The Game Within the Child

American Soccer has long been derided as little more than "kickball." We have a large number of players, but produce relatively few truly outstanding players compared to a country like the Netherlands which has a much higher success rate at developing young talent. There are tons of reasons why we lag behind other countries including the lack of infrastructure and the lack of a "soccer culture" where people had grown up with the sport and therefore have parents with prior experience. Our parent coaches are often transplants from other sports that are primarily coach directed like football and baseball. Employing the same coaching strategies in soccer is not very effective due to the player-centered nature of the sport. The problem As the director of coaching for a recreational program, my most persistent problem was finding coaches for U5 and u6 teams. When I did find these coaches, they had little idea of what to do with the kids during a training session o...

In a U10 game, a player is offsides. It happens all the time because 9 year olds, like the rest of us have difficulty understanding (or accurately calling) an offsides infraction. The other team gets a free kick. The coach calls out a player to take the free kick and then has most of the team move up the field. The player taking the free kick gives it a big run up and kicks the ball as hard as possible. Most of the time, it goes directly to someone on the other team and immediately, the team which, moments before had the advantage, is now in scramble mode. They just ran up the field for the free kick and now they run back down the field to chase the other team and try to prevent a goal. Does that sound like a familiar scenario? I see this regularly every week. In addition to free kicks, it happens on throw-ins, goal kicks and almost every time the goalkeeper gets the ball. There is a rush to get the ball down the field as quickly as possible. Next time you watch a game, count how man...