Yorkieabroad

Couple of years ago (so maybe U9, U10) I was talking to a parent on the other side who wanted to switch teams. Reckoned their coach was teaching the kids to "foul until the ref cards you". Given that at that point we'd only ever seen one card on a player, and that was cos he thumped the ref (), it predictably turned into the dirtiest game we had ever played. Why try to teach kids that sort of play at such a young age....? There were so many complaints about the coach that we thought he would be banned, but he is still there because there are so few willing to do it. But it is noticeable that he now has adult refs at just about all his games to keep things in check.....

Yorkieabroad

We saw a lad literally leave the field in tears because of this. We'd seen him before as a decent striker, but the coach had told him to play Right Back, a position he wasn't comfortable in, so that he could rotate some other players up front. They were losing, and the dad was on one side shouting at him to play out of position, move up and go back to his striker role. Coach was on the other side telling him to stay back. What's the kids supposed to do?

scrubbedexpat099

Listen to his Coach.

Yorkieabroad

Exactly, but tough for a 9 yo when he's getting conflicting instructions from 2 "authority" figures. Totally unacceptable.

Bink

Super hard. We get that in our team sometimes and we're adults. It's normally one or more players that decide they know best rather than someone on the sideline but it's definitely an impossible place for a kid to be in.

Ulsterman in Texas

I wonder how much the father knew about the game. I agree that it would be very difficult position to put a child in. The think is in high school football a lot of the time the coaches are highly revered by the players but I don't think it's the same for kids soccer.

scrubbedexpat099

From my experience, even the ones who have been taking their Daughters for years, seem to have little knowledge.

I am still explaining.

Yorkieabroad

We've been pretty lucky with parents on our team. A few of them have played through college, and some still play now. The ones that have never played are quite open about the fact that they don't understand it, and all seem very keen to learn. Unfortunately they assume that, being English, I know everything about soccer....oops. We have also had a very good variety of ethnicities...Asians, Scandinavians, Europeans as well as Americans..the amalgamation of which has always produced a nice team feel on the field and on the sidelines. At the risk of being branded, the main problems seem to occur within teams that are , erm, "ethnically concentrated" with folk with a passion for the game, a passion for winning the game, and a reputation for not being particularly calm about things. And wearing large brimmed hats.

Yorkieabroad

Round here, the High School football coach stands in when God has a day off. Or maybe it's the other way round....

Flabound oneday

Ole. yes we find that too, we played one team (u12) where the coach was carrying yes carrying his boys off after they went down screaming like they had been shot...they had also perfected the multi roll while waving for a card technique......minutes later they were back on the field as good as new.....we turned to our kids and said 'any of you roll around like fairies we will kick you off not carry you' ......they managed to win a penalty win a Tom Daly special and celebrated like it was cinco de mayo.....until they missed.........we stood there p1ssing ourselves with laughter