doing it for the kids:
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Posted: November 4th 2009
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How many of us believe our football teams (that’s the ‘real’ professional ones we support, not the kids’ ones we may have a vested interest in) have certain in-built characteristics, regardless of the management & playing personnel at any given time?
Judging by the number of times I hear football fans say “we always do that / isn’t that typical? / that always happens to us”....I’d venture pretty much all of us. I’m as guilty as the next man. My team recently enjoyed a spectacularly good run in terms of both results and performances. “This just isn’t us”, opined the messageboard sages. We were all waiting for the wheels to come off.
It’s not just good or bad runs that are often viewed as in some way defining a club and its fortunes. “We never win at (insert name of supposed bogey ground here)”....”(insert name of club on bad run here) must be delighted they’ve got us next, we always roll over against out of form teams”...”why when teams appoint a new manager is their first game always against us?”...
I have often seen this modus operandi transferred to the kids’ game (once again yours truly being guilty). The danger is, impressionable young kids are prone to taking it all in, and thus start sharing your unfounded fears & paranoias – and given how we want them to take on board all our tactical masterplans and Churchillian motivational team talks, we can hardly complain if they then soak up the negatives too.
Following their biggest ever win as reported a couple of weeks back, week seven saw my u12 girls in something of a mismatch against a side who really shouldn’t be in the same League as us – that’s in the literal sense, in terms of ability we’re not in the same League. Due to circumstances beyond anyone’s control, we are in the same division for this season, and it’s a tough one to manage.
Whilst girls are less prone than boys to study the local League’s website, pre-match they do still tend to ask “how good” each week’s opponents are. Do you clumsily avoid the question to (ahem) “focus on your own strengths”? Do you hint at their stature but play the “if we’re focussed & committed, and all play to our potential, we can get something out of the game” card? Or simply say “they’re the best team in the county, so just go out and enjoy yourselves”...and pray it’s not a cricket score.
Well it wasn’t a cricket score...I’d venture to suggest 12-0 is more of a rugby score. Which tack did we take pre-match? Well it was arguably a hamfisted mixture of all three approaches. The girls were probably confused...definitely a little in awe...and painfully aware that two of our best players had cried off on the morning of the game. 5-0 at half time and we went for the “playing for pride / keep your spirits up / let’s call it 0-0” angle – too little too late.
A week off the following Sunday was very welcome.
The u16 boys had week 7 off. The scheduled opposition are on the verge of disbanding due to lack of committed numbers, a sadly common state of affairs at u16. That we’d follow a week off with a disjointed display the following week was somewhat predictable.
For most of the first half we actually played some of our best football so far this season...but came in level at 1-1 having spurned numerous chances...and actually gone 1-0 down in the first minute whilst still asleep.
Then came the pivotal moment. For the first time this season we had 15 players available. The 4 not chosen to start are all good players, as good as those who did kick the game off, and all arguably a bit unlucky. Cue the most difficult decision for the kids’ team manager...you’re playing well, the match is deadlocked...do you stick with the ones playing well, or bring the subs on?
Any youth football manager can debate this topic long into the night. For every ‘play the strongest team, subs only get on if & when the game’s won’ brigade, there will be a ‘sport for all / equal opportunities’ crusader. Then in the middle will be the silent majority, beating themselves up every week over whether their weaker players are getting fair treatment, or their stronger ones will get disillusioned and leave.
I like to think I’ve always taken a pretty consistent line on this. When the kids are younger, especially when playing 7-a-side mini soccer, I veer very much towards the equal opportunities end of the scale. I’ve no desire to make an 8 year old’s life a misery...and equally players can only truly develop with time on the pitch. However, I did spend literally dozens of hours working out hundreds of configurations whereby I could keep a core of my stronger players on the pitch at any given time whilst still rotating the others around them and giving them all a run out of a length that made it worth their while turning up, and gave them that crucial chance to improve.
Each season with this particular team, we gradually upped the level of competition, and equally gradually lowered the guaranteed playing time for subs. By last season at u15 we’d pretty much arrived at a perfomance-related selection policy (though general attitude and behaviour and attendance at training were also taken into account). My argument was that the lads were now on the cusp of adult soccer, and were getting streamed in most other areas of their lives, so it made sense.
Having built up to this point gradually over a number of seasons, constantly communicating to players & parents alike what we were doing and why, we kept their support. There was only one flaw in the system. Me.
I’m a big softie. Having put in place a system that was best for the team, that my fellow coaches wanted, and which most important of all, the players were ok with – I simply couldn’t administer it. I couldn’t help disrupting the flow of a good performance by making substitutions simply to make sure everyone got a chance.
This was one of the main reasons I opted to take a back seat role this season, prioritise the girls, and let my fellow coaches treat the boys like the men they more or less are. Yet at this particular game, I couldn’t help chipping in with “are you going to get xxxx on?”. And so all the subs got on for all or most of the second half. They didn’t play as well as those they’d replaced. Our rhythm was disrupted, and we ended up scraping a 3-3 draw out of a match we really should have won (albeit with a sensational bicycle kick from our skipper, a moment he’ll dine out on for years).
The coaches who now in effect run the team told the subs (rightly, it has to be said) that they’d been given a chance and not taken it, and they had sympathy with those who’d been taken off despite playing well. I squirmed even more uncomfortably than the players. One of those car park post mortems follow that any fellow manager out there will know only too well.
That evening, one of the subs in question emailed me to announce he was quitting the team. No real shock, he’d been grumbling about the possibility for some time, he clearly wasn’t enjoying it so much anymore – and he’s not, as far as we know, joining another team. He’s simply going to free up the time to do other stuff that 16 year olds like to do. He thanked me sincerely.
It’s probably best for him and the team...but after several years’ loyal service, Mr Softie here can’t help but have a tinge of regret that instead of calling it a day quietly in the summer, as a few others who didn’t fancy this ‘adult football’ thing we’d been discussing chose to do, he’s started the season, either been played in a position he didn’t like or been a sub, fallen out with team mates, then quit 6 weeks into the season.
Mind you, as self-confident 16 year old, he’s probably moved on, not giving a toss, and is having a whale of time elsewhere. That I still view him as a wide-eyed 10 year old dreaming of playing for Man U is my problem.