game the kids (U7 boys) love to play. We make a square. For my seven boys, a 10 x 10 yard square seems good. All but one player have their ball. The one that does not have a ball is the target. All the other players are trying to hit this target (below the waist) with their ball. Whoever hits the target becomes the new target and the old target gets their ball and joins the others.

The game moves quickly. The kids have a blast. They learn to move in fairly tight spaces with the ball close to their feet for a quick shot. When they shoot and miss, they run after their ball and dribble it back into the square for another try. Every player has a ball but one, so we're getting lots of touches. Best of all, a good time is had by all.

Tuck in those Soccer Jerseys...or Not

Breakaway Fashions' girl's soccer jerseys are designed to be "untucked". Unlike jerseys worn by many other teams, when these are not tucked in, ours do not go down to their knees; they look good untucked. Some referees have told me there is a rule that the jerseys must be tucked in. I've checked the FIFA laws of the game and have found no such rule. Local rules should take jersey design into account.

So let them stay untucked. It's safer (keeps them cooler) and it looks better too.

-Bill

The Soccer Skill Our Kids Need to Learn

According to Jürgen Klinsmann, American soccer players need to improve their "first touch". That covers a lot of the game. I believe it's true for my kids. While they love our soccer practices and games, they really don't play much soccer outside of the season. Without that day-to-day playing with the ball, they're just not going to develop that instinctive first touch that some players have. There are a hundred reasons/excuses why they don't play much soccer in the summer, but the fact remains they don't. I'm have no doubt this is true for most of the players on our two teams. So to make up for it, I'm thinking at practice we'll play some one-touch, quick-pass games and some keep away games in tight spaces. However, for now its still too hot (reason/excuse) to practice, so we'll just keep sipping our lemonade and talking about what we'll do later this year.

-Bill

The World Cup 2010 - What A Ride

I loved the run the USA had in the World Cup this year. Unlike in 2006, I think our coach and team did the best they could have done. Were they perfect? No. No one can be perfect. But the games were just fantastic. A tie vs. England what a good (if not lucky) start. The comeback goals against Slovenia were enough to bring tears to our eyes. And the stoppage time goal to beat Algeria left us jumping and screaming. Wow. What excitement.

When I saw the starting lineup for our round-of-16 game vs. Ghana, I was very surprised to see Clark starting in the midfield. I know Clark plays hard, but I've always thought we had to find someone who could step it up a notch. Edu played well in the tournament, though he had also made some mistakes as well. Despite that, I assumed Edu would be starting. (I liked Torres a lot in qualifying, but I have to admit he looked really bad in the tournament.) When Clark's mistake in the midfield lead to the first goal for Ghana and his subsequent poor decision to make a hard and late tackle got him a yellow card, I knew the coach had to pull him. What I didn't know is that it would be the most memorable part of the tournament for me. When Coach Bradley called Clark over to the sideline midway through the first half to take him out of the game, the camera captured a hug and some words between Coach Bradley and Clark that showed how great a coach this man is for our team. That moment, that hard, hurting moment for both of them, turned into a moment of rare honesty and love that brought tears to my eyes. Nothing else I'll see in the World Cup will compare with that.

-Bill

Don't be afraid to let your players take risks

This is an article from the editor of one of my favorite websites, footy4kids. Its not easy to let the kids make mistakes. It's not easy at all. However, if you keep in mind this is about them (the kids) and not us (the adults), that makes it a bit easier. There are times for a coach to be corrective, in particular if the issue is a willful disregard for the players teammates or coaches. But a coach should never poison a player's feelings for the game by scolding them when they were doing their best. Their best may not be right, but it's their best. What more could we ask?

Don't be afraid to let your players take risks

I was watching an U7s match at my local school last week. There was a lot of aimless running around going on, and most of the players were trying to get within touching distance of the ball.

They were tackling each other, falling over and some were standing around watching the birds fly past. A fairly typical U7s match, in fact.

Suddenly, one girl burst out of the melee and started to run with the ball towards goal. The only problem was, it was the wrong one.

When she got about ten yards from the goal she stopped, looked up and realised she was staring at her own goalkeeper. After a quick about turn, she started running the other way.

She ran past three of four of the other team, evaded several attempted tackles from her own team mates and finally got within striking distance of the other goal - about two feet from the line - where she promptly took a swing at the ball, missed it and fell over. She got up with a huge smile on her face.

Sadly, her coach was not impressed.

He was first shouting, "you're going the wrong way, WRONG WAY!". When she realised her mistake and started running towards the correct goal, he was shouting, "pass the ball, PASS IT!". Some parents were heard muttering, "she never passes the ball", "she's not a team player, is she?" and "someone needs to teach her how to pass".

When she finally fell over, the coach shouted, "I told you to pass, didn't I?"

All through the game this coach was telling his players where to go and what to do as though they were little robots.

Why all this instruction?

Because the coach was afraid one of his players would make a mistake and the other team would score as a result. Ultimately, he was really worried his team of six-year-olds would lose.

And, crazy as it sounds, there are lots of coaches like that in youth soccer. Coaches who think they are helping their players by giving a constant stream of instructions and forbidding them from taking risks.

This U7s coach might notch up a few quick wins in the short-term, but he is storing up problems for the future. By stifling his players' creativity and not allowing them to find out what happens if, for example, they play a weak square pass across their own penalty area, he is manufacturing a set of players who don't have the ability to think for themselves.

These are players who, if they don't hear an instruction from the coach, don't have a clue what to do with the ball.

Ignore the final score

''Worrying too much about winning and losing gets in the way of development,'' says Manfred Schellscheidt, head of US Soccer's U14 programme. ''There are always shortcuts that you can find to win the next game. That doesn't necessarily mean you'll be winning five, six years from now... We should be concerned about the players' performance, not the final score.''

If you want to be standing on the touch line eight or ten years from now, admiring the dribbling and shooting skills of the players you have as U7s today, you have to let them take risks.

You need to let your young players dribble, run and pass without fear, and without any 'advice' from the touch line. Applaud risk taking. If it goes wrong, your players will have learnt something from the experience - it's not the end of the world!

Finally, remember to smile a lot on match days. Enjoy yourself. You're watching the soccer stars of the future!

For the Coach Who is also the Dad

Coaching your own child is a challenge. They seem to take things much more personally than the other kids. They seem to see a coaching tip as a personal insult when it comes from their dad. As a rule, I don't coach at home except on very rare occasions. Well this week, I mentioned a tip to my 10 year old daughter and got the expected response. Let's just say it wasn't "positive". So in a moment of serendipity, I asked her, "How would you have preferred I say that?" She thought about the question and then gave me some verbiage. So I asked her, "Can I try again?" She looked at me hard and then said I could. I walked out of the room and walked back in again just like I did the first time and this time I used her words instead of mine. Low and behold, she got her ball and went out in the backyard and tried out the idea! Enthusiastically, no less. I suggested she get the video camera out so she could see how she was doing. I helped her set it up and walked away. From inside the house, I could see her trying some things out, then talking to the camera. Then watching the video back. I think she really did improve her game a bit. That's not the point. The real gain is even better: I found a way to communicate with her on the touchy subject of coaching. We'll see if it works again next time...

Words Not Spoken To You (the adult)

We video our kids' soccer games and make highlight DVDs for the end of year party. Well, last week my videographer (alias: wife), left the camera turned off for the 2nd half of the game and turned it on as she put the camera away in the bag thinking she was turning it off. So we had an hour's worth of video of the inside of the camera bag. However, it did capture some interesting sounds.

The bag was in the back of the van with our boys (twin 6 year olds) and you can hear their conversation. One says, "I love soccer games; they're [one of] the funnest things in the world." His brother answers, "Me too." Then they both say bye to their team. Then one says, "I like our team. It's good...our team. I like the people that we choosed on our soccer team." Yes, he said "choo-said".

We may have missed half the game, but we got a gold nugget of audio.

Ye Ole Sharks and Minnows

Yes, this week, my U6 boys spent most of the practice playing a slightly modified version of Sharks and Minnows. This is the game where most of the kids (minnows) try to dribble across the square (in our case, about a 15' x 15' box) with a player or two (sharks) on the inside trying to kick a minnow's ball out of the box. Our modification was simple.

1. The game never stopped. Once you got to the other side, try to get back immediately.
2. If your ball gets kicked out, go get it and try again.
3. The coach would switch out the sharks from time to time.

What you get is a ton of apparently chaotic movement with lots of laughing. You get a little taunting as some minnows attempt to attract the sharks. Best of all, the boys really learn to take care of the ball. It looked like so much fun, I may try it with the U10 girls.

-Bill

A Player's Transformation

My daughter is on our U10 girls team. I've coached her team since she was 4 years old. When they're little, they play because you ask them to and because it's fun. Some kids seem to love having the ball at their feet when they're little. My daughter was not one of those kids. She'd play with me (being the first born, she didn't have too much choice on who to play with most of the time). I wouldn't "coach" her at home. We'd just kick it around and play different games whenever I had the time. My 6 year old boys aren't that type of kid either. They'd much rather swing or play LittleBigPlanet than kick around the soccer ball at home. (Though they do love practice and the games.)

However, in recent weeks, my daughter's enthusiasm for the game seems to have had a step-function increase. She actually wants to spend extra time at practice and tries to listen when I have something to coach her about. (Coaching your own kids is a whole other story...) It's great to see. She plays harder than ever and seems to savor the challenge of a tough opponent. How long will this last? Weeks? Months? Years? I don't know. She may even want to watch some World Cup matches with me? That'll would certainly make my World Cup experience the best it could be. I will be savoring my time with her.

-Bill

Aggressively Gaining Possession of the Ball

(Below is a message I sent to my assistant coach for a practice plan when I was out of town.)

As for cones and such, I've just been using the cones and letting them play line soccer. I haven't set up real goals yet this year. Line soccer forces them to work on keeping it close while dribbling fast. I think this is a more important skill than shooting at this time. I'll leave my cones out on our porch by the front door.

As far as ideas, if I was there, this is what we'd do:

1. Start with the game (they've done this drill once already this season) where you pair up the girls with one ball per pair. They just leave the ball on the ground. One girls stands next to the ball and uses her body to shield the ball from the other player. She needs to stay low, good balance, keep her feet moving. The "shielded" player shouldn't even be allowed (by the "shielding" player) to get close enough to the ball to even touch it. You probably know the tricks better than me.
2. Progress to letting the girl shielding the ball throw it up in the air first and shield the ball just like before. However, now the ball is bouncing around a bit. The higher the throw, the better.
   
3. Progress to separating the pairs by some distance (10 yards or so) and letting the coach throw the ball up so it lands between them. They should use their shielding skills to gain "possession" of the ball.
4. Finally, you can separate the girls by the length of your field (~ 30 yards) and let them really charge the ball with a full sprint and try to score a line soccer goal.
5. You might want to end practice with monkey in the middle and they can ONLY pass the ball to the player that is farthest from them but still on the field. (30 x 25 yards). This should help them with maintaining separation in the game.
   

-Bill

Performance vs. Effort - What do we want from our little soccer players?

My wife had a couple of questions for me after Saturday's game. The first is simple. The second is very interesting:

1 - Q: When is the ball out of bounds?

A: When the ball is completely over the line; this is true for the goal/end line as well as the touch/side line. See page 29 in the FIFA Laws of the game (click on the pdf link toward the bottom of this page: FIFA Laws of the Game) If the ball is mostly out, but still touching the line, it is still in.


2 - Q: Why weren't our players (U6) marking-up the other team on their goal kicks? The other team positioned their players on each sideline for their goal kicks while our players tended to be more in the middle leaving their players unmarked.


A: This question seems straight forward, but it is actually a complicated question. The complicated answer is below. The simple answer is: our kids haven't figured out what to do in that situation...yet.

I could have told our players to mark up the other team. Problem solved. Instead I was asking them, "Where's he going to kick the ball?" The other question they need to ask themselves is, "Where are my teammates?" As a coach, my job is to make sure our kids learn and love soccer. We do this by rewarding their effort. If they are giving it their best effort, I'm happy. When the other team was doing their goal kicks, some of our players were really paying attention to what the other players were doing and trying to figure out what to do. The trying is success! Whether they thought they should mark-up, or wait until the ball is kicked, or whatever, is beside the point; the game itself will teach them which method works best. Our job is to make sure they're trying their best.

Telling them exactly what to do would certainly give us an immediate tactical advantage; it would make me look like a better coach. "Look how well trained these boys are," they'd say. "They look like a real soccer team." However, telling the boys where to stand is not the best thing for the boys. If we can guide them down the path of figuring out for themselves the "right" thing to do, then we've really accomplished something. We want the boys to:

1. try their own solutions,
   
2. evaluate the solution's effectiveness, and
   
3. then try a new self-developed, solution.

For them to use this process effectively is not easy, but it is the process that will make them successful in soccer and many other things. It requires the self-confidence of knowing that they are allowed to "fail". It requires the training to say to themselves, "I can figure it out if I just keep trying." They say to become an expert, you must fail at that thing 10,000 times. If you're afraid of failure, you'll never reach your potential. Failure is the path to growth. In other words, growth is through failure, not avoiding failure. If I told the kids the "right" thing to do in each circumstance during the match, we'd probably win and our children wouldn't learn a thing. I want our kids to grow and that requires that we let them make mistakes.

Praise our children for their good effort! Don't worry if the result wasn't "right".


This is good article discussing an emphasis on performance vs. an emphasis on effort:
The Effort Effect


-Bill

1 v 2 Line Soccer - Changing it up a Bit

I liked what I saw in the game Saturday. The girls were playing some good soccer. Maybe I should say "better" soccer. We're not good yet. However, one of the dads that played as a kid and still plays as an adult noticed they're willingness to hold the ball and make better decisions. He hadn't seen us practice this season, so I take that as a sign we are making progress. I would certainly agree. I saw more good ball possession and head's up play than I think I've ever seen from the girls.

If there is one huge area of opportunity, it is maintaining width. To encourage this, I'm going to widen the field when we play 1 v 2 and widen the goal, a lot. We'll still play with goals for every steal the 1 player side makes and anytime the two player side kicks it out of bounds. However, the wider goal and wider field should make the game a little more even and highlight the benefits of space. We'll see.

1 v 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 - Guess which way they play the best

Here is the game:

• Same game as the last article.
• Line soccer on a small field.
• One team has only one player.
• The other team has 1 - 5 players.

Here is the paradox: The girls do better maintaining possession when they're solo. When they have teammates, they do worse. They invariably get careless with the ball and make bad passes. When they're solo, they keep it close, make some moves, screen the ball; in other words, they do great.

This is a puzzle which I'm going to have to think about.

It's a Simple Game - 1 v 2 line soccer with goals with special scoring rules

A practice is successful if:

1. they have fun
2. they are challenged
3. they learn applicable skills without a lot of talking from the coach

This week my U10 girls played the "1 v 2 line soccer with goals with special scoring rules" game. (I think we need a new name.) It met the criteria for a successful practice by long shot. It really highlighted how little I've taught them about protecting the ball and supporting their teammates when we have the ball.

First, I'll explain the game. I setup a small field 15 yards wide by 20 yards long with 3 foot wide goals on each end. They play 1 v 2. The 2 person team can score by dribbling the ball through the goal. No shots. The 1 person team can score in 3 ways: stealing the ball, dribbling through her goal, or if the other team kicks the ball out of bounds. After 3 goals are scored by either side, you rotate who is the single player team.

The single players dominated. Most matches were 3 to 0 in favor of the single player at first. Toward the end, the 2 players were at least scoring a little bit, but they have a long way to go. The game is providing an excellent opportunity for them to learn how to protect the ball, how to support their teammate for a back pass, and even how to fake the pass to get by the defender. We even played some 3 v 1 and enforced the offsides rule. (We really need to work on understanding that rule this season too.) Finally, at the end, we played on a 20 x 30 field 5 v 2 with the same rules. You can see the wheels turning. It was very good.

Finally, We Practiced

We finally got in our first practices of the year.

For my U10 girls, we worked on holding / shielding the ball. I have not emphasized this enough in the past and we really need to work on it. By having confidence they can hold the ball under pressure, they won't rush their decisions in the match. So we did some 1 v 1 keep-away and some 3 v 2 monkey in the middle before some 3 v 2 scrimmaging. It seems like a good sequence to move through, but I have to tell you the results were not stellar. We have a long way to go. But it did feel like we made progress, they had fun, and they got a good workout.

For my U6 boys, they were thrilled just to have a soccer ball at their feet and some goals to shoot at. I let them just run around for 15 minutes. Then we did some 1 v 1 keep-away. At this age, they go at it so hard, it wears them out fast and their skills can be so unequal that it can quickly turn into something that is not so fun. I'm going to have to think about this. We also tried monkey in the middle and the middle quickly became the bunch. However, after some time, I did see significant progress. They began to understand spacing. We will definitely do more of this.

For those days when the ground is covered in snow

In North Texas, we don't get a lot of snow, but when we do, here's a couple of drills to keep those 6 year olds touching a soccer ball.

1. The drill where you alternately touch the top of the ball first with the bottom of one foot, then the bottom of the other foot, and continue alternating. (If anyone knows the name of this drill, please add a comment.) Sometime I call it "top hat" or "hat dance" for lack of a better name.
2. The other we call "ticky-tocky". You move the ball back and forth between your feet as quickly as possible like the pendulum on a grandfather clock.

These are challenging and very practical. If they just do it for a couple of minutes, I'm fairly certain it can make a big difference, but that's just a gut impression.

Reminders to Self

1. Bunch ball is good for them - particularly for the little ones. I know, the big kids have to learn to pass. It's a huge part of the game, but with the little ones and to a certain extent the big ones, if you can learn to move the ball out of the bunch, you've just learned a hugely important skill that will help you become a good goal scorer. I'd be willing to bet Messi played a lot of bunch ball as a kid.
2. Learn to handle 1 v 1 pressure - I think if the kids can learn to maintain possession under pressure from a defender, this will give them the confidence and time to make good decisions. We have to practice games that have players learning to hold the ball. You'll know you've succeeded here when they take a touch or two before kicking the ball in the game.
3. Teach them to anticipate what will happen next - This is the toughest. The best method I've come up with so far is unbalanced games such as 3 v 2. The short side has to look at the situation on the fly and determine which player on the long side is the least/most dangerous. If they don't learn to anticipate, they'll get beat every time. Learning to anticipate will allow to the become genuinely creative on the field. Ahh...Barcelona....

Now if we could just get the fields around here dried out with some warm, sunny weather, we'd be ready to go.

For the Goalkeepers...

I've mentioned that I like the footy4kids website. I got this link from them. It goes to a YouTube video of some professional goal-keeping blunders (some are just bad luck) that should make any of our kids feel better if they have a bad day in the goal.

I've got a player on my team that is a super goal keeper. However, she is also a perfectionist, and this makes it very tough for her. I know how she feels because I'm a lot like that myself. We have to teach our perfectionist kids that good effort is more important than always getting perfect results. By trying and occasionally failing, we allow ourselves to learn, experiment, and grow. We have to learn to "let go" of the failures and move on. Some kids do this very naturally. Others need to learn it. We can't let them think that they should quit to avoid failure; if they do that, they will never approach their true potential.

Now for the video link: Goal Keeper Blunders