Silent Soccer & the Goal Differential Rule

This week was silent soccer in the youth league I coach in. Their thesis is that banning parents and coaches from yelling out from the sidelines somehow teaches better sportsmanship and a more pure love of the game. I'm a big advocate of good sportsmanship and I would frown on anybody yelling at the ref or saying anything negative but I think cheering from the parents and loud instruction from the coaches is all part of the game and doesn't detract from the sport at all.

This league also has what they call a "goal differential" rule that says if you win by six or more goals, it's recorded as a no- contest; neither team gets a win or a loss. This is also supposed to be about sportsmanship. If you get too far ahead, you're supposed to pull your better players, put weaker kids forward, etc... I have no problem trying to not run up the score but some times you put a kid that has been struggling all year up front and all of a sudden they shine and manage to score. They also tell us that yelling "Don't score!" From the sidelines will make the losing team feel bad so we have to come up with code words and hope our players remember what they mean in the middle of the game.

What do you all think of this? I am completely out of step with the league on both these issues. I think they're very misguided in spite of their good intentions. Are these policies in widespread use now or is it just my town?

Good grief.  WTF is this world coming to?

I do agree parents should probably shut the hell up on the sidelines so the coaches can coach and the kids play.  This liberal pansy ass thinking about scoring is another matter.  Sports is where kids learn to deal with winning and losing that is life.  These kids are never going to learn how to deal with failure.  Coaches that deliberately run up the score with thier first team still playing in a blow out should be given a warning and then banned.  

I've seen my sons baseball team so out matched but still play with determination and accept the loss that they tried hard.  His youth football team was dominate so when up big late in games the coach would move lineman to running back and backs to the line and let the kids have fun even it it allowed the other team to score.  He had a couple really coaches for football.  Those same coaches though when playing another good team that had run up the score on a bad team the week before showed no mercy.  They told the boys about that and had them take em to the woodshed.  Lessons learned all around.

 I think youth football is really good for boys to learn discipline, determination, and teamwork.  Ski racing is great for teaching dealing with adversity and maturity.  

That does seem a little crazy. Was the author of this policy a liberal?

Harvey wrote

Was the author of this policy a liberal?

I believe so but I don't know that for a fact. The goal differential hasn't been a problem for me this year. The 9 & 10 year olds' teams were done extremely well so all our games have been 2 or 3 to 1 or else tied. I'm a pretty vocal coach though so the silent soccer drives up my stress level pretty high.

Pussyfication.
I didn't wear a bike helmet
My mom smoked
I played in the dirt
I touched worms
Ski helmets weren't invented yet
Walked to and from school starting in 1st grade.
My mommy didn't set up Play dates.
Little league was tough. We won we lost. We lived on.
I could go on and on.
I see it in the kids that come work for me. They just don't get it. IMO it's the pussyfication of today's youth that's their downfall ,not always their falt. Over protective parents and society can weaken minds and spirits.

I think I would find another league. Good sportsmanship is not letting the worse team stay in it. Encouragement and compliments by the better team to the team they are throttling is good sportsmanship.  Who is in charge of that league the tooth fairy?

Maybe I will. There is an alternative organization now that wasn't there when I first started with his older brother. Honestly, I can live with it. I don't mind explaining to my kids that a lot of adults are boneheads.

Thehof wrote

Pussyfication. I didn't wear a bike helmetMy mom smokedI played in the dirtI touched wormsSki helmets weren't invented yetWalked to and from school starting in 1st grade. My mommy didn't set up Play dates. Little league was tough. We won we lost. We lived on. I could go on and on.I see it in the kids that come work for me. They just don't get it. IMO it's the pussyfication of today's youth that's their downfall ,not always their falt. Over protective parents and society can weaken minds and spirits.

Dude
Is it ok if I steal this for my manifesto?

I'm with you Brownski. Only a football parent will understand this...

I have no idea how you monitor play rates in soccer.  The game is incomprehensible to me how anyone can watch it and stay awake.  Strategy as far as I can tell is kick the ball and everyone chases after it.

Baseball with innings is easy and our youth football only allowed a max of 22 kids per team and every kid had to have a starting position they played all game unless hurt or they took themselves out if tired.  Most teams didn't have 22 so the better kids played both ways until they needed rest.

our age group plays nine players at a time and we play four fifteen minute quarters so I sub my extra players as close to seven and a half minutes as possible, using my phone as a stopwatch. That way if a parent claims I'm playing favorites, it's pretty easy to explain. Some kids play more but everybody gets to play a lot. We have one standout this year who we have left at center mid field for the entire game twice. Today we actually ended up leaving my kid in the entire game because he played goalie the first half and we had a 2-1 lead by the last period. He's a really strong defensive player so we just couldn't pull him. As far as there being more to it then just kicking the ball and running, you'll have to take my word for it. If you've played it and understand it and are emotionally invested, it's a very intense game to watch.

The object of silent soccer is to let the kids have a 'street/pick-up' game experience that has become difficult or impossible to find in many areas.

I have been coaching youth soccer for 16 years. With coaches  micro managing the games and the parents coaching from the sidelines - the kids on field decision making can be slow to develop. In my opinion, it does not work for pure rec leagues - 1 or 2 games a week and maybe a practice every other week and kids under age 11. In a travel league with 3 days of practice a week and multiple games on the weekends it can really allow the kids to try and figure out what they are practicing and control what happens on the field - good or bad. Mistakes help you to learn what not to do.

The idea that this is some evil liberal plot to pussify kids is just plain stupidity.

Futbol doesn't grind to a halt enough for Coach Z to make sense of it.

Silent soccer sounds like a great learning experience for the kids to learn teamwork and leadership skills. The BS scoring is where I find issue.

The idea does seem a bit contrived. Perhaps take it a step further and let the kids play in a gravel and poison ivy patch with no defined sidelines, and used condoms, beer cans, and spent hypodermic needles littering the playing field.  Mangy dogs roaming through.  Crack deals going down behind the goal.

I guess I missed where someone said it was a plot. I have no experience with travel soccer so I'll have to take your word for it. Are the coaches and parents that over the top? Also, don't you think a consistent, everyday policy on what's acceptable and not acceptable would be better? As far as 9 & 10 yr old rec soccer, it sounds like we kind of agree.. I coached my older son in this same league and it was my observation that once they step up to an adult sized field, they had to make their own decisions anyway. The distance is too great to be yelling specific instructions so if they haven't figured out positions by then, it was hopeless. What's your opinion on the goal differential?

We use the goal differential for the rec leagues because, despite our best efforts, the teams are always out of balance. The kids are ranked and drafted, but kids get better or regress, there are always friend and driving requests and kids always quit for various reasons. I am coaching 4th and 5th grade and it is difficult to grade the 3rd graders who are moving up to 4th/5th grade level. My team had our 2 first picks quit when they both ended up on a higher level travel team. My team has won 1 game, lost 8 and had 1 tie.

The object of rec is to teach the kids how to enjoy and play soccer. Watching a clearly superior team score 10 goals does nothing for either team. There are a lot of travel levels in my area so I do not know if they use goal differentials based on age, skill, or not at all.

I do not let my kids play travel unless it is in the correct season and local. We do not want to spend our weekends in a Holiday Inn Express 5 hours from home. The soccer travel in my area tends to be all year so no travel soccer in my family. My kids play organized sports in the proper season. Parents are delusional about college scholarships and are throwing their money out the window chasing this dream. People need to remember that all bets are off when puberty hits.

Silent Soccer isn't something I've heard of before.....but I've been to enough games (both rec and travel) where there are parents who need to STFU!  From a coaching perspective (I've coached youth for many years, at both the rec and travel levels) there likely comes a time when the coach needs to stop instructing from the sideline and let the players play and think for themselves.  Not at the rec level (too many inexperienced players), but travel, maybe starting at U12/U13?  However, even MLS coaches bark instructions to their players!  The point about the big field....yeah, most kids aren't hearing the coach anyway.

As for goal differentials....you have to keep in mind that youth soccer, both rec and travel below the division 1 or premier levels, is intended to be developmental.  East Hudson Youth Soccer League below the division 1 level has a 7 goal differential limit (clubs fined if they exceed), as well as a requirement that all players play at least a half a game.  Keeps the kids involved and developing.  Also, they get a sportsmanship component, and ball control without scoring is much more valuable than many people think.  There is plenty of time and opportunity at upper levels to teach kids Cobra Kai type lessons on soccer Darwinism!

Not all players/parents who are involved in travel are on some delusional scholarship fantasy.  Not happening for the 99.9%.  Would be great for our son to maybe have a shot at playing D3 college (no scholarships there) and travel certainly can make that a dream that could happen.  So I don't see the harm if he enjoys the game.  Also not sure how one defines soccer "season", as most rec leagues have fall and spring.  Indoor training and tournaments are good to stay in shape and sharp while kids are doing other winter season appropriate sports.  Not sure I get the travel push back I've seen more than a few places, then again there are some who take travel way too seriously, which does not include us.

I hear what both you guys are saying and appreciate your points of view but I honestly don't think either of these policies accomplish anything, at least not in my league. During silent soccer we end up with the kids that are good getting on the case of the ones that aren't helping and it turns out more negative then if an adult gave them direction. And the goal differential creates all kinds of unintended consequences. Once when we were getting creamed in a past year, one of my players said he hoped the other team would get one more goal so it wouldn't count as a loss for us. I had a hard time explaining to him that he was getting the wrong message and that we should keep playing our hardest even though we were behind. So he was like, "well can we kick one into our own goal?". That's just one kid but I suspect that most of them see right through it as well.

witch hobble wrote

The idea does seem a bit contrived. Perhaps take it a step further and let the kids play in a gravel and poison ivy patch with no defined sidelines, and used condoms, beer cans, and spent hypodermic needles littering the playing field.  Mangy dogs roaming through.  Crack deals going down behind the goal.

My older son is a long time lurker here and he is all for this idea though he liked The Hoff's first post as well. He confirmed for me that the goal differential is BS too. Then again, I've programmed him to think that anything I say is brilliant so you need to take that into account....