Righetti
Footballguy
Wow, sounds like a great start.
I cant believe how much I missed standing on the sidelines. It felt like a long summer
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Coaching Youth travel soccer, I don't know anything about soccer (2 Viewers)
- Thread starter Righetti
- Start date
I cant believe how much I missed standing on the sidelines. It felt like a long summer
Righetti
Footballguy
Righetti
Footballguy
We went from three flights at U8 where we played in C and then moved to five flights at U9 where we stayed at C Looking over the teams that I know, we're probably evenly matched but won't have any gimmies this year, especially with our short (10 girl) roster
Ned
Footballguy
I guess I'll add some updates on my kids since it looks like this is turning into a group thread. 
Think I've posted in here about my youngest son's first travel season last year: too much pressure on him + long travel + juggling 2 boys in travel = new club this year. He's now playing for the same club his older brother is and, man, what a difference (10mins to practice vs 30-40 is great). It's still very early, but his new team looks so promising. Excited to see where they go, but most importantly/selfishly he's back to his old self. His playing in tight spaces has increased a lot over the summer - some of the spots he worked himself out of at yesterday's games made a lot of parents go whoa. Adding that to his attacking mindset is making him a dangerous little guy.
The club is taking a similar approach to what US Soccer is advocating - a more long term approach to player development instead of the constant competing week in and week out at leagues and tournaments (I'm not a fan of tournaments for kids, especially this young). It's a welcomed change for him who buckled under the pressure last year where his coach put games solely on him to win + the recruitment from Philly Union's academy. These guys are too young (he's 2008) for that stuff, IMO. I'm glad we pulled the plug and took a big step back.
My oldest (2006) made the A team which is a completely overhauled team. He and 3 2006 teammates played for the 2005 B team last year which was a lot of fun. All 4 of them plus 9 new kids make up the team. He's the polar opposite from my youngest - defender, very calm on the ball, etc. He shocked the hell out of me last year and became a pretty decent GK over the Spring season. He's now attending GK training at the club and loving it. I'm managing the team and was surprised to start getting emails from the top league in the region about getting our player roster. His coach is fantastic, but very conservative. The fact that he's got them in this league is very surprising to me. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. From what I've seen at practice, there is a ton of talent there - my son is probably on the bottom of the pile from a talent perspective. Curious to see how much playing time he gets on the field vs. being in goal.
Think I've posted in here about my youngest son's first travel season last year: too much pressure on him + long travel + juggling 2 boys in travel = new club this year. He's now playing for the same club his older brother is and, man, what a difference (10mins to practice vs 30-40 is great). It's still very early, but his new team looks so promising. Excited to see where they go, but most importantly/selfishly he's back to his old self. His playing in tight spaces has increased a lot over the summer - some of the spots he worked himself out of at yesterday's games made a lot of parents go whoa. Adding that to his attacking mindset is making him a dangerous little guy.
The club is taking a similar approach to what US Soccer is advocating - a more long term approach to player development instead of the constant competing week in and week out at leagues and tournaments (I'm not a fan of tournaments for kids, especially this young). It's a welcomed change for him who buckled under the pressure last year where his coach put games solely on him to win + the recruitment from Philly Union's academy. These guys are too young (he's 2008) for that stuff, IMO. I'm glad we pulled the plug and took a big step back.
My oldest (2006) made the A team which is a completely overhauled team. He and 3 2006 teammates played for the 2005 B team last year which was a lot of fun. All 4 of them plus 9 new kids make up the team. He's the polar opposite from my youngest - defender, very calm on the ball, etc. He shocked the hell out of me last year and became a pretty decent GK over the Spring season. He's now attending GK training at the club and loving it. I'm managing the team and was surprised to start getting emails from the top league in the region about getting our player roster. His coach is fantastic, but very conservative. The fact that he's got them in this league is very surprising to me. It's going to be interesting to see how this plays out. From what I've seen at practice, there is a ton of talent there - my son is probably on the bottom of the pile from a talent perspective. Curious to see how much playing time he gets on the field vs. being in goal.
mr. furley
Footballguy
they managed to pull it together well enough to go undefeated
had 3 boys that were probably somewhere in the top 5-7 kids in the league. couple of the girls were similarly able.
one of the worst kids (showed up to one of 6 practices, didn't listen worth a damn, complained non-stop about everything constantly) turned out to be a brick wall in goal. totally unexpected. i rotated kids every quarter (9 minute quarters) so she only played goalie 1/4th of the season but i don't think she ceded a goal. was pretty wild to watch. she was all over the place stopping kids from even getting shots, catching longer range shots, blocking those in close. shame her mom showed for, i think, 3 games and her sister came for one. otherwise she was solo until after the game finished (a 6 year old).
the best of the boys, also had the absolute worst attitude to start the season. just a #####. i considered telling his dad not to bring him back before the season even started. smug, mean to the other kids, openly mocked them for not being good, screamed like a maniac, always always always tried to kick the ball as hard and far as he could... purely as an act of defiance and would then shrug his shoulders and challenge me to make him retrieve it. every "drill" we did he would laze through and say "this is so easy! this is so dumb!" and complain that the other kids couldn't execute the skills as well as he could. he would go out of his way to kick the ball at kids from the other team, or his, didn't matter, as hard as he possibly could to try and hurt them.. then laugh maniacally if they did get hurt.
took me a bit to sort out why he was so miserable... his parents were divorced... his dad called his mom "the hoor (non-censored)". dude was a weightlifting meathead. total ####. one of those guys who bullies everyone and thinks because he's got muscles in his nose that no one will stand up to him. treated his kid that way, too. constantly directing him from the sidelines. i had to constantly remind his son that i was the coach and he should listen to me. by mid-season or so i won out. kid started paying attention, listening to me and his demeanor changed. he was much more calm and under control from then on.
all in all a successful season. had a couple challenging kids but we got that sorted out before long. definitely going to coach 6/7 next year.. maybe 8/9 the year after that depending on if my youngest wants to continue.
Righetti
Footballguy
So the Little Righetti's pulled out another one yesterday. Actually that isn't accurate as we dominated this one start to finish. This was a team we played twice last year and the coach and I have a bit of history (he thinks we play too aggressive)
anyway, we score almost immediately and it's pretty obvious they are overmatched.
We wind wind up winning 8-1 but played the last 20 minutes with six defenders as we can't go over a seven point lead Our subs played a ton and we put our normal defenders up and our normal forward back to give them a view that way and we still scored (both starting defenders scored)
It was a weird feeling as you just didn't want to score anymore and I only wanted be game to end Nice to win but wish it was more competitive for our own kids
We have gone to a 2-3-1 set and our two defensive players are just beasts Most teams at this age bury their worse players back there but we don't and it makes a huge difference. They defend really well which is great always putting a body on their player but what is better is that they both instinctively work towards transition when they turn the ball over. Our left mid fielder is our strongest player and always starts our best sideline transitions, she hasn't scored as she is usually starting the charge but she'll get a few, I'll make sure of that by putting her at forward a bit
Our midfiders are passing, our forward and mids are scoring. Our goalie has been very good but isn't getting many opportunities as we dominate the time of possession.
2-0 and flying high
anyway, we score almost immediately and it's pretty obvious they are overmatched.
We wind wind up winning 8-1 but played the last 20 minutes with six defenders as we can't go over a seven point lead Our subs played a ton and we put our normal defenders up and our normal forward back to give them a view that way and we still scored (both starting defenders scored)
It was a weird feeling as you just didn't want to score anymore and I only wanted be game to end Nice to win but wish it was more competitive for our own kids
We have gone to a 2-3-1 set and our two defensive players are just beasts Most teams at this age bury their worse players back there but we don't and it makes a huge difference. They defend really well which is great always putting a body on their player but what is better is that they both instinctively work towards transition when they turn the ball over. Our left mid fielder is our strongest player and always starts our best sideline transitions, she hasn't scored as she is usually starting the charge but she'll get a few, I'll make sure of that by putting her at forward a bit
Our midfiders are passing, our forward and mids are scoring. Our goalie has been very good but isn't getting many opportunities as we dominate the time of possession.
2-0 and flying high
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Righetti
Footballguy
What is also encouraging is that our second team (we call them black and gold instead of A and B) is 2-0. As I've mentioned before in this thread, I took my starting 7 players and moved them to the black team and took the 6 subs and moved them to the gold team. There were some hurt feelings initially but after speaking about it with most parents, most agreed to try it. I did have a few parents sign up fo only the fall, so I had fears if we'll have enough kids to field two springs teams
My theory was that if you take a regular game, your starters will likely play 35 minutes and a sub will play 25. That's 10 minutes in a game which, in itself, isn't a huge deal but over a season that is 100 minutes and over a year it's 200 minutes. I can't simulate 200 minutes of game play during practice.
These five girls (one quit when she didn't make the black team) are the core of the new squad and are 2-0 with a 6-3 victory on Sunday after a 5-0 victory in game one. Our vets on that team are dominating their games, one scoring 5 goals and another scoring 4 They combined for 1 (garbage time) goal all of last year
We put them in E flight and the black team in the C flight At this age, with so many new teams, the flights aren't well established at all but over two games they look like they might have a chance to win their flight
We added eight new players, our team got 3 and the gold team got 5, they are all mostly similar with very little soccer skill but we both got one pretty good one.
The parents seems happy, the kids do too We try to keep the two teams together for practices and encourage all the kids to root on the others ones when we play at home.
The idea is to develop as many girls as we can, so that when we get to 9v9 we will have a big enough pool with as much experience as possible We'll likely lose some to other sports but so far we have lost only one girl but I believe she will be back when she realizes what she is missing out on
My theory was that if you take a regular game, your starters will likely play 35 minutes and a sub will play 25. That's 10 minutes in a game which, in itself, isn't a huge deal but over a season that is 100 minutes and over a year it's 200 minutes. I can't simulate 200 minutes of game play during practice.
These five girls (one quit when she didn't make the black team) are the core of the new squad and are 2-0 with a 6-3 victory on Sunday after a 5-0 victory in game one. Our vets on that team are dominating their games, one scoring 5 goals and another scoring 4 They combined for 1 (garbage time) goal all of last year
We put them in E flight and the black team in the C flight At this age, with so many new teams, the flights aren't well established at all but over two games they look like they might have a chance to win their flight
We added eight new players, our team got 3 and the gold team got 5, they are all mostly similar with very little soccer skill but we both got one pretty good one.
The parents seems happy, the kids do too We try to keep the two teams together for practices and encourage all the kids to root on the others ones when we play at home.
The idea is to develop as many girls as we can, so that when we get to 9v9 we will have a big enough pool with as much experience as possible We'll likely lose some to other sports but so far we have lost only one girl but I believe she will be back when she realizes what she is missing out on
Righetti
Footballguy
The Righetts took another one yesterday. This one - like last week- was never in doubt. We completely overmatched them and were up 4-0 at half. We called off the dogs at that point knowing they couldn't score on us. We put our midfielders at goalie and two defense spots, move our defenders up to midfield and put in two of our new girls up front and we still continued to dominate. With only 9 girls at the game ( one other had a conflict), we can't even rotate our best players totally out, so when our midfielders are playing goalie and back defensers, our defense is just as good as before. Our defenders can all play midfield. The new girls need the work which is good but it's hard to work on anything meaningful if they are all out of position
We did basically go with a very young front line (two new girls who are both very green and our regular goalie who isn't much of a field player) but it didn't matter. We still scored two more (one new girl and our regular goalie) so that was nice
sadly, this game did almost nothing for us These blowouts aren't really fun, the sense of accomplishment is low and we have a hard time not falling into bad habits. It was 90 degrees on a turf field, so that was also not fun
It's very obvious that this season the flights are a mess. We went from three flights at U8 to seven flights at U9 and teams are completely mismatched. From the records, there are three legit teams in C flight, three ok ones and two that are just awful. I'm sure by the spring teams will get moved around and figure out where they belong
Our goal differential is 15-1 in three games.
Our second team team took it on the chin 6-0, so that was a bummer. They got down early and couldn't recover which is typical for this age and a reason it is so important to get up early.
We did basically go with a very young front line (two new girls who are both very green and our regular goalie who isn't much of a field player) but it didn't matter. We still scored two more (one new girl and our regular goalie) so that was nice
sadly, this game did almost nothing for us These blowouts aren't really fun, the sense of accomplishment is low and we have a hard time not falling into bad habits. It was 90 degrees on a turf field, so that was also not fun
It's very obvious that this season the flights are a mess. We went from three flights at U8 to seven flights at U9 and teams are completely mismatched. From the records, there are three legit teams in C flight, three ok ones and two that are just awful. I'm sure by the spring teams will get moved around and figure out where they belong
Our goal differential is 15-1 in three games.
Our second team team took it on the chin 6-0, so that was a bummer. They got down early and couldn't recover which is typical for this age and a reason it is so important to get up early.
Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
Sound like you're doing the right things. Anything you can do to get as many players as many touches on the ball in game conditions is going to help down the line. If you can do it while also winning games, that's great. But the second team taking a loss is OK too, so long as you encourage them to keep playing unafraid.
Sammy3469
Footballguy
U7...we still do crappy goal kicks, but the other team is fairly far back. Of course, it's been 85-90 degrees the past two weekends, so the games sort of devolve over the 40 minutes anyway.
Redwes25
Footballguy
Figure this is the best place to ask the question but anyone have any pointers on teaching a kid some skills. I don't have time to coach but would like to help my son as he really likes soccer. He is 7 and pretty good but he is really fast so he tends to rely on it. He always has been able to just kick the ball down the field and out run the kids to it and manages to score. This year he is still playing well but teams are getting more organized and his strategy is clearly not going to last. The speed will always help him but he needs better ball control, passing, etc. I played soccer as a kids so I know the basics but he tends to revert to what works for him but would love any suggestions for practice ideas for the yard, etc. TIA.
Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
Any of the XXX touches in X minutes video/drills (some are on YouTube) would probably help.
Ned
Footballguy
Redwes25
Footballguy
sorry but I have no idea what these means and googling XXX touches doesn't end with soccer results.
Ramsay Hunt Experience
Footballguy
An example is 600 touches in 6 minutes. Or 500 touches in 5 minutes. Just google soccer touch videos.
Redwes25
Footballguy
SwampDawg
Footballguy
PIK95
Footballguy
Tell him the watch the youtube skill move or tricks videos and practice them in his room.
SwampDawg
Footballguy
My sons 2005 team got their first win 4-2 Saturday and picked up a win 5-4 in a friendly Sunday (we didn't make that game as it was a last minute reschedule and we had plans already) so they are gaining. It has been a big change moving from the 2006 team and 9v9 up to the 2005 team and 11v11, the bigger field our kids tend to like since they are smaller but usually quicker but physical size has been a problem. What has been an issue is melding the five 2006 (5th grade) kids that moved up and are all starting and probably the 3 best players on the team hands down with the 2005 6th graders. Last year the 2005 team really struggled and had a coach with a hockey background (because no one else wanted to do it so he stepped up), this year my sons previous coach moved up to this team as well and he has a soccer coaching and playing background. He has done a ton of conditioning work since practices started and that showed with the heat this weekend, but getting some of the 6th graders to buy in has been tough.
Looking into other programs for spring and next fall, the 4 other kids that moved up with my son are all playing travel baseball this spring and probably not going to play spring soccer, he missed out by 1 spot so he wants to take a year off from baseball and improve his soccer game which is his first love. He did the ODP tryouts, they had over 80 kids at his age group so we'll see if he gets a call back there in a few weeks but going to practice tonight with the only Development Academy program in the areas 2006 teams and get a feel for them and let their coaches see him in a more personal setting then the ODP tryouts and see if it might be a match. If not there is another pretty well regarded full travel club in the area that we are going to check out.
Looking into other programs for spring and next fall, the 4 other kids that moved up with my son are all playing travel baseball this spring and probably not going to play spring soccer, he missed out by 1 spot so he wants to take a year off from baseball and improve his soccer game which is his first love. He did the ODP tryouts, they had over 80 kids at his age group so we'll see if he gets a call back there in a few weeks but going to practice tonight with the only Development Academy program in the areas 2006 teams and get a feel for them and let their coaches see him in a more personal setting then the ODP tryouts and see if it might be a match. If not there is another pretty well regarded full travel club in the area that we are going to check out.
Righetti
Footballguy
Righetti
Footballguy
One thing I noticed was that teams we played last year would often have one dominant player who could outrun or outdribble our entire team. Our spacing was so bad that we would always get caught flat footed. You can already see that at U9 the teams that play disciplined can start to neutralize the one top player.
With that said, speed is the one thing you can't teach and will always be a huge asset. We spent the winter in a soccer training program on an indoor basketball court. The footwork for our girls improved so much from those three months, it was amazing. I'd recommend something like that, these professional trainers coaches can teach kids things that the average dad has no idea about in terms of footwork and ball skill
Righetti
Footballguy
We often have a defenseman take our goal kick if the other team kicked it out of bounds. I don't think a goalie can stop a ball and then drop it for a few goal kick from another player. When she drops it, the ball might become live. Although it doesn't leave the goal box which means game can't start either.
Righetti
Footballguy
Yes, we're mismatched in this flight which is probably a combination of teams playing in C when they shouldn't be and our girls playing really well. We will go to B next season if this continues
this game was actually more competitive than the previous few, even if the score shows differently. The other team played hard the entire game and they had some chances, it is just that our defense is so good that we thwart any sustained attack pretty quickly
we went up quickly 2-0 and were playing really well but gave up a quick goal the other way when I subbed our girls out of position
We have been working on one touch passes all week and the girls were all working that throughout the game We're constantly looking to cross now which is a stark difference from earlier when we would take everything to the net with the attacker Some of our girls can dribble through traffic but it's not a great game plan, so we have been working on passing and it's starting to make sense to them
our best play came when our defensive stud, took the ball up and we rotated her on the fly from defensive back to midfield with our right midfielder dropping back, she had space and instead of booting it, she dribbled up and around a defender and put an absolute bomb on the net She's told me over and over that she'd like to stay as a defenseman but has now scored in consecutive games (one as a midfielder and one from her defensive position) so it might be changing She actually had her worst game on defense in a wile and by "worst" shes still awesome
we also had our other starting defender play some midfield, she's a natural midfielder but we need somebody to play defense so typically give her 20 minutes but she starts as a left defender. She took a free kick in the box and hit a goal in the top right corner, no chance for the goalie and she put it over a group of kids A real beauty
our issue is that two of our new girls are really overmatched, so putting them in is difficult One issue I find myself having is that, I try to rotate girls out of spots but it often puts all three new girls out there at once One of them can hold her own but the other two are lost The one goal we have up came when I had subbed out my entire midfield line That was on me
I tend to not play a new girl at defense and can only play one at forward, so need to find a better rotation
dino259
Footballguy
That actually might have been the case with a kick out of bounds. Game was tied and time was running out. I guess they wanted the bigger leg to try and flip the field. The tie was nice as we were not the better team.
I'm just a dad helping at practice. I've coached my boys in baseball, football, and basketball since they both started. Everything I know about soccer I learned in this thread. We could use more of this thread but I also need to remember this is just a basic rec team. We have 3 athletes that never stop running including my kid, then about 4-5 that are just a step below then is tapers off from there. We struggle with keeping spacing and positions. Every game we have played both teams have lined up with 3 in the front and 3 in the back.
We only practice once a week for an hour. Hard to work on everything. Need more footwork drills, passing drills, spacing drills, running drills.
PIK95
Footballguy
The ball is live. Anyone can kick it. It doesn't need to leave box after save. Work on playing out of the back on saves instead of punts. You will thank me in two years.
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SwampDawg
Footballguy
How many flights in your league ? Ours went from 3 to 2 this year and it has made things really lopsided. We live in an area with fairly small school districts and most of the clubs are loosely based on the school districts. But we have 3 bigger districts that take in the city and major suburb area. Basically no one wanted to play Tier one because it was being dominated by those three programs (they have like 80 kids at each age group in their progams we have enough for one or two teams at each age group). So they (the league president is the former head of one of the big programs) eliminated the middle tier this year, you either play Tier A and are eligible for the playoffs or you play Tier B and you don't have any sort of playoffs. So they got their wish and have more teams in Tier A but for example in my sons group that is seven teams and the top 2 from those big programs are winning 15-2, 14-1...we were actually happy and felt our boys played well Saturday only going down 6-1. The other 5 teams in the tier are all pretty even as would the top couple from Tier B that decide not to play A and are now dominating that Tier.
Love that switch between CB and MF, great that they are doing it at such a young age. I know when we were in U9 our kids would do that naturally and it was really cool to see. But I think a lot o fit was the trust they had (and still do) in each other because the center-mid and sweeper play baseball, soccer and basketball together so they are very use to communicating already.
AcerFC
Footballguy
In general, the league Rags plays in has A-F flights with 8-10 teams in each. So roughly 70 teams in each birth year group
Although, with the new rules, it might be more since there are less kids per team
Righetti
Footballguy
We have 7 flights (A-G) but a few have more than one group. I play in I think something like C-E and the other flight is C-W. they try to split them geographically. So essentially there are like 9 divisions. There seem to be about 7 teams per flight or within flight division, so yes about 65 teams or so.AcerFC said:
many clubs field multiple teams per age group We have two teams in our club who actually both play in the same flight I guess there isn't an obvious A and B, so they both feel they belong in the F flight
Righetti
Footballguy
We have a parent who videos a bunch of things for us and posts it online in a closed group. I'm planning on putting together a video session to show spacing, passing lanes and transitions. Of course showing the goals is fun but I think they would get a lot out of some of the misses and miscuesSwampDawg said:
Righetti
Footballguy
So have her put it on the ground and kick it out or roll/throw it out at the top of the box?PIK95 said:
with the build out line many teams (and some refs) will wait to be set up and let the keeper play it out of the box with minimal pressure. I do the opposite and always have our keeper push it, I want that ball coming out quickly and let us work the transition game. With our strong defensive players and midfield play, we can turn that field in a few seconds and puts them on their heels
When teams wait for us to line up behind the build out line, they play into our hands because my girls will spread out four wide and as soon as it comes out of the box will attack. Their momentum takes them right towards the goal.
popeye
Footballguy
Too lazy to search the thread,but hope someone dropped in a Ted Lasso reference https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KeG_i8CWE8
PIK95
Footballguy
I would have the keeper roll it out in front of a defender (the flatter the better) near a sideline so they can pick it up in stride. The mids need to come back towards that defender in midfield for a set. Don't let them turn into the pressure when they recieve the defenders pass, play it back to the moving defender then fimd space. That's a good start imo.
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SwampDawg
Footballguy
Oh that goes without saying, of course same coach (I think I mentioned in one of the youth baseball threads this summer) I was umping an 8U machine pitch baseball tournament. It's not a serious tournament more of a fundraiser and let the younger kids have some fun against some neighboring programs. This guy has a runner on third and tags him up on a foul out to the first basemen and sends him home, knowing full well at 7 and 8 years old the odds a kid is going to know that a runner can go on a foul out, have the presence of mind to react and get a throw home and the catcher catch it is about 0.001%. When I called him out and told him the tournament rules state you can only tag up on a fly ball to the outfield he went into a fit how that isn't real baseball...WTF, either is using a pitching machine.
Our coach has always had a rule the last few years when we were playing at our age and had a fairly dominate team that if we got up 6 goals the boys weren't allowed to shoot, they were to just work on passing and then if it still didn't seem fair he would pull a kid off. Of course I hear parents from other teams ##### about us just passing and not shooting as well saying it was rubbing their teams nose in it but to me it was the lesser of two evils.
Righetti
Footballguy
I would prefer that if a team is dominating that a referee walks over to both coaches and asks if he wants them to end the game. I've been on both sides of a blowout and see no value in playing the last 15 minutes or so.
Ned
Footballguy
I've seen my kids on both sides of this too, and I gotta disagree (I know where you're coming from though). Let them play it out. There are always things to learn from a game regardless of the outcome. Cutting them 15mins short is just taking touches/game time away from them.
My oldest son (2006) was playing up with the 2005 B team last year. They ran into the #2 team in the country at a tournament (a--hole sand baggers). I can still remember one of the kids subbing off and saying "# so-and-so has a mustache and its THICK".
They got rolled 15-0 and the opposing coach never let up. They even put their GK in at striker so they could get him some goals (I could clearly hear it from the sidelines). My son's coach took it well and used it as a lesson on how to respect other teams since they've also been on the winning side of a lopsided match-up. Know how this feels right now (getting stomped); this is what we could've done to other teams this year had we not respected them and pulled back the reigns.On the winning side of it - I've seen my kids' teams actually have some eye openers during a blow out where they were instructed to connect simple passes and not shoot. Guess what happened? They suddenly were able to move the ball up and down the field with ease without having to make huge lung busting runs on their own.
Righetti
Footballguy
Fair enough. I think one thing I should do is talk to my girls in advance of this happening. Let them know how we would approach thisI've seen my kids on both sides of this too, and I gotta disagree (I know where you're coming from though). Let them play it out. There are always things to learn from a game regardless of the outcome. Cutting them 15mins short is just taking touches/game time away from them.
My oldest son (2006) was playing up with the 2005 B team last year. They ran into the #2 team in the country at a tournament (a--hole sand baggers). I can still remember one of the kids subbing off and saying "# so-and-so has a mustache and its THICK".
On the winning side of it - I've seen my kids' teams actually have some eye openers during a blow out where they were instructed to connect simple passes and not shoot. Guess what happened? They suddenly were able to move the ball up and down the field with ease without having to make huge lung busting runs on their own.
Righetti
Footballguy
So the Righetts are entering a Columbus weekend tournament From the schedule it looks like a couple of teams who are playing in A flight and B flight, so this will be a good test to see where we are
we play on Sunday, a total of four games each of them 40 minutes long. We only have 9 girls who can make it, sort of thinking of adding one or two from our gold team for the day. I'd be fine going to one game with 9 but four games might be a bit much
@AcerFC you must have done a few of these in your day, right?
we play on Sunday, a total of four games each of them 40 minutes long. We only have 9 girls who can make it, sort of thinking of adding one or two from our gold team for the day. I'd be fine going to one game with 9 but four games might be a bit much
@AcerFC you must have done a few of these in your day, right?
Nugget
Footballguy
Depends on how chippy the match gets. I have ended things early as the fouls get out of hand (high school girls). I only stopped it about 5 minutes early in an 8-0 game. A dad on the winning team complained but his wife put him in his place.I've seen my kids on both sides of this too, and I gotta disagree (I know where you're coming from though). Let them play it out. There are always things to learn from a game regardless of the outcome. Cutting them 15mins short is just taking touches/game time away from them.
My oldest son (2006) was playing up with the 2005 B team last year. They ran into the #2 team in the country at a tournament (a--hole sand baggers). I can still remember one of the kids subbing off and saying "# so-and-so has a mustache and its THICK".
On the winning side of it - I've seen my kids' teams actually have some eye openers during a blow out where they were instructed to connect simple passes and not shoot. Guess what happened? They suddenly were able to move the ball up and down the field with ease without having to make huge lung busting runs on their own.
AcerFC
Footballguy
Yup. Our club runs a Columbus day one every year.
Not a fan of tournaments. At least for the younger ages. It is a 30 min game and not a great indication of who the "better team is all the time.
I also hate socializing and it turns into a day where I have to figure out where to go so I don't get stuck talking to anyone.
Ned
Footballguy
160mins in a day is a lot for any age. Not a huge fan of tournaments just for that fact.
I'd def pull up a couple of extra subs if I were you.
