A few years ago the English Football Association (FA) ran a study to monitor the reasons why children play soccer. Similarly, US Youth Soccer did some research in to finding the reasons why children stop playing. What was interesting about both sets of these findings, is the reaction to winning...namely, kids are not as invested in it as adults.
According to the findings, the English FA listed the top 6 reasons why children play to be the following
- I want to try my hardest
- It's fun
- I love the game
- It keeps me fit and healthy
- I like making new friends
- I like playing with my friends
As you can see, nothing here is mentioned about winning games/tournaments/trophies/medals etc. That is not to say that kids don't enjoy those things. We have all been at tournaments where our team has won a competition and the players have big smiles on there faces (as you can see from the above photo), but it is certainly not the be all and end all as far as the players are concerned. I can recall a situation where a player I coached had conceded while playing in goal and the team ended up losing 1-0. She was in tears at the end of the game, completely inconsolable, yet 5 minutes later she had an ice cream in her mouth and a big smile on her face. Game well and truly forgotten!!!
As you can also see, these findings suggest that kids like to play the game for intrinsic reasons, namely, why THEY want to play the game and not why Mom and Dad want them to play. The FA released this video to highlight the experience of a child when playing for parents, rather than themselves. Even though this was aimed at English parents, it is also very prevalent in the US. The support that players get on game days still amazes me to this day, despite having coached over here for 12 years, and the turnout from parents, siblings, aunties, uncles and grandparents turns the game into a real family event, something I never fully experienced in England. However, it is important that we as adults remember that it is only a game and in the grand scheme of life, Little Johnny winning a U11 Classic Division 2 East game 3-0 isn't going to have that great of an impact on future endeavors.
US Youth Soccer's findings into why kids drop of soccer show a sharp contrast to that of why they play. Instead of being intrinsic reasons, the majority are extrinsic, or more specifically, adult controlled. The top 7 reasons are as follows
- Lack of Playing Time
- Overemphasis on winning
- Other activities are more interesting
- Lack of Fun
- Coaching/Adult behaviors
- Dissatisfaction with performance
- Lack of Social Support
6 of the 7 reasons can be attributed to that of an adult influencing the player. Lack of playing time is decided by the coach. Having played in an era whee roll on, roll off substitutes were non-existent, I can fully empathize with this. I once played for a team where in the final 6 games of the season I received 8 minutes playing time. It wasn't fun. I was even told in one of those games not to bother putting on my uniform. Thankfully we are in a better day and age now, where roll on roll off subs are allowed, giving players opportunities to get plenty of minutes. It is still an issue however, and as coaches it is something we should look to address, monitoring playing time, keeping log books and utilizing our assistant coaches to keep track of timings.
An overemphasis on winning can come down to both parents and coaches. For those players who have aspirations of playing College or even higher, that is the end goal, not whether or not they win the U12 Mickey Mouse Tournament Bronze Division. College coaches will be looking for players who are intelligent, who know the game, can communicate, act as leaders and possess both technical and physical attributes. Playing a game against a team coached by an assistant coach at UNC Charlotte, we lost 4-3. However, the coach made a point of coming up to me afterwards and saying that one of our players was the best on the field by a long way, comparing her to Steven Gerrard (maybe an exaggeration on his part). That girl is now playing at a National League level.
For those who don't have those aspirations, learning to deal with setbacks, team work, communication, leadership skills and fair play will stand them in good stead as upstanding citizens and employees in their futures, not the win and loss ratio from when they played youth soccer.
One of the more interesting reasons I found was a dissatisfaction with performance. This could be seen as intrinsic, but the questions has to be asked, what are we doing as adults to impact this? Having experienced this in the past, it is fair to say that some parents feel the need to give their child their opinion on how they performed during the game. If the game was lost, this is likely from a source of negativity. "You should have passed better, you should have hustled more...". Even in a win, I have experienced parents being negative when speaking to their child afterwards.
This is not limited to parents, coaches can be just as bad after a defeat. Having won a game last fall against an opponent who had not lost in over a year, the coach of the opposition had his team sitting down for 15 minutes after the game, telling them they didn't work hard enough, that the team I was coaching wanted it more and that they were no longer the best team in the state. A number of thoughts came to mind - what kid wants to listen to someone tell them how bad they are for 15 minutes after playing in extreme humidity and not winning, how many are actually paying attention and what are the kids that are listening currently thinking??? I don't know for definite, but based on personal experience, I would imagine those kids were already pretty downbeat after losing the game. The last thing they needed was to be told they were no good.
Frank Lampard once stated that after losing a game at Chelsea, Jose Mourinho came into the dressing room afterwards and said "Don't worry. We can't change things right now. Enjoy the rest of your weekend. We'll talk on Monday". This is something that has resonated with me and something tat I have tried to emulate (not always successfully) after games, win or lose. Coaches can have an impact on this, but parents can as well. As opposed to giving your opinion, would it not be better to ask your son or daughter theirs? Questions such as "what do you think you did well?", "did you enjoy that?" and "what can you improve on?" will surely have a longer lasting benefit than being told by someone what they did and didn't do well.
I think ultimately, it is important that we remember that the most important people in youth soccer are the kids, not the adults. As adults we can help structure things in a way to make sure that all young players are getting out of the sport what they need, and not what we want, to make sure they are lifelong fans of the game and are able to pass down that enthusiasm to their kids.
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