Kids Soccer? HELP!

“Its nice to see when the kids get older they get away from playing "clusterball" and spread out with more passing and teamwork.”

“Definitely - B-Son's team does the give-and-go better than any team they've played against. The look on some of the defenders' faces when they get fooled on it is priceless ("Ha! Those fools! They're passing it backwa-- Oh crap!").”

“My daughter is playing on her middle school soccer team this year (she's in 6th grade). She's has dropped her rec ball to concentrate on just school sports. Which is good since she is on the tennis team too (although tennis is a very new sport for her). I am glad she chose the school team over travel ball. Her first game is Thursday after school. I think I will take the afternoon off to show my support. Don't know that I will be able to do that for many of the games though.”

“Don't forget the shinguards....

I still have dents in my legs, LOL”

“Yikes! B-Son's team got an old fashioned butt whoopin' on Saturday, 7-0. It was kind of expected (by me), since they were playing a team from a higher division. Sure enough, the kids were at the older end of the age group, and were bigger, faster, and more aggressive than B-Son and his teammates. But it gives them a good chance to learn from others - the other team was relentless in going after every ball 100 mph, and did a real good job staying in position on defense. B-Son's team got 2 goals that were disallowed because of offsides. I couldn't tell if the calls were good, but the kids and the coach thought it should not have been called, while one of the parents (the guy who used to coach the team) said he thought both were good calls. Both disallowed goals did include some nifty passing, though....

After this Saturday, the league places all the teams in their final division for the rest of the season - an excellent way to get teams into a situation where no team totally dominates or is totally dominated.”