Fall 2014 Blowouts

That's some classy coaching! At what point do the coaches figure they have the game and show some sportmanship?

I honestly don't think coaches intentionally ever run the score up like this.  When you have some obviously mismatched teams, it's a potentially bad situation all around - these players are there to play a game - they're not going to purposely back off or let another team score and the team getting trounced is likely to be frustrated, angry or start fouling and hurting players out of that frustration.  Coaches don't help when they start yelling at their players or the other coach for 'running up the score'.  No coach is ever going to tell a player - oh, let them get a few in so their feelings aren't hurt.  Not once you hit select or athena.

We had a blowout game in a preseason tournament - the team we played was obviously so misplaced in the bracket and it was 6-0 before the half.  Our coach switched up everyone - goalie went to forward, offensive players were on D and vice versa. Kids who'd never set foot inside a goal were playing goalie.  even that didn't level the playing field so the coach had the kids do one touch, a set number of passes before shooting - only shooting or passing with the weaker foot - anything but do that blatant keep away that only frustrates the team you're beating.  And even then the other team's coach was screaming at his players - at that point, our coach offered to end it right then but the other coach kept insisting we play on.  That game ended up 16-0 - and trust me - it wasn't intentional - we had kids scoring with their left foot from 20 yards out - what I did apreciate was that none of our players celebrated any goals after the first half. They weren't there to rub it in anyone's face - but they also weren't there to roll over and give it away - that's not good soccer or good sportsmanship.

Back at Academy, we had a coach that literally stopped a blowout game and went to the other team's coach asking to mix up the players for the rest of the match.  That was good sportsmanship - it allowed 9 year olds to play the game and learn from playing the game without being humiliated from a blowout.  I was very impressed with our coach and the other team's coach for realizing that academy is about teaching not about winning - those girls ended up having a great time and enjoyed their game -even playing with kids they didn't know.  And they were only U10 at the time,  so some parents went out before the game ended and got ice cream for all the players.  It was a very nice afternoon and a great lesson for the kids.