TUSC Winter Indoor Soccer Tournament Guidelines (U-15 and younger)
"My position is this: street soccer is the most natural educational system that can be found."
Rinus Michels – Dutch National team coach
We live in a country where adults dominate youth sport. We live in a country where free play in soccer has never existed, except with the immigrant populations and those lucky enough to grow up with them. I would also argue that, in their current forms, much of the structure and many of the principles underlying organized youth soccer in the United States are damaging to our long-term growth and development. At the very least, the current structures do very little to address the children’s love for “play” on their own terms.
Fascinating rules emerge in the streets and parks and sandlots and alleyways when children are left to their own devises in sport. In Shane Murphy’s excellent and insightful book, The Cheers and the Tears: A healthy alternative to the dark side of youth sport today, four basic principles were reported in describing the ways children govern their own organizations during free play. These four principles, Action, Involvement, Excitement and Friendships are extrapolated upon.
In the 1980’s, with their street soccer cultures disappearing or essentially extinct, progressive Western soccer federations turned to small-sided games in an attempt to help compensate for the loss of skillful, imaginative players. Given the sheer volume of touches experienced over time in street soccer games, the number of players on the field was never an issue. But when “soccer time” became organized and reduced to only two or three hours each week, it became necessary to maximize ball contacts by reducing the number of players competing for possession. In soccer, dribbling skills are essential, and the creative dribbler was, and remains, the most prized talent.
The environment that most closely mirrors this small sided game experience for us at TUSC is the indoor winter tournament. Therefore we will try to encapsulate some of the lessons and experiences of “street soccer” into that arena by following these guidelines;
- There should be MINIMAL COACHING from coaches or parent coaches during games, (we would prefer there be none).
- Coaches watching their team in the stands will ACTIVELY DISCOURAGE “coaching” from their parents and explain why their behavior is inappropriate (educational motives).
- Coaches will facilitate the division and acquisition of players into a team for the tournament ONLY
- Ideally Coaches should neither; choose the starting team, assign player positions (including the goalkeeper) assign a formation, or impart a tactical strategy for the game.
- Players will be actively encouraged to manage their own substitutions.
- Coaches will instruct their players and parents of these guidelines before a tournament and be prepared to facilitate resolution of problems AFTER each game (if they are present).
For more insight into this philosophy, and the reasoning behind it;
http://www.bettersoccermorefun.com/dwtext/strtsocr.htm
http://www.oysan.org/CoachingArticles/DeconstructingYouthSoccerWorld.doc
Juergen Klinsman: “Ozzie, how is it that in Argentina you keep producing such wonderful, creative young players year after year?”
Ozzie Ardilles: “I think it is because we are too unorganized to be organized!”