Anyone with kids in little league baseball knows about the ‘mercy rule’. If a team gets up by a certain number of runs, the game is ended early. The idea being the kids will get demoralized, so ending it early protects their sensibilities. You don’t find mercy rules too often in soccer though. The emphasis is always on ball touches – the more the merrier and the more game play situations the better. However, that doesn’t mean soccer avoids blowout matches and the psychological impacts of them.
Our league has faced an interesting situation this fall. This was our first season with travel teams which meant there was another outlet for the more advanced players. Our league allows kids to play both Challenge (travel) and Recreational soccer during the same season if they want to. The only restriction is they cannot play for two different teams on the same day. During registration, a lot of the kids who made Challenge teams signed up for Recreational as well. When our division coordinators created the teams, they tried to ensure the better players were evenly distributed across the teams to balance the division. However, before the first practice, but after the rosters had been finalized, a lot of the kids on travel teams dropped out, deciding to play only travel soccer. We also lost a number of athletic kids to football who also had signed up ‘just in case’. In essence, we had parents ‘reserving’ slots for their kids.
Needless to say this affected some teams significantly when they lost their better players while other teams kept all their players. The result is some teams are dominating while others are struggling. 8 point goal differentials in a single match are not uncommon.
Because of this, I’ve had some parents and coaches ask why we don’t have a mercy rule. I’ve touched on lopsided matches before. As a coach, I find them very difficult to handle as you try to ensure your kids get field time without running up the score and upsetting the opposing parents and coach. It’s great to try out new lineups and risky things you might not try during a normal match. However, it can be very difficult to rein the kids in and get them to not score. Even so, I’m not convinced a mercy rule is the right solution.
I speak from experience. While my U10’s are doing very well, my U8’s are struggling. We’ve lost some matches by 7-9 points and the kids KNOW they’re being outplayed. My older players are really taking it hard. However, I’m not sure a mercy rule would help that since they know early in a match when the other team is dominating the game. Ending the match 5-10 minutes early won’t change that. Besides – my kids need ball touches, especially in game situations. Losing 5-10 minutes off every match adds up. I believe it’s my job to ensure the kids don’t get down on themselves and that the parents understand – it’s a building year. Happens to everyone. Obviously I’m struggling as a coach with my U8’s and we’re trying to make some adjustments to ensure the older kids aren’t bored as we work on basic skills the younger kids should have already had from U6. We’re going to try some new things this week to see if we can get everyone back into it.
Now I will say that any coach who lets a single player rack up 5+ goals against a weak team is teaching the wrong lesson. However, if you have a number of your kids score a couple of goals, the score can spike in a hurry. I don’t think that’s bad. Also, often when a strong team faces a weak team, the stronger players will score early. Is it fair to the less skilled players who so badly want that ‘first goal’ to have to also ratchet back and not score? I don’t think so. I know with our U10’s against certain teams, the stronger players won’t get much offensive time at all. One of my players actually told me he tries not to score because he knows I’ll pull him as soon as he does. He said this not long after I pulled him in a match where he scored 3 goals in less than 3 minutes. So, they play defense and the other kids get much more offensive touches. It evens things out and I find myself struggling to ensure the more advanced players get their ‘equal’ time.
A lopsided match is tough to take if you lose no matter how many players score. I understand that. However I’m not sure a mercy rule would change much. Kids know their match is being called early if it’s anything more than 5 minutes left. I think it is the responsibility of the league and coaches to explain to the parents that there can be a huge difference in two matches where the score was 10-2. One coached properly (players challenged with weak footed shooting, consecutive passes, multiple players score) and one coached improperly (same kid exploits weak defense over and over to score). It may not make it any easier to handle, but it will often keep parents from assuming ‘oh that coach just wants to run up the score’ when there is nothing farther from the truth.
This problem will be less of an issue in the spring as we’ll break up the U10 and U8 divisions based partly on the fall results. We could have split in the fall, and debated it for a long time, but in the end, with the unbalanced spread of dropouts, any likely split would still have resulted in a few dominant teams in each division.
This isn’t an easy thing to manage. I’m curious how other leagues have handled seasons where a few teams emerge dominant and the teams at the bottom of the standings get outplayed week after week.
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October 18th, 2006 at 9:42 pm
Our league has a mercy rule that works quite well. After a differential of 5 goals, the leading team pulls a player– and continues to pull players as the differential increases. In a real blowout, you can end up with only 1 player on the field. With my U13s tonight we were playing a U14 teams that was schooling but when we had a player advantage, we were able to use the space quite effectively and score. When we then back to even strength the girls had the confidence back and continued to play well.
I did have a bad experience with the rule a couple of weeks ago when the opposing coach turned to his team and said something like “let them score so we can get back to real socccer.” He of course kept his travel players on the field while pulling the weaker ones.
I apologize for the long comment but this is subject that is especially raw for me.
October 19th, 2006 at 8:38 am
My concern with pulling players is you’re still denying a kid playing time. As a coach you’ve got to be able to challenge your team in a lopsided match such that everyone still gets playing time, but you don’t score 20 goals. Sometimes I worry that rules like this are meant to force coaches to do something in a backhanded way that they should be doing in the first place, which is coach their kids and not allow one kid to dominate the team which helps nobody. I often wonder if leagues had more organized coaching education programs, would we have less need for these rules that try to tie hands behind the backs of good teams because the coaches aren’t handling it properly. The coach you mention is a perfect example. What an idiot. I agree ‘let them play’ but is he incapable of challenging his team to a point that the other team is competitive or at least not being run over? We talk all the time about US players having horrible ball skills. That coach should have had his kids shooting left footed from outside the box, 5 consecutive passes before a shot gets taken, only shooting from X, etc. Instead he wants to let his star fly, score lots of goals and feel like a success. He’s not doing anyone any favors.
Anyway – won’t ramble too much. It’s a raw spot for me but in a different way. Sometimes I fear we’re trying to compensate for bad coaching in ways that hurt the kids as well.
October 21st, 2006 at 2:48 am
As a PONY baseball parent who has been on both sides of the situation, it’s a tough thing all around. When our kids were getting beat, they knew it, as you pointed out. It was tough to see them get “10-runned” and walk off the field feeling like failures. Sometimes, it was due to more experienced, bigger kids on opposing teams, with coaches who loved to run the score up…other times it was due to umpire unfairness, such as one ump calling strikes on one of our kids who took too long to get up to the plate, and the pitcher was told to start pitching anyway, or, maybe the kids just had an off day. Any way you look at it, it’s hard on the kids. I don’t think stopping the game makes them feel any better. When a team is coached well, and can make adjustments, such as making them bat left handed, or not letting them steal, or holding them to 1 base at a time, it helps…but since they are trained to steal, and achieve as many bases as they can, and try their hardest, is it fair to make them hold back? I don’t know. I can only say that Husband, when he knows that we are playing a team that we will handily beat, sits our starters for the first inning or two, and explains to all of the kids why he is doing it. He also holds them to 1 base at a time with no stealing, and makes them take it easy. We’ve also been in situations where we’ve “lent” players to the other team when they needed a little help, and played for fun-that makes it fun for the other team too, and they learn by watching these kids do what they do. Dunno-it’s hard to say how to handle it in any sport!
October 21st, 2006 at 6:54 am
We have had a LOT of debate about this recently in our league on the parent and coach mailing lists. It’s been a good discussion, both related to how we assign teams and why certain teams are so strong (dropouts killed some other teams – they lose their best players) and also the idea that just because a game is 9-0 does not mean the coach ‘ran up the score’ A lot of parents didn’t really see that.
I agree that it is tough to strike that balance between letting your kids play to continue to improve and holding them back when you’ve worked so hard on doing the very things you are telling them not to. I was talking with a coach last night who agreed that you can almost do more harm than good for your team by holding them back too much. He had like 3 matches in a row against less experienced teams and knew they’d be blowouts. So he held his kids back. Don’t score more than a goal, pass around, etc. Put his strongest kids in the backfield most of each match. Then when the tournament came around, they got beaten because the kids had spent the good part of a month holding back.
No, it’s not just about ‘winning’ but lets be honest with ourselves. There’s a difference in ‘coaching to win’ and ‘coaching ALL your kids to play their best and the result is they are successful (they win)’
My U10’s won last night 10-1. Seven of my 11 players scored. One girl got her first goal ever, another player got her third goal ever. From the start I had explained – 3 consecutive passes, left footed shooting, and started weaker front lines. I also experimented a bit, trying different formations to see how the kids would handle them. We played 2-3, 3-2, and yes 1-4 (to give my defenders some experience on owning the backfield by themselves and learning that they had to be aware of EVERYone who was around, not just running at the ball) It probably didn’t look good on the sideline, but the 4 up front were usually my kids who needed the most improvement. Parents from the other team still were upset because they felt we weren’t ‘holding back’ The interesting thing was my parents explained who was who and how we were doing many different things, that many of the stronger players were in back, the goalies had never played goalie before, etc. I think the fact that the parents talked with each other help avoid a lot of that grumbling that often happens.
No – I did not tell my kids directly to ‘not score’ until we hit 8 or 9 goals (and just because you say ‘don’t shoot!’ doesn’t mean they’ll always listen when faced with an open goal mouth. I challenged them to execute their passes and play properly. And it worked. I think ONE goal, I had a player from the backfield dribble up, razzle dazzle style around their players and score. Every other time we scored, we passed up the line from the backfield, the wings took it in and we had some amazing feed passes to the centers or touch backs to the wings coming in for the shot. We can scrimmage over and over, but I believe they learn something very valuable executing proper passing, feeds, and the like in a match situation, even if it’s against a less experienced team. They finally understand how they can get the ball upfield so much faster with good passes to their teammates. Seeing it in action was exciting.
I will say this – the other team’s goal keeper was amazing. He had dozens of saves, a number of really hard shots. One of my left footed players came up the touchline and got a pass from the middle and just tore it towards the corner. The keeper jumped up with one hand outstretched, reaching as high as he could, and caught the ball one handed. Was amazing to see. Thanks to him my team could still ‘play’ and work on the challenges they had been given. Otherwise it could have been 8-0 at halftime and we’d have completely shut down.
There is no perfect answer to all this. Again, kids are there to play, both the ones on successful teams as well as the ones one teams working to improve. I’m on both sides this season with a U10 team that is playing very well and a U8 team that is struggling. My U8’s lost handily last night. But that’s ok. I think we’re 1-5-1 and most of those 5 loses have been doozies. But last night they started to finally show signs of ‘getting’ it. The defenders were finally looking where they passes and they often passes up the to the wings, NOT to the middle. The wings finally started to get that when the pass came to them it drew 2-3 other players so they started passing towards the middle that got left open all the time. We just couldn’t finish. We had at least 5 shots roll within 3 inches of the post. We had a number of feed passes one touched right to their keeper. But they were there. They were running and they were passing. I was very proud of them.
The point there is this. My U8’s have been beaten soundly all season because they were completely lost on the field and we had to work hard with some kids on basic skills. But we could be 0-8-0 and that wouldn’t matter. Seeing them FINALLY start to get it and start to realize HOW to play and what to do. The extra half step of speed or shot before reaching the goal box is what it’s all about. Their time will come. Maybe not this season, maybe not even next season. But you can SEE it. All too often coaches and parents get blinded by the hurt of their kids getting beaten as they work to improve and get better. The key is being able to see the improvement and getting the kids (and parents) to focus on THAT and not the results. Yeah, we lost 11-2 or 9-0. It hurts. So channel that into the kids working harder and working to improve. You’ll be amazed how many respond to that.
OK, I’m rambling WAY too long here for a comment 🙂 So I’ll end by saying this. We tell ourselves as coaches all the time ‘It’s not about the winning’ and that’s right. But it’s also not about the losing. Losing is hard, but as a coach you HAVE to use that to get your kids motivated to get better. THey may respond better than you’d even imagine. But if the parents and coaches get crest fallen and depressed – the kids see that and may follow right along with you.