As the Spring season is just around the corner for my U9 Boys Team, I thought I’d tackle the issue of competition. Not the issue of playing in competitions (not directly anyway), but the issue of youth soccer being too competitive in its nature.
I’d like to start out by saying that in my select/travel group, I have a mix of talented, average and those who would not get selected if we only had one team. I generally play parity, but mix it up every now and again if the other coach wants to try out his best 6 against my best 6, or if the other team only has a small number of players I will generally select a strong 6 to play.
When I did this last season I received some backlash from the parents with the following subjects being the main sticking points:
- Why wasn’t their son playing in the stronger 6?
- Their boy was clearly too good to be playing in the B Team
- They would take their son elsewhere to play if he wasn’t put in the first team
- “But my son was one of the best at the Rec level and now you’ve put him in the B Team..”
When I was growing up playing high-school and college soccer in England there were several rounds of trials. A bunch of kids turned up, were put through their paces and the list was trimmed. The remaining group of about twenty-five went to another trial and the strongest players made up a squad of about 16 or 17 players – there was something to play for.
At such an early age (U9), I’m not prepared to let any players go. I held a mock-trial before the Fall season of last year to see what I had to work with, but I took all 14 players that tried out. Primarily the players had all played Rec soccer but there were one or two from outside the club that turned up to try out.
Each of the boys progressed as soccer players through the season. I’m a stickler for technical abilities at a young age. There is no reason why an eight year old can’t have the capability to be able to shoot correctly or pass the ball with the inside of his foot. When I walk around our Rec league and see 15 and 16 year olds who can’t shoot or pass, it concerns me greatly – at that age there is no excuse. I used a mix of Coerver training with some of the more traditional methods of coaching and it was evident toward the end of the season that we were around the top of our age group in terms of footskills.
However, I held our first winter training session a couple of weeks ago and the boys were quite rusty. Those who had done their ball skills homework over the winter were quite a ways ahead of those who hadn’t. I decided to up the ante and brought in some fast paced small sided games. It ended badly, one of the boys began crying because he said the game wasn’t fair.
“Wasn’t fair?” That’s a new one – I never realised the game of soccer had to be fair…
By selecting all of the players at trials are we doing them a favour or dis-service? Should the lesser players stick to Rec soccer and leave Travel soccer for the stronger players? Is there a good argument for having an A and a B Team? Does competition within the group aid all of the boys or is it just a demotivator for players and parents?
Part 2 of Competition in Youth Soccer has been posted. As always, opinions and experiences are appreciated in the comments.
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