Vix_Sundown
Shared on Tue, 05/14/2013 - 17:47I'm a soccer dad, and have been for a while. Yet hardcore soccer parents still drive me nuts. Sometimes I wish these extra sideline coaches would just shut the hell up. Because trust me, I've seen the looks on the kids faces and the crap their parents are yelling is NOT helping!
Here are some of the stupid things they yell. Some of it makes no sense at all (like "use your body"). And some of this stuff makes a bit of sense ("Center it!"), but the parents repeat it so often that it no longer has any meaning for the kids. It's just background noise.
1. "Attack the ball!"
2. "To the net!"
3. "Center it!"
4. "Be aggressive!"
5. "Use your body!"
6. "Play hard!"
7. "Go get it!"
8. "That's your ball - take it from him!"
9. "Attack the net!"
10. "Shake it off!"
11. "Control the ball!"
I mean, all that is pretty asinine. I prefer to just keep my mouth shut, cheer the boys when they do good, and let the coach be the coach. But I still get an odd comment from another parent every once in a while about that. I guess they think I'm not taking this 3rd grade soccer stuff seriously enough.
Personally, I think kids are perfectly capable of playing a good game without having orders barked at them every 5 seconds. But maybe that's just me :)
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Comments
Submitted by OMGaLaserPewPew on Tue, 05/14/2013 - 18:39
They still play soccer in the US? Huh. Learn something new everyday.
Submitted by CrypticCat on Wed, 05/15/2013 - 03:28
Yeah, I gather that soccer is more like a sport girls do overthere.
Anyway, sideline coaches...
Vix, you should visit a little league soccer-match here in the Netherlands. Trust me, you ain't seen nothing yet. ^^
Submitted by Vix_Sundown on Wed, 05/15/2013 - 08:24
The Netherlands? Cool!
Yeah I hadn't considered that. If people take it this seriously here in the U.S. - where people generally don't take soccer too seriously at all - then what's it like in other countries where soccer is a big deal?
Submitted by CrypticCat on Wed, 05/15/2013 - 15:17
Well, kinda like this, when Ado The Hague plays a home-game:
City gets barricaded at around 7AM, a road is cleared from the nearest train-station to the stadium for supporters from the visiting team. All this is under full control of the M.E., the dutch SWAT. They herd the supporters to the stadium and pre-emptively arrest people they think will cause trouble. When the match is over, they kick the visiting supporters out of the city as fast and as painless as they can.
When it is a high-profile match, all supporters are not allowed near the stadium until an hour two before the match starts, usually the home-supporters are allowed in first to avoid trouble with the visiting supporters. The city of The Hague had an edict in place that did not even allow visiting supporters into the city until three hours before the match, any away-team supporter flying club-colors before that got to miss the match, waiting it out in a holding-cell until the police got around kicking them out of town. Dunno if that edict is still in place though.
At any rate, visiting supporters are not allowed to deviate from why they came to The Hague in the first place.
Amateur clubs have no such rules in place. In order for a match to count for competition, it must be refereed by an indepent referee, provided by the overarching soccer federation in the Netherlands. Some amateur clubs are blacklisted by the referees, they refuse to go there and referee.
It is not unheard of that the police has to come and separate the soccer-parents, or to provide escort for the referee after a match at an amateur-club. Basically, the younger the players, the grimmer the parents. Afterall, all 22 kids in the field are the future of dutch soccer...
All this is written in all earnest and honesty. I'm seriously not pulling your leg. Try a you tube search on Feyenoord or Ajax supporters (called legions), or football riots in the Netherlands. Especially the riot in Rotterdam from a few years ago is unbelievable.
Submitted by Vix_Sundown on Thu, 05/16/2013 - 07:29
Wow! That's amazing. Very interesting stuff, thanks!
Submitted by Kenjamin1 MI on Wed, 05/15/2013 - 08:47
I coached U-14 and U-16 boys for a many years, if you have parents of 9&10-yr-olds yelling this now... good luck in a couple years.
If it is really upsetting you, mention it to the coach, he could give them the "please don't shout instructions, just praise" speech. It would occasionally work for me. I hope it improves, good luck with your season!
Submitted by Vix_Sundown on Wed, 05/15/2013 - 10:12
Thanks Kenjamin. Thats cool youre a coach. Good to know this doesn't go unnoticed by the coaches.
Its mostly just a mild annoyance to me, except for this one dad on our team. He scowls at his kid and yells at him angrily the whole game, until the kid is practically crying. That's just not right. But I haven't had the gonads to say anything to him about it.
In the several years weve been doing this, Ive never seen a coach tell the patents to dial it down a little. Man, that would be great. It seems like the parents that yell the most seem to feed off each other. One yells, the other yells, and it all escalates.
My worst experience this season was when we were playing against a team that was beating our team like 10 or 15 to nothing. And one of the parents on the other team had an air horn. Every time that team scored, he blasted that stupid air horn. That really pissed me off. I mean, these are only 9 year olds for crying out loud!
Submitted by Vix_Sundown on Sat, 05/18/2013 - 08:15