Along with a number of other teams, I currently coach my youngest son’s U5 Rec team. Sponsored by Sheetz, their name is the Lil’ Sheetz – you gotta love it. Anyway – we’re playing a match that is pretty even this past weekend and both teams are scoring plenty of goals and having fun. I think I had three kids total (it was a cold morning and I had a few sick). So coach was happy. Then towards the end of the match, one of the players ‘dribbled’ towards the end line and stopped, unsure what to do now that he hadn’t ended up in front of the goal. So he put his foot on the ball and did a pull back, turning around and dribbling away. I went nuts cheering, as did the parents. The players on the field are like ‘huh?’ And for the last five minutes of the match, no matter where they were when they got the ball, they all tried to pull it back and turn. The other team wasn’t really sure what was going on, but a few of them decided to join in as well. Both coaches were hooting and hollering every time they did one. I’m not sure another goal got scored in those five minutes, but what an awesome feeling to watch kids that age so something other than chase and shoot. Can’t say it was anything magical the other coach and I may have done in practice. We certainly have the kids do pull backs as part of other activities, but it’s not like they’re a central focus. Yet as a coach I couldn’t help but walk away from that match extremely proud of the kids on both teams, and the parents who recognized what they were doing and cheered them on even if they weren’t scoring.
Good stuff!
Loading...
October 22nd, 2009 at 11:12 am
Great write-up. We had a similar experience Saturday. Our 7-year-olds were up 5-2, and the same kids that have scored all season were scoring today.
At the halftime break I asked if anyone hadn’t scored this year. A couple of kids still hadn’t. So I asked the other players to try to help these two kids get a scoring chance.
It was amazing how the game changed! The players started paying more attention to other kids on the field, picking their head up, trying to find an opening to get the ball to those other two to score.
It was very cool, and rewarding to see them try some things we had done in practice but didn’t really come out until they slowed down to think a bit.
Glad to hear about your pull-turn fest! Always great to see the kids pull it off in a match.
November 3rd, 2009 at 9:54 am
Its a great feeling when the kids do something spontaneous like that. My son is 3 years old and has already started doing the backheel. Im also encouraging the little ones to kick with either foot from the get go, before they get stuck in a ‘rut’ and begin developing their game biased to one side.