Midfielder position

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Leave. Your kid is playing for a coach whose priorities are not serving the players and their development first.

Probably right. It's hard for coaches to teach kids when they are at such disparate levels.

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Midfielders should not consistently be holding the ball for too long. Key word is consistently.

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Midfielders should not consistently be holding the ball for too long. Key word is consistently.

The reality is likely the midfielder has the ball a lot, and probably has a much higher rate than 10% in take-ons. Mom only remembers the ones he did, and you don't notice the ones he didn't.

Sadly, at young ages, any kid that can shoot hard and high will. Goalies can't always reach the bar. They stop later on.

Funny, if they won the tournament that kid would be a hero right now...

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At what point does a coach stop encouraging a midfielder to take as many touches as they want and be as creative as they want? Our midfielder lost possession 9 times out of 10 and cost the team the tournament. Also likes to shoot from midfield rather than look for the pass. The entire team is frustrated. I ask because my kid has an opportunity elsewhere, and we are at the point where we don’t believe this is ever going to change.

Had a similar experience. It's the coaches fault. We left that team.

If you keep showing up to practices/games and expect things to be different then it becomes your fault for staying. The kids probably pretty good but needs to develop field awareness and passing skills...that's typical club soccer...a coach failing to help a kid develop.

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My take-a-way from the responses here is that there are lots of parents with ball hogs here.

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The time to be fancy with unlimited touches in the midfield is practice. Games should be about making good decisions, whether it’s taking that extra touch, dribbling or passing. Midfielder is the most important position on the field.

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My take-a-way from the responses here is that there are lots of parents with ball hogs here.

My take-a-way from the responses here is that there are lots of parents who don't know enough about game-play and see their kid picking daisies because they don't know how to get involved.

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At what point does a coach stop encouraging a midfielder to take as many touches as they want and be as creative as they want? Our midfielder lost possession 9 times out of 10 and cost the team the tournament. Also likes to shoot from midfield rather than look for the pass. The entire team is frustrated. I ask because my kid has an opportunity elsewhere, and we are at the point where we don’t believe this is ever going to change.

You should tell the player's parents that the kid needs to pass more....that is awesome

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Midfield

The time to be fancy with unlimited touches in the midfield is practice. Games should be about making good decisions, whether it’s taking that extra touch, dribbling or passing. Midfielder is the most important position on the field.

I like most of this but why be creative in practice if your not allowed to in games. How can we develop top end talent if we don’t have players who can play with the ball at their feet? There is a balance and your point of having decision makers is right. If someone loses the ball constantly you need to change that but also don’t want 2 touch restrictions. That is what our men’s national team has and they can’t qualify for a World Cup.

Just like this parent thinks they should always pass the other parent probably says to do it yourself, the coach more likely in the middle.

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I like most of this but why be creative in practice if your not allowed to in games. How can we develop top end talent if we don’t have players who can play with the ball at their feet? There is a balance and your point of having decision makers is right. If someone loses the ball constantly you need to change that but also don’t want 2 touch restrictions. That is what our men’s national team has and they can’t qualify for a World Cup.

Just like this parent thinks they should always pass the other parent probably says to do it yourself, the coach more likely in the middle.

Kinda' my thought. We don't know enough about the exact situation other than a disgruntled parent of teammate. Could be they aren't getting passed to. Could be the subject of the post is a ball hog. Could be prevalent, could be isolated.

But, part of learning the game is learning what you can and can't do. Sure, practice helps but you need to learn it in a competitive environment. Sad that is cost a tourney win, but in the big picture that's meaningless.

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At what point does a coach start encouraging a midfielder to take as many touches as they want and be as creative as they want if the teammates all just stand around and have little idea of what movement is? Our midfielder lost possession 9 times out of 10 as he is swarmed and carried the team as far as he could in the tournament. Also likes to shoot from midfield rather than look for the pass because he can and nobody is ever open. The entire team is frustrated because they can't keep up. I ask because my kid has an opportunity elsewhere, and we are at the point where we don’t believe this is ever going to change and he knows he doesn't want to put in the work required.

Chicken and the egg right here ..... have the other fields given up on movement because they know it is wasted energy or has the CM always been forced to create something out of nothing because players are standing behind defenders and watching? In my mind probably a little of both and to the point of other posters, the problem lies squarely with the coaching for not demanding more of all of the players and making changes as necessary.

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My take-a-way from the responses here is that there are lots of parents with ball hogs here.

And they love it because little Landon is a superstar and gets 1 or 2 goals per game in all of their losses because the frequent giveaways severely limit his team's scoring opportunities and drastically increase those of his opponents .... but as long as little Landon is getting his, everything is peachy!

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The time to be fancy with unlimited touches in the midfield is practice. Games should be about making good decisions, whether it’s taking that extra touch, dribbling or passing. Midfielder is the most important position on the field.

Until you get in front of your opponents goal or they get in front of yours! :)

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I like most of this but why be creative in practice if your not allowed to in games. How can we develop top end talent if we don’t have players who can play with the ball at their feet? There is a balance and your point of having decision makers is right. If someone loses the ball constantly you need to change that but also don’t want 2 touch restrictions. That is what our men’s national team has and they can’t qualify for a World Cup.

Just like this parent thinks they should always pass the other parent probably says to do it yourself, the coach more likely in the middle.

I would not count touches for any player, but keeping objective track of outcomes is key to determining if a player is getting the job done or not. High turnover:touch ratio is a huge redflag for a CM and few teams track anything other than goals (often not even assists!). I know numbers of turnovers and touches are much harder to track, but you would think a coach would make mental notes on several plays and start seeing trends .... gheez, little Landon turns the ball over a lot when he has space and options all over the place, or little Joey often finds a way to play the ball out of traffic to an open teammate (where little Landon then finds a way to run out of space and turn the ball over again)! :) He might also notice that little Landon never has any open options because you idiots are all standing around picking daisies!! :)

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This happens a lot at my kids club. Because it is ulittle the coach has an obligation to play the head down ball hog who doesn't pass but instead dribbles into pressure and loses the ball. Yeah, we might win more if they rode the bench more but the coach tries to develop all players.

When he sees a kid has a weakness at a position the coach specifically has that player in a position that will help them develop areas they worked to improve during practice. For instance we have a really good goalie that needed to improve their footskills and tackling so they were playing defense for most of our tournament games.

I don't know the age the OP was referring to but if it is u13 and below stop worrying about the wins and be happy your coach may be trying to create well rounded soccer players.

I am not a coach but had one explain that this is what they were doing when I asked a similar question to the OPs.