I Played Football not Futbol

One soccer ball + 10 little kids =
A whole lotta fun!

We wanted our intellectual 5 year old son to try out something more athletic so we signed him up for soccer at the local YMCA. My wife got him registered and signed me up for assistant coach. There was a parents meeting just before the season started. I wasn’t going to attend but decided to…..good thing I did because there was no more “assistant” in front of my position with the team…..it was now just “coach.”  So I thought “OK, I can do this. I played football not futbol (soccer) but this can’t be that bad.” I found out the season was only 6 weeks and that each Saturday there would be a thirty minute practice and a 30 minute game immediately following. Maybe I was a little off kilter with my thinking but how bad could it be? 

So the first day of the season rolled around. I showed up at the field early so I could be the first of the clueless soccer parents on the playing grounds. I knew nothing about soccer but just maybe if I paced around the field kicking a ball in front of me I would be able to put on the facade of being a student of the game. I kicked the ball around with my son until rest of the team showed up. Eventually the rest of the parents and kids made their way to the field. There were all the usual introductions…..”Are you the coach? This is your coach. You need to listen to him. He’s going to teach you how to play soccer.” The barrage went on for about fifteen minutes then it was time for practice.

I ran through the roster, found all nine of the four to six year olds on the team, and then we started practice. We began with some warm-up drills. I started off with some direction changing exercises. I held the ball in my hands and instructed them to run whatever direction I pointed the ball. We did this for a few minutes. One kid ran completely off the field, two ran into each other, a few fell down, and three managed to keep up with the ball movement. Then I made them all line up on one of the lines on the field that I don’t know the name of.  I had them dribble the ball and kick it into the net one at a time. One kid picked up the ball and ran away with it.”I want the ball!” and away he went. I finally chased him down and got the ball back. Each kid took a few shots and we moved onto the next drill.

I told the kids to pair up with a partner and kick the ball back and forth. My son took a liking to a little girl on the team and off they went. They spent the next 10 minutes chasing each other around giggling. I didn’t see them kick the ball once.  Two brothers on the team started to fight. The younger boy cold-cocked the older boy and the tears started flowing. The YMCA’s rules clearly state that “No coach is to come between players.” I broke my first YMCA rule and split the two up.  Then we played kick the ball around the giant. I stood in front of the goal and then they had to dribble around me and then kick the ball in the goal. I scared half of them. The other half had fun and so did I.

Game time rolled around and we were off. There was some immediate drama. One kid on my team tried to kick the ball down the field and popped another girl in the face with the ball. It left a pentagon shaped imprint from one of the soccer ball panels on her face. There were lots of tears but I eventually convinced her to go back out on the field. A few of the kids understood that the object of the game was to kick the ball in the opposing team’s goal. The rest did as they pleased…..picking grass, picking flowers, pulling worms out of the ground, sitting on the extra soccer balls, chasing each other and the list went on.

I had a hard time getting kids to play goalie. All I heard was “I don’t want to play goalie! Awwwww maannnn!” I finally convinced one kid to play goalie. He wasn’t digging it until I told him what he should be thinking when the ball was coming at him. “Ball, this is not your home. Your home is in the other goal so my team can score. You’re not allowed in my net!  This is my net and I’m not letting you in.”  I looked down the field and kid playing goalie for the other team was standing in the goal facing out the back with the net pulled across his face.

For remainder of the half the kids ran around kind of chasing the ball and trying to kick it in the net. Some of goalies watched the ball roll by them as if it was in slow motion. My son did a good job making sure the clouds didn’t fall out of the sky. The kids discovered that it was fun to slide in the wet grass and fall down.  One kid thought the ball was a dinosaur egg and kept trying to sit on it to hatch it. We did have one ringer who had played quite a bit. He was very fast and could move the ball well but couldn’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn. The time kept ticking and halftime quickly approached. Things started to come together by the half and showed some improvement in the second half.

We were told in the parent’s meeting that there was no keeping score and the kids were there to learn. Like most of the parents I kept a mental tally and we landed up tying three to three. Needless to say it was utter chaos but fun.  I wrapped up the game with team cheer and off we went. I asked my son what the best part of the game was. He replied “I liked the little girl that I was chasing and that was chasing me.” Well, so much for soccer. All he talked about the entire rest of the day was how he met a little girl with pretty black hair in a pony tail and that he really liked her. My son may not be a gifted athlete, but he is already a lady’s man at the age of five.