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A sad tale about the state of youth soccer in Canada

July 10, 2009 10:30 AM | Posted by   Jason de Vos  

A friend of mine from high school told me a disturbing story the other day. It provides some insight into the state of youth soccer in our country, so I thought I would share it with you.

My friend, I’ll call her Michelle, has three boys who all play competitive soccer. Last year, her nine-year-old boy, I’ll call him Michael, broke his leg while playing a game.

There was nothing malicious involved; it wasn’t a nasty tackle or anything of the sort. He was taking a shot on goal, the defender tried to block it and they both kicked the ball at the same time. Michael ended up the worse for wear, as it turned out he had broken his femur.

Upon further investigation, Michael was also found to have a tumour on the bone, which had weakened it, causing the bone to break.

Having one of your children diagnosed with a serious illness is every parent’s worst nightmare, so you can imagine Michelle’s concern for her youngest son.

Fortunately, the tumour turned out to be benign. It was a tremendous relief for Michelle, although Michael still had to have surgery to repair the broken femur. Together, they spent the best part of six months dealing with pins, casts, wheelchairs and crutches.

This spring, much to his delight, Michael was deemed healthy enough to begin playing soccer again. Michelle was told that Michael needed to be eased back into competitive soccer, as it takes time to get over the emotional scars of an injury as much as the physical ones.

Having recovered from my fair share of injuries over the years, I can attest to that. Even once you are fully healed, there is still a lingering doubt in your mind about your injury, and you often need to be on the receiving end of a strong tackle to convince you that you are as good as new.

This season, Michael had been playing the last five or ten minutes of games to build up his fitness until recently, when he failed to see the field for five games in a row. According to Michelle, the games were getting closer and the coach was choosing not to play Michael.

Michelle overheard the coach talking to the players - who are 10 years old - after a recent loss. He was chastising them, saying that Michael didn’t get to see the field again because they lost the game.

Michelle confronted the coach after she heard this, and he told her that if she wasn’t happy with Michael’s playing time, he could go and play somewhere else. According to Michelle, the coach didn’t care what the doctors said; he didn’t think Michael was ready to play competitive soccer.

There are two sides to every story, and having heard Michelle’s tale of a tearful 10-year-old asking her, “Why did I have a tumour and why did my leg have to break?” I called the coach to get his side of things.

He claimed that Michael is way behind the other players in terms of his fitness, and that Michael often lags behind in training because he can’t keep up.

He said that in his opinion, Michael isn’t ready for competitive soccer because he is too frail and not strong enough to compete with the other boys.

He said he isn’t concerned about winning and losing, and that it doesn’t become important until the kids move on to playing on full-size fields.

He told me that his assistant coach and the parents of the other players on the team are unanimous in supporting his decision to ask Michelle to remove Michael from the team.

Like any argument, it is difficult to tell exactly where the truth lies.

On one hand, we have a mother who is clearly upset about how her son has been treated. I can hardly blame her, because I would probably feel the same way if one of my children were treated the same way.

On the other hand, we have a coach who is trying to do what he feels is in the best interests of his team. You can’t blame him for that, even if you disagree with his reasoning.

Incidentally, I asked the coach what kind of player Michael was before his injury. I was trying to decide whether this was just an excuse to slough off one of the fringe players who wasn’t really good enough to play there in the first place.

The coach told me that Michael was a fantastic player before his unfortunate accident, and that the whole episode was a real shame because the team could really use him right now.

It sounds to me like winning is a lot more important than losing, doesn’t it?

What disturbs me about all of this is that none of this aggravation needed to occur. None of this nonsense would have happened if we had a youth soccer development program that actually did what it was supposed to do - develop players.

Wouldn’t it be great if kids could learn the fundamentals of the game in an environment that is fun and challenging at the same time, without the need to measure success by wins and losses? Free from those concerns, a coach could give a player like Michael the time needed to recover from his injury.

A coach could nurture and develop the enthusiasm and ability of someone like Michael, because it wouldn’t matter if the team won or lost. Games would be where players put into practice the skills that they learned in training, and no player would need to sit on the sidelines all game because the score was “too close.”

You might argue that house league soccer already does that, but I would counter with the statement that coaching standards at the house league level are below par at best, and woeful at worst. Should 10-year-old boys and girls even be playing on competitive teams? Shouldn’t they be spending most of their time training and learning the skills needed to play the game to a high standard? At that tender age, have they already mastered those skills? Not likely.

Why should youth coaches be judged by wins and losses? Shouldn’t they be judged by how well they teach their players the fundamentals of the game? It’s not difficult to select the biggest, strongest, fastest players at the age of 10 in order to win a trophy. It’s much harder to teach those same players the skills of passing and receiving a ball, to instil in them a passion for the game that will last a lifetime.

As always, I welcome your opinions. While we’re on the topic of coaching, next week I’m going to tell you all about the best coach I ever had. I guarantee you it will be a surprise.

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