As you all know, NC finally eliminated offside for U10 play at the Challenge (travel) level. One of the unanswered questions after this decision was made was what the tournaments would do as they weren’t affected by the decision. One of the bigger regional preseason tournaments in Winston-Salem, that used to be Classic only, added Challenge divisions this year. Their rules stated they would abide by current NCYSA Challenge rules, which for U10 meant no offside and one referee.
That lasted about three hours…
My daughter’s first match was interesting. Neither team was blatantly cherry picking, but the girls realized they could stay a few steps ahead of the defense and receive a pass on the run so they were 1v1 with the keeper. It wasn’t pretty and the score was really lopsided. Then at their second match a few hours later, suddenly the referee was calling offside. Parents on both sides were yelling ‘Its U10! There’s no offside!’ At halftime one of our parents, who is a referee himself, chatted with the referee and asked what was up. He told him that so many early U10 matches had so much cherry picking going on and scores that were really lopsided, they had decided to start enforcing offside. Which was funny because the hosting soccer league was one that had voted to eliminate offside at U10, though it’s not clear if the decision came from the tournament committee or the referee assignor. But it still made many of us laugh. The referee said his colleagues had talked after the first round of matches and that some teams had cherry picked badly while others were pushing up far enough to leave defenders in their wake and go 1v1 with the keeper. So intentional cherry picking or not, it was causing problems. It wasn’t just coaches ‘coaching to win’. Our team’s coach never encouraged the girls to hang by the goal, but the girls figured it out in a hurry what they could now do and took advantage of it. If this tournament was any indication, the U10 season is going to be ugly. Here are the scores from both U10 girls and boys matches at 8AM or 9:30AM before they started to enforce offside: 7-5 13-2 5-2 9-0 10-0. It hadn’t struck me until I saw it happen that the lack of offside was likely to make many matches more lopsided than they would be if offside were called. With mismatched teams, the stronger team can play aggressive defense and leave the cherry pickers unmarked. The weaker team can’t and will suffer more for it.
Needless to say, this turn of events led to yet another epic offside thread on the NC Soccer Forums 🙂 This time I started it – I couldn’t help myself.
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August 21st, 2007 at 8:34 am
If there’s no offside – then there’s no offside. The tourney officials made a mistake for changing the rules – no matter what the scores are. Good, bad or ugly – rules at tournaments must be followed. I am curious who changed the decision to start to call it.
August 21st, 2007 at 3:06 pm
I’d have to agree that normally changing the rules mid stream is a bad thing. But I’ll admit I was glad that they did. The kids responded to it well and the matches seemed to ‘play’ much better than the early matches did. Offside really is an equalizer for ‘fast kids’ who can sprint ahead of defenders to receive passes (yes technically they can do that after the ball is kicked with offside, but U10s don’t have that much awareness of the technical side of offside yet) I don’t think I heard a single complaint that they had started calling offside form any parents I spoke with.
Of course, the U10s are going to be playing without offside in the regular season – so they probably should be doing the same in the preseason. I sure hope the kids AND coaches figure out how to handle it, because it definitely is going to result in some blowouts that normally might have been closer matches.
August 22nd, 2007 at 2:20 pm
I saw the thread at the soccer forums, although I haven’t read it all yet. This comment bothered me, though:
“But we found it very humorous considering TCSA voted to eliminate offside.”
I’m assuming you meant TCYSA, and here’s what bugs me: I didn’t know that TCYSA had voted to eliminate offside for U10. Last spring, our Challenge rep asked the U10 coaches for our input about the “offside/no offside” vote coming up. I know that at least half of us, and probably more, told him that eliminating U10 offside was a bad idea, both from a development aspect and from a coaching aspect. Seems we were right. I just wonder why he even asked us, since it seems our opinions didn’t count for much.
My son was a ref at TCC, and centered one U10 game (it might have been for one of your teams, SoccerDad). He said he thought that “no offside” was a bad idea.
August 22nd, 2007 at 3:17 pm
Yeah typo – meant TCYSA and they definitely voted to do away with offside, at least according to the roll call I took in my notes.
Don’t know if we had your son or not. I remember the 8AM match being handled by a younger referee. Overall I thought the officiating at the TCC was very good. It’s never going to be perfect, but the matches I watched seemed to be well officiated.
September 10th, 2007 at 8:27 pm
No offsides is a bad idea.
October 8th, 2007 at 12:15 pm
There are valid arguments to support and oppose “no offsides” at U10. At the recreation level I can agree with more of the argument to support “no offside”, but at the Challenge level I do not agree with the “no offside” rule.
I have heard other coaches complain that they spend too much time “teaching” how to play on-side. To that I say this … I coach a U10 team that has six U9s and one U8 (and three true U10s)… they ALL know how to play on-side and we spend little time during practice sessions on offside.
What the kids at this age need to know is the basic premis of “I can’t pass the last defender (before the goal keeper) if I don’t have the ball and/or if the ball hasn’t passed the last defender. The judgemnet of “did the player go offside before his/her teammate struck the ball” should not be an issue at this age, UNLESS it was obvious that the player was passed the last defender PRIOR to the ball being struck. Whether or not it was “absolute cherry-picking” (i.e. waiting inside the penaltiy box) or waiting just behind a defender, offside SHOULD be called! This is a fundamental aspect of the game of soccer and should be taught and introduced ESPECIALLY at the Challenge level, even at U10.
I hope more people read this before the next NCYSA Challenge Council meeting scheduled for December 1, 2007!
October 8th, 2007 at 12:34 pm
I went back and read some earlier postings related to this topic. The concern about the defense pushing foward, field size, decreasing to 6v6 … NONE of this makes a difference. Offside is part of soccer, we should be introducing it and teaching it.
These same age children play baseball with the “dropped 3rd strike rule”, younger kids play baseball with a three strikes and your out rule … why not let each child hit the ball each at bat, no matter how many strikes they have? Because it is part of the game of baseball. Offside is part of soccer!!