Spot on for the most part.

In regards to pick up games, I always scratch my head as to how that on its own will improve the situation. For if kids have bad technical skills or tactics, wouldn't they resort to (and probably reinforce) those bad skills or tactics during the pickup game and really not net net improve their game any? Seems like there needs to be some real improvements made in the soccer IQ imparted on our youth for large swaths of the youth soccer population before this in itself will make a difference. Maybe that's implied? Or maybe doing this for club kids who have a better chance of already being exposed to better instruction is where the real bang for the buck is? Do this in some town soccer circles and the small sided games are going to be all about the score and booting the ball the other way at first touch in order to achieve that almighty win.

My other comment is my one ulittle (U10/U11) son plays club where small sided games are part of the practice regime. The games are usually dominated by one or two kids on each side who love to be on the ball and whose success rate in eluding defenders seems to hover around 5%. And I'm not talking taking on 3 players. I"m talking 1v1 and they just never seem to not turn the ball over. In the meantime, 2/3rds of the other kids out there start out working their butts off getting open at the beginning but by 10 minutes in they've given up since they've barely touched the ball. At least that's how it seems on the surface. Maybe the little ball hog will grow up to be the next Messi after learning from his failures but what I always wonder is what good comes out of that drill for the majority of the kids involved. Are the teams I'm watching the exception in terms of how these small sided games end up playing out?

Have your kid strip the little opposing dribbler of the ball and then proceed.

I always get laughed at when I suggest "Get adults to play soccer" as part of the solution, but here I go again. I see foreign-born dads playing, and I see their kids (sometimes) watching--but certainly aware that their dad still plays at age 30, 40, 50(?). This brings the game home, part of the fabric of daily life. There is a benefit even if the dad didn't grow up with the game (and therefore sucks): Dad realizes the game can be fun--and might just let his kids enjoy their soccer; He learns the game isn't easy--and won't yell when the kid can't trap a ball coming down from height; He learns that there are people who have forgotten more about soccer than he'll ever know--and so he might stop being a blowhard know-it-all sideline a-hole.

It's gets to the cultural issue - when you grow up surrounded by people who play and follow the sport then it's much more likely to become a part of your life as well.

What comes to mind is when a ulittle kid in our club a few years back tried to move the ball on his own upfield from within his own defensive end a few times during the course of the game. The third time he lost the ball and there was a stoppage in play, the coach just went off on a ballistic rant from the sidelines about that's the third time you've done that in the last 10 minutes and lost the ball, at what point are you going to look to a pass to a teammate. You could hear a pin drop after he got done as tore this 9 year old a new one. You felt bad for the kid and his parents. The coach, who was relatively young and had zero patience for kids that age, came off as a real Dik. But I swear that kid sure seemed to have learned a lesson to look for a pass as the season went on.

Is something like that the only remedy? Or do you wait it out until the kid turns U14 or U13 and realizes there are other kids on his team on the field?

The coach shouldn't be allowed near kids... seriously. Is doing more damage than good. As to the solution: that age, kids want to dribble, maybe pass to their friend. That's it. You don't force more than that because the kid doesn't understand that there is more to the game cognitively. Every player is a little dofferent, but we don't teach calculus to 3rd graders, why would we expect them to understand adult soccer concepts?

The answer is very simple: no scores or standings at those ages. Rotate players positions and field time so ball hogs aren't always on the ball or in position to be on the ball. 15 minutes on the field and 15 minutes in goal solves that. Removing the pressure of winning and losing at that age is important to development. When we talk about development over winning here, this is one of the things we mean. Would that dumb***** coach who yelled at a ulittle have done that if he wasn't concerned at all with the outcome of the game? How about getting the dumb***** yeller coach to a coaching course. I can tell you from experience the instructors in Lancaster would crap all over a coach like that and run him out of youth soccer if they found out that was his coaching style.

No excuse for what went down that day and for other isolated instances like that during the season. But it wasn't continual screaming by the guy from whistle to whistle. The coach was a good technical coach and that ulittle team underwent a tremendous transformation from Fall to Spring that year (from undiscipled town players to a team bringing it out of the back with fairly decent success by the time the season ended). I really don't think he cared much about winning either.

But in that context, you're training a bunch of ulittles (whose parents are paying a few thou in club fees) to play out of the back and go wide and little Johnnie's making that whole paradigm impossible because he wants to dribble into traffic and just pass to his buddies and you just let it go? Is that what you're suggesting?

It helps because the younger players, even those who are bigger, stronger, and faster than the kids of their own age division, and who blow by and through their opponents, will be forced to realize that they cannot do that to the older kids. They will have to learn to play smarter. Or not be allowed to play. The ball hog will have to learn to pass, or he won't be allowed to play.

In addition to that negative feedback, there is positive feedback when younger players are rewarded for movement off the ball by an accurate pass from an older kid who actually knows how to weight/place a pass. The older kids might even point to where the younger kids should go.

Seen all this happen lots of times, in mixed-age pickup games organized in Lexington, Groton, and Chelmsford. (Not sure if any of them are still ongoing - it's been years since I've dragged my kids to one of them.)

-a coach

Yes. You let it go. Practice is for training, games are for playingng. That coach obviously failed in his job at practice and took out his frustration on the kids. How much damage do you think those incidents of screaming at that kid (or others) did? Creating 1v1 and 2v1's opportunities is part of attacking soccer and they learn how to do that at earlier ages then refine the timing and teamwork (risk vs reward, location on the field, etc). Now that child has learned if he makes enough mistakes he will be yelled at. Likely that kid and others will now play to not make mistakes, rather than play creatively and enjoy the game. The technical elements of soccer are easy and there are plenty of tools and resources to learn them. Actually teaching children the cognitive aspects of soccer in an age appropriate manner is the hard part. That coach sucks and should be removed from coaching u-littles.

Or this:

https://bleacherreport.com/articles/...tal-of-america

The Atlanta team may turn out to be the single biggest factor in making the USA a real soccer capable nation. Make it "cool" and get participation in urban centers and the rest will fall into place and Atlanta's status as the black capital city makes it the most important place to start.

...then all the suburban white kids will have to play lacrosse. Wait, they already do?

Doubt this is true to any great extent. Been there a ton and soccer is way down below SEC football, ACC basketball, ACC football, SEC basketball, baseball, softball, track ........

I used to be in ATL 2x per month up until about a year ago and I would agree but my thought is that if Soccer can be seen as cool, which pop culture has decided can only be so if black people like something, then that will be how it is transformed in the USA. Soccer as a white sport or as something for hispanic immigrants or 1st gen kids will never really gain any more ground than it has now. If Atlanta's MLS team is filling the stadium and the kids are all starting to play and that spreads throughout the south, in american football country, that would be huge. Longshot for sure but i think if it is going to happen, that is where it really kicks off.