20-0 games are soul destroying and can take weeks, or sometimes months to re-build a child’s self esteem so why do we witness it week in week out ! And who benefits from this score line?
So this weekend I’ve seen some interesting results and score lines come in from across the country. The league sometimes get things wrong and eventually these teams find themselves in the correct divisions, but what happens when it is wrong ?
What does a 20-0 score line feel like for a 9 year old keeper !
As a coach being 3/4 goals up without reply I’d have already started to implement challenges, you can only shoot with your weaker foot, you have to be facing away from goal and we can work on turns, no touch, one touch, multiple touch turns.
There’s plenty of challenges to offer and this surely benefits the development of all the children involved.
So phase one is working we’ve slowed the scoring down and the game has tightened up, but we’re still scoring with no reply 6-0 7-0 what next !
At this point surely you must be thinking I’m going to have to take a player off. But not until you exhausted all your options, you’ve set challenges, you’re playing you’re less developed players in their least favourite positions. And the strongest players are sat on the bench !
Is that fair ! Should they be punished for wanting to play and score goals. After all they’re 6/7/8/9 years old and want to score and score lots with it.
Do you swap 2 for 1 trying to not let the kids notice that they have one extra player on the pitch .
20-0 games are sole destroying and can take weeks, months to re build a child’s self esteem so why do we witness it week in week out !
I’d like to know how other coaches feel about this ! Parents too ! What’s your thoughts when your or is it just part of the game?
We have one team in our league who have been together longer than any other and to give them there dues there a good team! But they beat all the teams every time by a huge margin and I find it as a parent disheartening that the children seem to relish in the fact they know they will win! There manager also is only out to win at all costs! Trophys are most important to them! Children are not developing being beaten 10/20-0 by the same team week in week out! I personally think they should move up a league!
This is a timely and great topic! My U9 (Rec League) girls here in Salt Lake City, lost their first game as a new team, but have won their 2nd and 3rd with a combined 29-0. Last game (16-0) I switched D with O, told them to make sure they pass before taking to goal, etc., But the additional advice in this post is very helpful for next time, as it was quite awkward to shake hands with the other coach at the end of the game, who was respectful, though. We do have a couple girls on our team that should/could be playing at a higher level (Competition league), but that means more money and major logistics issues for that family. In fact, one of the girls dropped Comp because it was too much football for her and her family. I’m not sure how we can address that in our current set up here in Utah, as there is only Rec soccer(1 practice a week and 1 game a week), which is what we’re in, and Comp soccer(2-3 practices and 2 games a week!). I will definitley try to eliminate lopsided scores within a game from here on out, but I think this issue is greater than just the individual games. A hybrid league where it’s not so time consuming, but still provides a competitive environment, seems like a possible solution, but again that does not really exist here, yet. Thanks and I appreciate any other ideas on how to address this important issue.
I have an U15 team. We are a small team and usually only get 11 players to a game on Match Day. I have 5 players in that team of 11 who have just started playing for a team within the last twelve months. The team can play some brilliant football and are developing as players really good .
Unfortunately, we have suffered some massive defeats, sometimes down to the fact we have just come up against a better team. But the majority of the time the main issue has been facing a large squad of 18. With the team being allowed a maximum of 7 subs on the bench and the ability to role on role of subs, we have just been completely fatigued and finished three of the first four games with 9 players on the pitch. The cause of this is because the opposition manager/coach will continuously role on role of 6 or 7 substitutes every 10 to 15 minutes. This is very difficult for any team to deal with. not just physically, but mentally.
It is clear to me a lot of grass roots managers/coaches are all about goal scoring and not the development of their team. When you are 5-0 up do you really need to keep 11 players on the pitch? Could you not just get them to work on possession and not goal scoring? When you get past 20-0 there is a clear problem and lack of sportsmanship on the pitch. Completely unacceptable in my opinion.
There are other U15 teams with 20+ players on one team, yet other U15 teams with just 13. The smaller teams are folding due to the big killer of self esteem in youth players caused by high goal scoring wins.
I feel the FA need to look into this problem. Maybe reduce the amount of substitutes or take away the role on role of substitution. Maybe there should be a cap on the team size.
There is a lot to think about and a lot that needs to be done to prevent young players giving up on their dream of becoming a superstar due to not having a fair opportunity to develop on the pitch during a match day.
I ran a small club in West Edinburgh until it folded two years ago. I am still involved in local football as a League Observer. We have a major problem in as much as several clubs in the City have existed since the end of WW2 – and they have developed huge (sometimes bitter) rivalries which sometimes spills over into sheer nastiness. The club I ran existed for just over 30 years, and I am proud of the ethos we promoted – mainly one where every kid got a chance to play their favourite sport alongside their pals. We picked up the odd trophy along with way, and we were very proud to have won these honours, but giving young people the chance to take part in football matches was what it was about for me. Too many ego’s on the touchline – that’s the problem.
We have been there to our poor team lost for about 6-7 consecutive games and the poor kids it was horrendous and heartbreaking to see but our manager picked them all up give them all a talk of how well we were doing and he was over the moon they were giving every game there best , and also our turn will come we will get there as a team , we now have wins , draws and losses….
and to be honest our manager is fantastic as soon as we are 2-3 up he will change our team putting our defenders in the strikers roll , the goal keeper playing out field and the striker in goal ,shouting positive comments to our opponents…
I feel so so sorry for the teams who do get these ridiculous score lines , but good luck to you all and one day it will turn like it did for our little team …you’ll get there 💙⚽️💙
When dealing with the younger age groups I had a series of challenges for the players. No matter what the score was, at half/full time we could talk about those challenges. Inevitably, the challenges were based around our previous training session. Coaches and parents must stop basing development on the score. Coaching children to develop within the FA 4 corner module is a challenge which inevitably leads to better players. The big issue are coaches and teams that poach players and this includes professional academies and JPL teams.
I have been doing this for a year now and last season we had a fair few one sided results. Unfortunately, we were on the wrong end of all of them! I commend my U16s, then U15s because it could of been very easy for them to give up. They stuck with it and the tenacity, patience and perseverance paid off. They didn’t win, but were getting the positives from getting the scorelines closer. Most kids are resilient but obviously it can be tough on a lot of them to keep going. Hopefully everyone who is on the wrong end of these results sticks with it and continues to try doing what they love and get rewarded in the end.
I’ve never experienced the other side of it, but at times I have thought, why doesn’t the other coach get his players to ease up and maybe start practicing a different way of playing. A different formation, or playing out from the back for example. Unfortunately, too many coaches (and players) just want to go in for the kill and just keep hammering the goals in. Its clear to see in grassroots that some are doing it for the glory and bragging rights. Some might just be doing it because they just aren’t thinking about the bigger picture and the kids self esteem, they want to win regardless.
Stopping big scorelines will never really happen, I think it will generally be a natural part of grassroots for most. It is changing the attitudes of the adults surrounding the game that will make the biggest difference.