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- BEHIND THE PLAY #11
Wrote this almost five years ago. Did some minor updates but I think it’s more relevant today than when I first stuck it on my blog.
My three kids have all aged out of youth soccer now. They all played through to U18. I coached the eldest until U13 and the youngest two from U6 all the way through.
They have all pulled different things from being on their teams but many of them are common and I see personality traits that are borne of success, failure, frustration, determination and joy that were at least partially crafted on soccer fields in each of them.
Soccer is a compressed version of the many human interactions we confront regularly in society. It’s physical. It’s mental. It mandates awareness, to make decisions and act on them. The range of emotions and experiences you can work through in a game could take a month to materialize in life off the pitch. And you don’t do it on your own or with just a partner. You do it with ten others and are confronted by eleven in different jerseys who oppose you. So it’s co-operative and confrontational all in the space of one or two training sessions and a game per week for the most part.
Factor in that we have kids playing it as they experience the world at large and as their brains are growing. Some play it casually and don’t engage to the degree where the lessons are imprinted as fiercely. But some do and the legacy of their participation in the sport can and should be a series of formative experiences that if managed well by those around them (teammates, coaches, parents primarily) make them, and I’m certain of this, more resilient, more social, more empathetic, more aware and more focused, determined and successful people in whatever they pursue off the ball.
Here to me are some of the things every youth player, ideally, should experience in youth soccer. They all contribute to the goal of making well rounded adolescents and eventually adults.
Have a coach that makes you want to come to training, makes you want to get better and be excited to play
See your parents being supportive on the sidelines and enjoying watching you play
Score a goal. Not a tap in but a goal that makes you realize you are improving as a player and can do something special and important in a game; that you have contributed positively to a team effort and are appreciated for it
Play with kids who are different than you. Who have one parent, two parents, grandparents. Two moms, two dads. Who get to practice in expensive new cars, who get to practice by bus or bike. Who are a different colour than you, speak a different language, have been here a long time or just got here. Play with boys and play with girls. Play with kids who are quieter than you, louder than you, who learn differently than you, who need more help, less help. See how different people are and then realize how similar they are when you work with them on a field. (That almost got a bit Dr Seuss-ish there…)
Join a team where you don’t already have a core of friends so you have to negotiate the terrain, learn about people, gain their trust and in the end make new friends or at least be an accepted member of a group. Broaden your network.
Get cut from a team. One you really wanted to make and use the experience to become resilient and want to do better so you don’t experience that again.
Welcome a new player to your team and make them feel comfortable. Be a leader and set that example of inclusiveness.
Win a competition. A tournament or better yet a league or a Cup. Experience shared work and commitment that results in shared success.
Lose a competition. One that makes you feel gutted. Learn not everything is given to you just because you want it. Success is earned and not automatic. Share that experience with teammates who feel the same and remember it.
Get out there in your shorts and jersey on a freezing cold, wet day and play. Claim dominion over the elements and earn your post-game hot chocolate and laugh about how cold it was.
Tackle someone much bigger and stronger than you. Hard. Learn that you are not made of glass and you will be more successful than you think with this approach.
Get a knock and play through it. There is a difference between a knock and an injury. Knocks can hurt more than an injury but they are temporary. Just pain. They don’t inhibit your ability to play after a few minutes and there is no physical risk to playing through them. To teach players, and in fairness it’s still more an issue with girls for parents, coaches and refs, that they don’t have to come off because they got a knock is important. It just encodes a frailty that is unnecessary and limiting. If it’s a knock, run it off and know you are not broken that easily.
Get blown out and remember how it feels so that when you beat someone 8-0 in the future you don’t act like a self-aggrandizing knob.
If you’re going to take a red card, take one for the sake of the team not a selfish one. Could be to stop a goal, could be to put someone in their place that well and truly deserves it. Time and place of course and don’t make a habit of it.
Get to the point where you see training as a valuable opportunity being offered to you and not a necessary evil to attend so you get playing time on the weekend.
Overcome pre-game nerves. This is a big one. Don’t hide on the field, don’t feign injury or sickness. Get on the field in games where you are nervous and over-matched and force an opponent to play as well as they can to beat you. Be exhausted at the end of these games.
Score a brutal own goal and put it behind you within a minute. Don’t sulk looking for people to feel bad for you. Clean up your own mess and make up for it the rest of the game. Experience forgiveness from your teammates after the game and appreciate it.
Go to a tournament and stay in a hotel and have the time to get to know your teammates away from training and games. Be goofs, annoy the hotel staff and other guests (within reason) and come back knowing some of your teammates on a different level and having some stories.
Recognize that learning can be fun. Sometimes it’s difficult and frustrating but mastery is empowering and the realization that you can master a task or skill is valuable on and off the field.
Learn it’s okay to argue with teammates during a game as long as you resolve it by the next practice or even better before.
Experience leaving games feeling embarrassed, regretful, joyful, satisfied, bitter, vindicated. Ask yourself why you feel that way and fix the reasons for the negative emotions and double dip on the positive ones at future training sessions and games.
And when you’re finished your U18 season, feel like the game has been good to you and you would like to continue playing and look for opportunities to give back to it.
A few things should clearly stand out about this list. The first is that none have anything to do with learning particular technical skills. It’s not about learning how to shoot hard or pull off rabonas. The main benefit of the experience of playing youth soccer over the course of many years is it heightens the pace of exposure to situations you will face in life and gives you the opportunity to learn how to process them and deal with them in a confident, mature way while you’re young and denies you the ability to hide behind a screen while doing so.
Lastly, none of these, aside from the youngest ages not being eligible for things like Cup competitions etc, are a function of age or, more importantly the level you play at. You can experience all of these things playing at any and all levels of youth soccer.
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