People who aren’t familiar with soccer usually believe it is a sport where players never get hurt and there is no contact. The problem is many in the sports media help further this myth about soccer. Any youth soccer referee, coach, or league administrator will have many stories about having to explain to parents that, yes, contact and injuries happen. Even at the youth levels, contact is almost constant and the risk of injury is very real (#2 behind football).
Over at Peach State Soccer (@PeachSoccer), an online magazine dedicated to Georgia Soccer, they have an article about one busy soccer parent or coach and all the injuries they know about just in one weekend. Sobering:
Friday night: High School Boys JV – ankle broken in three places from tackle
Saturday: Girls U11 – lost teeth from collision with goalkeeper’s head
Saturday: Girls U13 – broken tibia from tackle
Sunday night: Men’s league – broken collar bone from tackle
Monday night: High School Boys JV – blown knee ligaments from tackleSports injuries do not equal toughness. They are quite sad actually and while injuries from unintentional contact are one thing – in fact all of the injuries I described from the weekend were just that, fair challenges or just accidental brutal collisions, intentional injuries are absolutely intolerable.
I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Youth referees need to start showing cards to kids as young as U8 or U10 who commit reckless fouls, even if they are unintentional. Otherwise they grow up knowing or believing that no foul is going to get them a card until it is too late and they really hurt someone. Stop worrying about making a kid cry and show them cards when they deserve them. They need to know when a foul went over the line while they’re young.
Some will say we should ban tackles, but even if that happens, injuries from reckless fouls will still happen. So show some plastic when it’s deserved, even if the foul was unintentional. There’s no need to require ‘malice’ to show the plastic. Kids need to learn where the boundaries are, and a normal loss of possession foul isn’t going to do that.
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March 10th, 2009 at 7:30 pm
I agree 100 and 10 percent. I just blew out my maniscus tendon in an ODP game around 2 months ago. It’s not fun at all.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:27 am
I completely agree. At youth levels, I am satisfied (and quiet) with the officiating if the calls are consistent and play that could injure a player is not tolerated.
One thing many officials of youth soccer do not understand is that they are there, along with the coaches, to teach the game of soccer. I have never complained about an official talking to my players “too much”. After a hard foul that could injure, I do not mind the center stopping play (and the chance for a quick restart and possibly ruin the flow of the game) and talking (not lecturing) to the offending player.
March 11th, 2009 at 10:34 am
I get the funniest looks from referees if they talk to the coaches beforehand. They’ll often say something like ‘I want to see clean play and will provide warnings for reckless/dangerous fouls’ and I’ll always say “That’s great, as long as you card them too” I coach U12 and they think I’m bonkers.
I’ve seen my own players come in too hard or do something reckless and it’s ‘just a foul’ One of my biggest players tried to step in on a ball at a full sprint and misjudged her timing. Body checked the dribbler at least 3 yards. No card. I couldn’t believe it. It wasn’t intentional, but it was dangerous and reckless – should have been carded.
I’ve seen three yellow cards in about 70 matches with my ’96 girls team, including just one for my players. I bet they’ve earned at least five. One card against an opponent, it was a VERY hard foul. But in talking with the ref he said ‘yeah – I was debating the card until I saw her turn around with a mean look on her face – so I booked her’ Huh? Malice has nothing to do with it. Reckless/Dangerous – card.
March 11th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
Completely agree. Referees seem to be reluctant to show cards to younger players, especially girls. My husband is the only ref I know who has actually booked U10 and U11 girls.
My daughter’s U11 team played a match last fall in which she (and several of her teammates) came across as a bunch of little thugs. Deliberate pushing and body checking, especially when they’d been beaten by some attacker’s sweet move. My hubby watched the game with complete disgust for the center ref. He said that he’d been reffing, he would have shown our team at least 3 yellows and a red – for unsporting behavior, persistent infringement and denying an obvious goal-scoring opportunity.
The need for referees to be vigilant is especially important at ages where there are more likely to be large differences in the sizes of the players, such as U11/U12 girls and U13/U14 boys. Not saying that they should penalize the bigger players just for being big, but like you said, intent doesn’t matter. An adult-sized kid who plays recklessly has the potential to do a lot of harm, even if she is only 11 or 12 years old.
March 11th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
Mike, do you think it’s plain bad refereeing/lack of experience and knowledge of the rules of the game or an intentional desire to keep the game flowing and to not stand out to the kids and the parents by calling fouls? Does your league admin govern how refs call games and do coaches get to grade or complain about marginal referee efforts? FWIIW, I have no problem telling kids to ease up, back off and the like and will award a penalty shot under all appropriate circumstances.
Jenn, being big for your age often means that you’re a target; my son is a very talented player who is also a very big and strong six. He beats kids constantly only to get cheap shots to the back and stomach, pushed to the ground and generally knocked around. Refs generally ignore his treatment (he’s so much bigger than them, he can take it and the like) and coaches turn a blind eye when I tell them that their boys are out of line (just boys being boys, they’ll say, very frustrating). When he was five in the U& league I carried him off the field crying more than once, only to have him rally come back on the turf and win the game with his footwork and skill, not his elbows and knees. Keep that in mind the next time you see big kids and smaller kids come together.
March 11th, 2009 at 8:52 pm
Jenn,
Yup – that’s one thing I didn’t mention, how refs won’t show girls cards as much as boys at the younger (and sometimes even older) age groups. Yes – you may make a girl cry if you card her – I’ve seen it happen. She’s not going to be scarred for life. But most will accept it and move on, especially if their coach has explained what cards really are. I tell my players that a yellow card is a way for the referee to tell you that your behavior/foul was unacceptable – you’d stepped over a line vs ordinary fouls or committed one of the ‘sins’. I tell them if they get a yellow, then they should know what they did crossed a line and not to get another. Then we have the red card discussion and what consequences there are. That’s when their eyes get wide 🙂
March 11th, 2009 at 8:59 pm
Tim,
I don’t have a problem with referees who let the game flow without losing control. Don’t award my team a foul if we have advantage and the ball. Let the kids play. Overall I find most refs call the vast majority of fouls fairly and let the game flow fairly. It IS a contact sport. That’s not the problem. It’s the reluctance to show the plastic when a foul is above and beyond ‘normal’ because it just teaches the player ‘Well all we did is lose the ball – not a big deal even though I cleaned the kid out’ Most refs will call the egregious foul, but the problem is if it was severe enough, even if not intentional, show the card.
March 12th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Tim, I’m not saying that big kids should be penalized for being big. My daughter is small and she is one of the meanest and most aggressive kids on the field. I know there have been times when she has taken cheap shots and deliberately provoked a bigger player to try and draw a foul – and her coach gets on her case hard when she does it. I think if the ref would show her a card, she might calm down some.
What I’d like to see is refs calling the reckless/dangerous play more consistently, especially at ages where the size differences can be substantial. Controlling the game for players of all sizes makes it less likely that anyone will get hurt.
March 12th, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Thanks Mike, I hear you, very thoughtful.
Jenn, I agree with you point on consistency . . . I have the reverse problem with my son (as compared to your daughter) he’s very determined and a real closer but just not mean in the least. I encourage him to be more physical and to use his size to his advantage, not to foul or hurt anyone but to dominate the play to an even greater degree. All said, though, he’s only 6 . . .
March 12th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
Tim,
HAHAHAHA Yeah – give him some time. True story. I have a girl on my team that I started coaching as a U8. She was rather timid and wouldn’t go near the ball if other kids were nearby, especially the boys (we play CoEd in Rec) In U10, she would absolutely NO head the ball. We worked on heading one time, just bouncing balls off each other’s heads 6″ away to get the feel for it. Tears welled up in her eyes. She was NOT liking the idea. Ironically – she got two bloody noses in U10 from ball hits and kept playing once it stopped. But not aggressive.
I encouraged her to tryout for our travel team at U11, and we just kept encouraging all of them to be more aggressive on the ball. it takes time to get over that fear. Now in U12? She’s like a different player and probably one of the players on my team MOST likely to get a yellow. She was pacing a dribbler towards the corner one time and she leaned in a shoulder on the girl and ran her out of bounds. Her Dad had tears in his eyes LOL
Short answer? If they like soccer, they’ll slowly get more aggressive. Drills like calling out numbers (each player on a team has one) and have them charge the ball and then play 1v1 can help, a lot. Most 1v1 drills encourage contact. When they get older, throw balls in teh air and two opponents have to settle it and bring the ball to their ‘home base’ – extra point if they touch the ball before it hits the ground, etc.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:25 pm
Good advice, Mike, I like the drills a lot. Yeah, he’s such a natural and so determined that I really have to pinch myself and remember that he’s only 6! He is really the only kid I’ve coached over the last 3 years (in soccer as well as basketball and baseball) that, at his age (and when he was 5) I could say “mark x” or “kick it out” in the middle of a play and he would do it immediately with great results.
March 13th, 2009 at 6:49 am
That’s always fun, to coach those young kids that just LOVE soccer and want to learn how to do it better. We have a couple in our league that you just can’t wait to see how they develop when they’re older!