Perhaps in reading this it will help if you get the Talking Heads song on and hum along. Anything that helps you remember the key points may help you attempt to change the atmosphere in your club or league. Yes, we need change.
Leagues and clubs are pushing the idea of travel soccer and more competitive environments younger and younger. Perhaps it is an attempt to draw them in now, so we don’t lose them to another club or another sport. Like the governing bodies have decided that parents want more competition, more travel and the title of academy this or elite that younger and younger. So, they jump on the bandwagon and ultra-competitive environments dominate across the intramural landscape and young players are forced to commit to travel soccer at Under-8 and in some cases even younger.
What is obvious and true is that this rush to travel and more competitive soccer is simply hurting the game and player development. Along with the rush comes the idea that winning is more important than learning. This comes at a cost and the behaviors noted below that are common on both intramural fields and travel games up and down the country are anti-fun and destroy development.
Young players whose actions are dominated by the fear of losing. This fear drives their brains to get into preservation mode so when the ball travels towards them, they just WHACK IT. No thought, no intentionality just get it out of here. The game goes from being a possession-based invasion game to tennis.
Sets of parents and coaches who not only shout for kids to “just kick it” or “get it out of there” but regardless of where it goes shout good job as the child disengages their brain and lumps the ball forward. I admit to finding this most odd as most parents send their children to school to learn to think and solve problems and at the same time put them on a soccer field and demand they don’t think.
Young players who develop no fundamental skills in the game as when you just whack it developing first touch or dribbling are very difficult to master.
Coaches who get carried away with winning is the only thing (post-Covid seems more intense than ever) and spend the whole game barking bizarre orders at the players almost to make sure no thinking occurs. It’s almost like they have become thinking detectives whose job is to ensure that no thinking occurs.
One of the most common tragedies is the moment of a throw-in. Coaches seem determined to turn this into an anti-thinking extravaganza. To clarify, the basic idea is we use a throw-in to get the ball back in play and hopefully keep it so we can form another attack. So why in game after game where a team has one player down the line (yes closer to the opponent’s goal but that really does not matter) and the one player is surrounded by 10 players from the other team do coaches order players to “throw it down the line?” I don’t think they believe the child is going to magically bring the ball down and Messi-like dribble round the 10 and calmly pass it into the goal. What they do believe sadly is we gained some yards. Soccer is not American football or a battle ground and gaining yards is not the goal.
In these ultra-competitive environments, skill and creativity get suffocated. Players do not want to try skills learned or experiment with applying skills. Mistakes become something to be feared so it is much safer to just not think and whack it.
Parental praise and reinforcement of strange behaviors like whacking it, kicking it out, throwing the ball down the line to the other team is also at an epidemic level. I am a concerned and loving parent as well and I want my children to think. I also believe in praise and catching them being good. Therefore, at the moments when I see they have abandoned their brain, I normally quietly ask, “What were you thinking then?”
I am hoping that a few parents or coaches read this or perhaps a Club DOC or Club President and in reading, reflect on what they see taking place on their fields and decide the road to nowhere has to have an end.
