The tricky thing about coaching is understanding your players. As one ref put it, “I’m not reffing the world cup here.” Tell it to the coaches and parents who have these expectations of success for their kids that is often at odds with the ability of the players. Today I coached two soccer games and learned a lot about how disparate the skill levels of players can be and how one player can actually make or break an entire team.
The boys play on two different teams. The mid-kid, who is seven, plays for the 6-7 and 8-9 teams. The fiver plays for 6-7 and boy #1 plays 8-9. The first game was the 6-7 and it was clear from the onset that we were dealing with a team that had multiple players at the 7 yr old age level and skill level. We don’t have that luxury. Or substitutes. We play 6-6 and only ever have 6 players for a given game. Today, being hot and humid, was a very tough day to play a game. We fought to a 4-5 loss and I can honestly look at the game and say we should have tied or won. What sucks is that we would’ve done a lot better had we had the one kid who missed the last two games. It isn’t that he is an outstanding player it is that he is a body and an aggressive one at that, and having the one sub allows kids to stop, breath, and not become overwhelmed. When your top kid is off his game it shouldn’t mean you lose. You should be able to pull him out for a minute, let him regroup and get right. We couldn’t do that and the result was a few kids who were sad about losing and the other half of the team that apparently had no idea what was going on to begin with.
8-9 was the opposite story. It was 7-0 at the end of the first 10 minute quarter. After that our players stopped taking the game seriously. We won by some large margin, but what was interesting to see was how our team devolved into a group of selfish kids who really wanted to score all by themselves and abandoned all the fundamentals of teamwork we’d taught them to that point. I suppose that is the other side of disparate skill levels. If you feel you are infinitely better than your opponent you will start to behave in a foolish manner. That there is the core of the trap game.
I hope both teams figure something out before the next games.