Calming your inner voice
I had the chance to observe two U12 games this past weekend. Both games featured some quality play by both teams. One game was close, the other was not close. Even in the game that was not close, the losing team was creating chances to score so it felt more even than the score would indicate. What really differentiated these two games was the behavior of the parents and the coaches. In one game, the majority of the talking was coming from adults on the sidelines in the other game it came from the players in the game. If you have read some of my other articles (the cheer don't steer program, "helping" your players during the game), you probably already know that I prefer the game where the players are talking. I thought it might be helpful for us to consider why parents and coaches feel compelled to speak during the game. You already know that soccer is a player-directed sport where the coach can have little impact on the game because it is moving so fast, there are fe...