"During my son's high school soccer game, an opponent received a yellow card for pushing one of our defenders. After the game I asked my son what had happened. He said the opponent had reacted to one of my son's teammates, who, while waiting for a goal kick, incited the player into yellow-card behavior by pinching him and making kissing motions and sounds.
"My son said his coaches had told the team that this was a good way to get under the skin of opponents and get them in trouble. After having a long talk with my son about sportsmanship, I then told the head coach I was extremely disheartened that he would encourage such tactics, and he seemed surprised to hear this. However, this is one of soccer's failings: at times, it appears not to be a real sport. Players use these dirty tactics and others such as feigning injury, which turns off many people from enjoying the sport. What do other PCA members think?"
-- Name Withheld by Request
Posted by David Jacobson at 02/04/2010 05:57:20 PM |
Taunting is a red card (send off) offense under NFHS high school rules. I'm surprised the coach had not experienced send offs in previous games if he was regularly having his players employ this "tactic" which certainly appears to meet the criteria for "taunting." Feigning injury is a yellow card / cautionable offense - repeated it results in a red card, and referees are being encouraged to increase their awareness of this offense. The rules are there to prevent unsportsmanlike conduct from spoiling the game. Proper enforcement, which includes reporting regular misconduct to the league in which the team plays, should untimately get back to the athletic directors and from there one would hope the coaches would get the message or lose their jobs.
Posted by: Jeff Miles ( Email: ) at 2/4/2010 10:07 PM
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It is a problem, my son was playing against a team that had a player that would goad another into some sort of act that the referee would see and the yellow card would come out. My son turned the tables on that player and it ended up getting him tossed from the game because the ref didn't see what my son had done. Tables turned.
I think the real issue is that many coaches focus on the heat of the moment and forget the value of doing the right thing. An example was my daughter was pitching and the field we were visiting at had a hole in the mound and the home team acknowledged and the best they could do was hope that nobody would trip on it.
As the game progressed, there was a play and my daughter needed to go and get a wild throw and tripped in the hole and turned her ankle. In a youth game, when I have something like this happen I will have my runners advance no further than they would have, the next base. This time the other coach saw it and kept the sending the runners along. One of the other kids runs over to the ball and the umpire calls time.
My daughter picks herself up and asks why the other team didn't stop. I tell her that the ball was still alive and they could. Her response was but you wouldn't, why would they? The other coach hears this a realizes that he just took advantage of a 12 year old falling victim to something that his organization should have fixed and now isn't very happy woth himself for what he did. He got a lesson on the difference between what is legal and what is ethical.
Posted by: Ed McFarland ( Email: ) at 2/4/2010 10:15 PM
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It is shameful that there are youth soccer coaches who tell their players that it is OK to provoke their opponents into a retaliatory act, and "bravo" to this parent who confronted the coach about this behavior. Coaches should teach their players to play by the rules. Taunting or pushing with your hands is against the rules. I am all for aggressive play as long as it is within the rules of the game and as long as my players are respectful of the referee and their opponent after committing an aggressive foul. My discussion should probably end right here simply on the grounds that coaches should always teach the proper way to play. Anything short of teaching players to play by the rules, no matter what the sport, does a disservice to the game itself.
I would like to argue, however, that you do not do your team any favors by intentionally trying to push or tease players from the other team. Even if no foul is called, teams that conduct this type of behavior are not focusing their attention on the important aspects of that particular game. More often than not you will eventually have the referee focusing his or her attention on your fouls, ready to blow the whistle any time you approach defensively upon your opponent. You also never know how many more times you will see this referee the rest of the season, who now has the impression that your team does not play fairly.
It is amazing to me how many times I see teams foul unnecessarily when they have the defensive advantage over their opponent, who has nowhere to go with the ball except backwards. I tell my teams that a foul in this situation simply allows our opponent to turn around and have a free kick toward our goal. How is that helping our team? Coaches who are OK with their players being overly aggressive in these types of situations are simply not teaching a smart way to play the game.
Tom Whipple
Hockessin, DE
Posted by: Tom Whipple ( Email: ) at 2/5/2010 6:00 AM
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Same thing happened famously in the '06 World Cup Final w/ Zidane and Matarazzi. The ref usually only sees the reaction. It does present a good opportunity for a real-life lesson and the importance of maintaining control. Off the field, if someone taunts you, calls you names, or "makes kissing noises" at you, and in response you haul off and shove or hit them, you have just committed a criminal offense. For me the Zidane story has turned out to be a great way to teach this lesson to young players. Sure, the other guy was a jerk, but bottom line is that because Zidane lost control, his team was without one of the best players the world has ever known when it mattered most - a penalty shoot-out to decide the world championship - and ended up losing the game as a result.
Posted by: Mike Sprano ( Email: | Visit ) at 2/5/2010 6:03 AM
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This is a provocative question (PCA seems to get one each week) because it does not suggest a thoroughly satisfactory answer. At the beginning of each youth hockey season, I tell my team’s parents and players that I do not coach the other team, that the players do not play on the other team, and that the parents do not raise any child on the other team. As adults or players, we can only determine our own behavior and assume personal accountability for that behavior. Personal accountability may be an imperfect start in an imperfect world.
Personal accountability means monitoring your own team’s bench. I do not permit players to engage in dirty play, including taunting, even if they think they can get away with it. My prime motivation is that I believe dirty play disrespects sportsmanship and counters the wholesome lessons that coaches are supposed to teach. But I also believe that in youth leagues, dirty play can be counterproductive in the long run. I cannot recall ever losing a game because the other team had bigger mouths. But I have seen teams and coaches get reputations for being dirty, and then suffer when referees begin calling penalties for what they think they saw, rather than for what really happened. In a fast game like youth hockey, teams with clean reputations get the benefit of the referees’ doubt more often than teams with dirty reputations.
When a youth coach senses that dirty play will mar some games during the season, the coach must be proactive by teaching the players to be mentally tough as well as physically tough. Beginning during the preseason period -- before anything dirty happens -- coaches and players alike must view mental toughness as a central element of the team’s overall strategy. The coach may have to continue re-delivering the mental-toughness lesson throughout the season because focusing on the game takes plenty of self-discipline. The opposition can get into your head only if you let them. Beat them on the scoreboard. What happened in the soccer game here happens in youth hockey all the time -– the opposing player delivers a cheap shot or a verbal taunt, and the referee turns around just in time to see your player’s retaliation. Guess who lands in the penalty box?
The coach must also consider reacting during the game. When the opposition resorts to dirty play behind the referees' backs in the first period, I have alerted the referees privately at the bench in the few moments between the first and second periods. I don’t know much about soccer, but hockey has an “unsportsmanlike conduct” penalty that referees concerned about the integrity of the game can call, even for verbal taunts or other conduct outside the rules (such as feigning injury). If the referee declines to call the penalty, players must fall back on the coach’s repeated earlier instruction about mental toughness. The players do not process that instruction well when they hear it for the first time on the bench during the heat of the game.
Parents are right to be concerned when their child’s coach condones dirty play or verbal taunting, but the parents must also be willing to take a stand because a coach cannot condone anything that the team’s parents refuse to tolerate. If one or more parents fear putting their children on the firing line by complaining, the fear may be understandable. That is each parent’s call, but the buck stops with the parents.
Finally, parents and coaches need to look in the mirror. Dirty play sometimes goes uncalled during games because the referees are simply too slow or inexperienced to keep up with the play or to notice the infraction, particularly in faster leagues and at older age levels. As long as first-rate referees continue quitting in droves because they are disgusted with unrelenting verbal abuse from parents and coaches, many replacement officials will continue to be inexperienced, and still on the short end of the learning curve. Parents and coaches will continue to get the officiating that they deserve.
Doug Abrams
Posted by: Doug Abrams ( Email: ) at 2/5/2010 11:15 AM
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The high school "coach" should be fired. He/she has no place in youth sports. He/she is unfit to have a role in the education of our youth. I hope and pray that the parent who reported this to the PCA will report it to the taxpayers who pay for this individual.
Posted by: Andrew Wright ( Email: ) at 2/7/2010 1:37 PM
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Great commentary, though I am not sure "tables turned" is an appropriate response. Before I write, I make explicit apologies to the great soccer coaches out there who are champions of respect and sportsmanship. This is not about you.
I coach another sport and I have too often been disappointed with the soccer establishment. My son has played soccer through HS and will likely play DIII. The behavior at the root of this is too common. That it exists at all is too common, but soccer seems to be a leader in this area. Another thing I see from soccer coaches, in dramatically disproportionate amounts, is bullying players to play soccer all year round, even when they are engaged in other sports. If the player does not play all year round, they are penalized or banished from the school or club team. And bullying is easily the most accurate term for the way it is handled - at least in our experience.
I love it when my players play soccer, or any other sport, and I try to make it to one of their games when I can. I also like my players to work-out with our sport in the off-season. But, I do not like my players to play our sport competitively when they are in-season with another sport because of the risk of injury, which is not fair to the team they have currently made a commitment to.
Teaching respect requires two things: respecting yourself and respecting all others. Our experience has been that too many soccer coaches do not respect their own game, the players (as kids and students), or other sports. Soccer players grow up in that environment. The good kids are turned off by it and do not choose to coach. That leaves the others…
BTW, we have also seen that the coaches who run a poor program also bring down the level of play. We knew one such coach whose team got dropped to a lesser level because their play deteriorated. He focused on brow-beating the kids and bad tactics rather than the beauty and skill of the game.
It will be difficult to effect regime change in the soccer ranks, but easily the best place to start is with parents. Parents need to take their kids sports back, and start vetting and firing coaches who teach their kids bad lessons.
Posted by: A concerned coach ( Email: ) at 2/8/2010 8:16 AM
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Dirty Play is a coach's cry for help "Help! I don't know what I am doing and this is the only way I can win" Sad, really, when you think about it. I have a strange sense of pride when an opposing coach has to cheat (don't fool yourself, dirty play is cheating: cheating the players and the game. But I digress...) to beat our team.
I also think dirty play is one of the best teaching tools for kids when it comes to having confidence to yourself and your teammates. Kids are not stupid - they can see dirty play for what it is and the good ones learn to ignore it and play their game.
Last season I had the privilege of coaching a 10u baseball team (part time travel, about 25 games). We were in the final tournament of the season facing the other powerhouse team (yes, we were considered the other "powerhouse" team). Our first two games were easy wins and this game was shaping up to be the same. The tournament has a "Wall at Third" rule for this age meaning, basically, players cannot steal home. Late in the game with the opposing team beginning to rally, the manager sends a kid home. Of course chaos ensues but after the dust settles it is clarified that there is no play because the player cannot steal home. However, on the next pitch the coach sends his player home again; this happens four more times. I speak to the umpire (who is new and does not umpire at this level but our original umpire called in sick) about the penalty for doing something that is against the rules. Instantly the opposing fans and coaches erupt with every curse and threat known to man. Even the players (remember they are 10 years old) begin the mouthing as the runners tell the infielders "You suck" and "You are just scared 'cause we are going to beat you". The team unraveled and, thanks to a bad coaching decision by yours truly, the inning ends with the score tied. However, we promptly win the game in the bottom of the 6th and go home happy.
We met the same team in the championship game. They came out jawing with the fans saying classy things like "This kid is a nothing! You can strike him out tossing it underhand!" We fell behind 7-2 early and as the players came back to the dugout I was about to give a pep talk when one of the players stopped me and said, "Coach, this is the only game they can play. They came to play dirty but we came to play baseball." I almost shook the opposing coach’s hand for providing a perfect teaching moment but I don't think he would have understood. The game finished with one of their pitchers getting ejected for throwing at a batter and their catcher refusing a runners help off the ground after a collision at the plate with his mom yelling "You don't need his sympathy!”
Ah, youth sports.
Posted by: David Williams ( Email: ) at 2/8/2010 6:01 PM
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The best coach is the one who teaches the way of not only excellent perfomance in the game but also good behaviour and or sportmanship/fair play. It is true that Parents can also contribute to the athlete perfomance and showcases. We need to work as a team to a player by commenting on good and bad things. I know that sport is not only winning but also partcipation. Someone, somewhere things have to be done collectilly. Let us (Parents and coaches) join hands and groom our kids/players in a proper way and later become elite and or professonal players.
Thank u
Posted by: Juliana J Yassoda ( Email: ) at 2/9/2010 6:00 AM
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PCA RESPONSE BY ERIC EISENDRATH, LEAD TRAINER-NEW YORK
It is really interesting how this type of behavior is "celebrated" and fostered in soccer. As someone who played high school soccer and hockey, and was recruited to play both sports at a Division One college, I was always amazed by the different cultures. I always joked that I played soccer with a hockey mentality, as I too loathed the "magic sponge" approach.
I applaud your stance in not only discussing this incident with your son, but also taking it a step further, by speaking with the coach. At PCA, we talk about coaches being great role models, and teaching life lessons through sports. I would like to know what life lesson this coach thought he was teaching to his players!
Another point we make at PCA is that it takes Moral Courage to uphold a Positive Culture. The easy thing would have been for you to just roll your eyes. However, you had the courage to speak, not only to your son, but also to the coach. I hope it causes him to think more deeply about his approach, and what it is exactly that he is teaching his players.
Posted by: Eric Eisendrath ( Email: ) at 2/11/2010 1:20 PM
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