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.