Daily Pilot Cup proved fun, as soccer should
Thank you to the Daily Pilot and to Kirk McIntosh for organizing a
fun soccer tournament this past weekend. Almost 2,000 kids having fun
playing soccer!
I grew up in Spain and have played soccer all my life. I played my
first tournament when I was 5 and I still remember the excitement of
that day. We did not have the luxury of perfect organization and the
unbelievable fields of today, like the Costa Mesa Farm Sports Complex
and similar fields in this area. Instead, we played anywhere we
could: on concrete, on dirt, on any space available. Most of the time
we played with no cleats nor shin guards; we built goals and fields
anywhere with whatever we could find.
We did have the same passion for soccer our children have and we
played just because it was fun to play. Surely, we had dreams to
become professional soccer players, but at that time there were no
scholarships, big contracts or endorsements. That meant that we would
be better off being good students and pursuing other professions. But
we still dreamt of how fun it would be to play in a big soccer
stadium with grass instead of dirt.
If the statistics are correct, 90% of the children playing AYSO
recreational, tournament of club soccer will quit and transfer to
another sport before they even get to high school.
I have seen 12-, 11-, even 10-year-old, extremely talented soccer
players quitting the sport because their parents or some
inexperienced coach burned them out.
In Europe and lately here in the U.S., we coaches have a simple
principle to train and coach at every level: Let them play the game
and have fun with it. It is very important that we try to coach with
the “3 L’s rule:”
1) No laps: You will achieve more physical endurance running with
a ball or after a ball than doing boring laps. Laps are not fun.
2) No lines: Players will get bored or distracted waiting their
turn. Waiting in line is not fun.
3) No lectures: This is the most common mistake of a lot of us
coaches. Let the players analyze the game for themselves and try to
give them guidance, while not killing their game creativity.
This is a wonderful soccer community and the involvement of the
families, cities and schools is giving the No. 1 sport in the world a
chance to become a leading sport in Southern California.
Let’s not burn out the main source of this success: our children.
PEPE TENA
Newport Beach
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