In what other sports is winning not important?

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But we do, often enough that it's at least an argument, a big one, if not our identity in youth sports.

Yes, hence the comments like is winning important. I think the implication is, to do all the things i mentioned. We all know that winning is the objective of competition.

[Unregistered]

You're either being ignorant or disingenuous. No one has ever actually said "winning" wasn't important. But the focus on the team's result, whether that's to serve the coach's ego, the club's bank account or the parent's psychosis to the detriment of optimal individual player development comes at a great cost. It's happening plenty in other sports, but the difference is that as a country we had a much longer and deeper grassroots participation and culture in those sports, from the playground court to the frozen cow pond, before nutjob adults and pay-to-play came along to **** it up.

So in other words, the Soccer Community knows better than the rest of the world. Or can you cite other sports where winning isn't important at...say...the U10 level?

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So in other words, the Soccer Community knows better than the rest of the world. Or can you cite other sports where winning isn't important at...say...the U10 level?

No, you've confirmed that I pretty much nailed it in my first sentence.

[Unregistered]

Seriously. Coaches aren't supposed to focus on winning until the U14 or U15 level.

Are there other sports where this is also true?

While important it is not the most important thing.

[Unregistered]

The reason why we took steps forward in the game in the last 30 years, and then leveled off, is because many were lulled into the false sense of security that we were surely doing well enough. All we cared about was winning.

We would waltz through qualifying, we were making knock-out rounds, we beat some really good teams (sometimes even at close-to-full-strength). We were doing it with brute force and speed and guts. In the meantime, our actual play quality got worse and worse. It finally caught up to us in a bad way.

So, let's still keep score, let's still strive to win every competitive battle (whether it be 1-on-1 or 5v5 or 11v11 or whatever), but let's continue to push our concentration onto HOW we are doing it, so we can try to improve.

Read your own first paragraph again. So you're saying we were taking steps forward because we were focused on winning. But then we leveled off. Maybe we leveled off because we were too worried about style points? Perhaps when we cared about winning it was working. What's wrong with winning by brute force, speed and guts? If we could win the World Cup by brute force, speed and guts, shouldn't we do that? Why must we let others dictate our game?

[Unregistered]

We all know that winning is the objective of competition.

Correct, but not the only one. There's simply a difference, in objectives and consequences, between playing the weekend U10 travel match and the high school championship.

The context gets distorted and thrown away by some, for whatever reason, who want to suggest "winning" is a reasonable substitute for "competition" and the thinking by the other side that neither winning or competing has any importance whatsoever. It's a tedious straw man.

Winning is the result, competing in the process. You'll note that everyone who suggests "winning isn't important" is an actual argument anyone is making implies that those making are suggesting competing isn't important. The real arguments about development are a lot more nuanced than that and everyone knows it. It's been discussed for a lifetime. There are adults on all sidelines who quite literally only care about the result, they don't care about a young child having any fun, getting better, or anything other than winning. For ****'s sake Hollywood has made comedy films spanning the last 5 decades whose entire premise was to mock those dumb ****s.

[Unregistered]

Read your own first paragraph again. So you're saying we were taking steps forward because we were focused on winning. But then we leveled off. Maybe we leveled off because we were too worried about style points? Perhaps when we cared about winning it was working. What's wrong with winning by brute force, speed and guts? If we could win the World Cup by brute force, speed and guts, shouldn't we do that? Why must we let others dictate our game?

100% trolling.

[Unregistered]

Read your own first paragraph again. So you're saying we were taking steps forward because we were focused on winning. But then we leveled off. Maybe we leveled off because we were too worried about style points? Perhaps when we cared about winning it was working. What's wrong with winning by brute force, speed and guts? If we could win the World Cup by brute force, speed and guts, shouldn't we do that? Why must we let others dictate our game?

Because, brute force, speed, and guts only gets you so far....as evidenced in every WC in our history. At some point, we need a plan B. We need to learn to play with the ball vs. run after it.

Fact is...if it weren't for some unbelievable goalie play several times which covered over some cracks, we'd be having this conversation many years ago.

[Unregistered]

Go watch kicking and screaming with Will Farrell and come back and tell us what the moral of the story was.

And for the idiot whobkeeps saying "the rest of the world", you obviously don't realize that the best soccer academies in the world aren't as interested in winning youth matches as they are developing talent that will help them win First Team matches or sell to pro clubs.

[Unregistered]

So in other words, the Soccer Community knows better than the rest of the world. Or can you cite other sports where winning isn't important at...say...the U10 level?

Soccer is unique in youth sports for the ease in which a win can be "gamed" through tactics and techniques that are not only not helpful to developing good mature players, but are actually detrimental to such development.
Case in point: As a newcomer to soccer about 10 years ago, I watched my kid's u10 rec league team lose game after game to really bad opponents. I wasn't vocal, but I could see the coach didn't know what he was doing. At the last game of the year, the coach couldn't attend the game, and I volunteered to coach. I put the biggest kid in goal, and the fastest kid in the front, and we scored about four goals on full-field punts and toe-poke goals. We won the game and I thought I was a genius.
In the past 10 years I've seen many variations on this kind of "result gaming": direct play with long balls to fast kids; suffocating pressure defense on short goal kicks; refusal to let kids dribble--highly effective at winning, highly destructive to ball command; insistence on "send it" soccer. One of my least-favorite "win first" ploys at the u10-12 level is the "ass first jump tackle": You see kids coached to launch their butts at the ball carrier, knock him off the ball, and gain possession. At older levels, this kind of defending just doesn't work--you see the defender getting ready to jump backwards at you at an older age and you simply go around him or get rid of the ball. Or let the referee properly call the foul. But at u10 the "ass first jump tackle" is highly effective. Another phony way to "win" without development is to crash the keeper. Why bother to take good shots and make good passes to score when you can get a cheapie by intimidating a poorly-prepared 12 year old goalie and knock in a bobble? Again, highly effective at u12, less valuable at u16 when the keeper has learned to: a) hang onto the ball (or punch it away) or b) punish attackers with sharp elbows and knees. Another counter-productive technique is to vocally whip up frenzied play from the sideline (by coach or fan). Getting kids to run harder, hit harder, and roll over opponents doesn't really serve long-term developmental goals--or even short term: what happens when the leather-lunged coach misses the next game?
All of these tactics and techniques might produce wins, but they don't help us produce or identify skillful players who can win soccer games when when these phony short-cuts stop working.

[Unregistered]

Soccer is unique in youth sports for the ease in which a win can be "gamed" through tactics and techniques that are not only not helpful to developing good mature players, but are actually detrimental to such development.
Case in point: As a newcomer to soccer about 10 years ago, I watched my kid's u10 rec league team lose game after game to really bad opponents. I wasn't vocal, but I could see the coach didn't know what he was doing. At the last game of the year, the coach couldn't attend the game, and I volunteered to coach. I put the biggest kid in goal, and the fastest kid in the front, and we scored about four goals on full-field punts and toe-poke goals. We won the game and I thought I was a genius.
In the past 10 years I've seen many variations on this kind of "result gaming": direct play with long balls to fast kids; suffocating pressure defense on short goal kicks; refusal to let kids dribble--highly effective at winning, highly destructive to ball command; insistence on "send it" soccer. One of my least-favorite "win first" ploys at the u10-12 level is the "ass first jump tackle": You see kids coached to launch their butts at the ball carrier, knock him off the ball, and gain possession. At older levels, this kind of defending just doesn't work--you see the defender getting ready to jump backwards at you at an older age and you simply go around him or get rid of the ball. Or let the referee properly call the foul. But at u10 the "ass first jump tackle" is highly effective. Another phony way to "win" without development is to crash the keeper. Why bother to take good shots and make good passes to score when you can get a cheapie by intimidating a poorly-prepared 12 year old goalie and knock in a bobble? Again, highly effective at u12, less valuable at u16 when the keeper has learned to: a) hang onto the ball (or punch it away) or b) punish attackers with sharp elbows and knees. Another counter-productive technique is to vocally whip up frenzied play from the sideline (by coach or fan). Getting kids to run harder, hit harder, and roll over opponents doesn't really serve long-term developmental goals--or even short term: what happens when the leather-lunged coach misses the next game?
All of these tactics and techniques might produce wins, but they don't help us produce or identify skillful players who can win soccer games when when these phony short-cuts stop working.

Great post. Here's one additional truth to the story told here. You can go watch any number of club games at all sorts of ages, certainly before 11v11 is played and you'll see what's described with a satisfied coach and VERY happy parents.

[Unregistered]

Great post. Here's one additional truth to the story told here. You can go watch any number of club games at all sorts of ages, certainly before 11v11 is played and you'll see what's described with a satisfied coach and VERY happy parents.

Happened this weekend at my son's game against Bayside. Bayside used every possession opportunity to boot it forward to the same player, who scored all the goals and who happened to be the biggest player on the field. No attempt to possess the ball, build from the back, work through the midfield, etc. Just boot it to the big fast kid playing forward... didn't matter if it was a defender or keeper, same game plan on evey possession.

At the start of the 2nd half, the coach had the same kid take a shot from the half on the first touch and scored. Worked on a 9v9 field. Won't work next year in 11v11. Those parents are paying thousands to win games now in the most direct way possible, no better than most middle and high school soccer. Not to mention that most kids on that team never touched the ball, dribbled, or did much of anything other than to kick it long. I'll take my kid's team and coach over that crap soccer every time. Sure they lost, but everyone on the team had opportunities to dribble, pass/receive, defend and attack.

Sorry, but Bayside lost any credibility in developing players with me. Crap soccer, but the parents loved it...

[Unregistered]

Are there other sports where this is also true?

Russian Roulette?

Strip Poker?

[Unregistered]

Russian Roulette?

Strip Poker?

I don't think you understand the rules of those games ....the winner lives /keeps their clothes on.

[Unregistered]

Happened this weekend at my son's game against Bayside. Bayside used every possession opportunity to boot it forward to the same player, who scored all the goals and who happened to be the biggest player on the field. No attempt to possess the ball, build from the back, work through the midfield, etc. Just boot it to the big fast kid playing forward... didn't matter if it was a defender or keeper, same game plan on evey possession.

At the start of the 2nd half, the coach had the same kid take a shot from the half on the first touch and scored. Worked on a 9v9 field. Won't work next year in 11v11. Those parents are paying thousands to win games now in the most direct way possible, no better than most middle and high school soccer. Not to mention that most kids on that team never touched the ball, dribbled, or did much of anything other than to kick it long. I'll take my kid's team and coach over that crap soccer every time. Sure they lost, but everyone on the team had opportunities to dribble, pass/receive, defend and attack.

Sorry, but Bayside lost any credibility in developing players with me. Crap soccer, but the parents loved it...

Devils advocate, not everyone wants a long term progression in soccer. The problem is that like minded individuals are not always together because of the duplicity in youth sports. Just becasue they wanted to win does not make them wrong. Maybe the real issue is they should be playing teams that share that and you should be playing teams who share your philosophy.


My daughters HS team coach used to often say after losses - well we played the better soccer. I have always felt that HS soccer is all about winning. If the Club coach says that, Im fine with it. Just my interpretation, does not mean I was right.