Sadly our Fall 2005 season is winding down. We have one more weekend of regular season matches and then our tournaments begin November 5th. As chance would have it, the last matches my children play this season are set to be some of the most exciting!

My daughter’s U8 team has done very well this season (proud Daddy!). They have only lost one game (when we refused to leave our stars in and a number of younger players out the entire match like the opposing coach) and everyone has played hard and contributed to the success of the team. They face the #1 team in the division this year which is still undefeated (we tied them 1-1 last Spring). Our kids are very excited but just a little nervous. So are the coaches! We’ve been thinking about ways to mix things up and we’ll see how it goes (no not gonna spill the beans early!). One thing for sure - even if it means losing, ALL our kids will play serious minutes.

My son’s U10 team started out strong this year but we’ve hit a few bumps of late. The opponent they face tonight is made up primarily of younger players who moved up from the U8 team that won the U8 tournament last season. This team also started out strong but has hit a few bumps in the road as well. Both teams are 1 point apart in the middle of the regular season standings and have very similar goal statistics. The exciting part is my son’s U10 team (which I coach) is made up primarily of kids who moved up from the U8 team that was runner up in the U8 tournament last season! It was a 2-1 heart-breaker. So tonight will be a sort of rematch (same coaches, many of the same players) My team has worked hard this year - we just need to focus and not get frazzled on the field and we’ll do well.

Wish us luck!

For as long as there have been team sports and the need to substitute players, there has been the bench. ‘Bench Warming’ is not something you aspire to, but as kids get older and the games get more competitive, more and more kids warm the bench while the stars play. In collegiate sports, the bench warmers often work very hard as the ‘blue team’ that the stars practice against. While most would prefer not to be there, they at least have an outlet to work hard and they get to travel with the team. At the professional level, at least you’re getting paid - though often not the super star salaries everyone seems to think all professional athletes get. Yet even at the professional level, lack of playing time is still a common complaint, even for stars. Freddy Adu finally lost his patience during an interview and lashed out over his lack of playing time for DC United:

"It’s funny because I’ve been playing so well in practice," he said. "I felt so good at training, but come game time, I’m sitting on the bench. I’m just like, ‘Man, it [stinks].’ That’s the kind of thing that is out of your hands. You can’t really do anything about it. It’s out of your control. All you can control is you and what you do. It [stinks] that I’m in this situation."

Sure, Freddy is only 16 years old, but he’s a professional now and earning six figures. But his quote above could be uttered by many a child playing youth sports at the recreational level. Imagine how a 6 year old feels in the same situation. What’s that? You think a 6 year old shouldn’t be in that situation? I couldn’t agree more.

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I’ll be the first to admit the whole soccer craze took our family by surprise. When we signed our oldest up for a local town team, we were just looking for an activity for his endless energy. He was 4 at the time. The ‘team’ was more an activity group that practiced each week and scrimmaged amongst themselves (since we had no league at the time) and was run by two of our more experienced coaches. We had no idea what was in store for us. Our son loved playing soccer and was so excited when our local league started up the next Spring. Many of the kids who participated in the program the previous fall formed a team coached by the same two coaches. The next season I got recruited to coach the remnants of his U6 team that was left when the original coaches moved up with their kids to U8. Finally, my wife and I got heavily involved in helping run the league. Fun was, and is, being had by all. We all really enjoy being involved.

As our son got older and moved up into U8, he started to show some good ball handling and field skills. He seemed to be understanding the game better and how to handle the ball in different situations. He’s gone to soccer camp at Duke University for three years now and each year returned with new and improved skills. In his last U8 season before moving up to U10, he was doing very well and having lots of fun. When some parents commented on how our son played and asked if he was going to try out for a challenge team, we honestly hadn’t thought about it.

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As you can see, I’ve started to include some advertising on the site. No matter why you include ads, you always feel a little weird doing it. Before things were nice and clean - now there’s this ‘box’ there. I write about youth soccer because I enjoy being involved in it so much, not for any financial gain. However, Google’s Adsense program is very well done and if I can earn a couple of nickels to help pay for bandwidth or even another sleeve of water cooler cups, all the better.

I promise not to overload things. Right now its just the skyscraper in the sidebar (which was mostly empty space anyway) and the occasional banner at the top of extended posts. I may add other services here and there to mix things up a bit (like Amazon’s Associates program), but nothing flashy or distracting. And if you see something that intrigues you - click away! The Soccer Dad thanks you for the nickel!

I knew moving to coaching U10 was going to be an adventure compared to coaching U6. Don’t get me wrong - U6 coaches are saints. Trying to get eight 4 and 5 year olds to learn basic soccer skills requires the patience of Job. Basic skill development is the name of the game. I think I did fairly well at it and I know my U6 kids had a lot of fun. I hated to leave U6, but it was time to try something a little more involved (OK and I admit it - intense)

Moving to U10, I expected that I’d have more trouble teaching the kids more advanced skills and giving them better insights into the game itself and how it is played. I didn’t play soccer in school and have been on a crash course ever since my son first kicked a soccer ball. So I was a bit nervous about how I would do trying to take these kids up a level in their love and understanding of the game. Taking those basic skills, adding onto them, and applying them at the right times during a match. Little did I know that my challenges would be elsewhere.

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We’ve been having a bit of a drought this fall in North Carolina. Not a dust bowl drought, but most of August and September were VERY sunny and it hardly ever rained. We’d put this nifty new voice mail system in place for our ‘SoccerLine’ where you can register via phone, get league info, and check for weather cancellations which any league officer can update. But the weather never got bad enough to where we had to use it!

So we had been spoiled by weekend after weekend of sunny (and often HOT) weather for our matches. Well that all changed this weekend!

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The Cleats of Imminent Doom is a short film by Craig Hammill, which aired on IFC back in June. It’s about a girls soccer team playing in a pivotal match in a soccer tournament and all the interesting personalities you find at a youth soccer match. A number of people who saw it in June asked if I had seen it (I hadn’t) and said that they loved it. It must be generating a lot of ‘buzz’ even months after it was shown. I wrote about the film in early July and that one post gets Google referrals from searches for ‘Cleats of Imminent Doom’ almost every day.

Well, if you are like me and missed it in June, you have a second chance to catch it on IFC in October. The Cleats of Imminent Doom is part of the IFC October Short Film Collection II (2005). Below are the scheduled showings in October:

• Tuesday, October 4th, 12:15PM
• Thursday, October 6th, 10:00AM
• Sunday, October 9th, 2:00PM
• Thursday, October 13th, 10:00AM
• UPDATE - Looks like they added a few more showings…
• Sunday, October 16th, 11:45AM
• Friday, October 21st, 1:45PM
• Friday, October 28th, 1:45PM

I’ve already got a friend with a PVR recording it for me (yes, a geek like me still has no PVR) so I’ll post some thoughts on it once I finally get to see it! Post your thoughts as well, the more the merrier!

Any league official knows that contested calls and matches come with the territory. So I’ve added a new section where I’ll post up any interesting scenarios we encounter in our league or that I hear/read about. We all know the official’s decision is final - but its still fun to pontificate about it afterward. These situations are often based on actual events, but I may clarify some statements to keep things from being too fuzzy. I may also make up some scenarios as well. You never know when one might become reality! All of these posts will be in the ‘Tough Call’ category.

The Scenario

• Division: U10 Co-ed Rec
• Score: 1-1 with < 10 seconds remaining
• Regulation was down to the last few seconds of the match. The white team is attacking. The ref blows the whistle indicating offside has occurred and most players let up. A white player kicks the ball into the blue team’s goal while most other players are stopping and trying to figure out what is going on. The ref decides offside had not actually occurred and the whistle should not have been blown and indicates that a goal was scored by the white team.
• Contention: Should the final goal count (White wins 2-1)? The coach of the blue team pointed out that the whistle had blown and regardless of the reason, when that happens, play stops. Once play stops, even for a blown call, he felt a dropped ball or free kick should have been awarded to restart play. The coach of white points out that his team was on the attack and clearly could have scored. Why should they be penalized for a mistake by the referee?

So what was the right thing to do? Should the ref have restarted play using a free kick or dropped ball? Was the act of blowing the whistle the turning point? (i.e. regardless of why or if it was a mistake, once the whistle blew, play stopped and any player still playing gained an unfair advantage) With time just about to expire, there was little recourse unless the ref added time (which at that point they had no reason to like injury time, etc.)

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