Tournament time is fast approaching for the kids...

It's Tournament Time!
Now the season has finished, all presentation evenings are coming to a close and rounding off everyone's achievements with a well-earned thank you, the next football door opens - it's that of the "7-a-side tournament" or whatever derivation you might find your team attending. 


This is a strange time for young players. It creates an environment that heaps a huge amount of pressure and stress yet fun and enjoyment in one day. It sees children and young people experience a whole season's worth of football crammed into one day and personally, I love them! These can be fantastic learning opportunities for coaches and players of all ages. So, here are a few things to think about on how to get the best of the day. 


What is 'Success'?
Before the day starts it's important to define what success looks like for the young players. Is it winning the tournament? Is it putting into practice all the things you've been doing in training? Is it the social side of a day for the families to come together in the sun (hopefully) and enjoy themselves? 


Whatever "success" looks like, it really helps if you can define this or, more importantly, ask the players to define what this means to them. We did this with our group of U10 boys on a recent tour to Germany, playing against 40 professional teams from the host country to far-ranging teams from Russia, Czech Republic, Italy and Brazil. The feedback from the boys before we went - "to have fun", "to get on well with team mates and not fall out" and "to get better". One player of the 11 that we took said "to win the tournament". We shaped all the discussions into three key objectives for us on the trip: 


1. To try and win the tournament - that's why we entered and it is a game after all!
2. To learn some new things - whether about how to travel well, words in another language, but importantly, things both on and off the pitch. 
3. To have fun - vital and incorporated the aspects of team bonding and enjoyment too.


The important part was the boys had a voice as part of the discussions into what they wanted to achieve, not just us as the coaches. Try and find some ways to let them decide what they want from it too. 


Now, depending on how brave you are feeling depends on how far you want to go. If the focus is on enjoyment and having a great day with all the families and other kids around, you can almost experiment more.


Why not try:
1. Let the kids decide who plays what game and when.
Can you challenge their leadership skills to decide this? Can you ask them to think about different reasons as to why certain players would play at certain times? Can you ask them then to think about who plays and why?


For example, if you know some of the teams you are playing against, the children might decide that the best player has to play against the best opposition but could be rested against a lesser team. There is every chance they will come to the same conclusion you would have done - but think about the added value of learning they get from making this decision themselves. This helps support empowering young people - vital. 


2. Let the players decide what positions they play.
Can you be bold and ask their input into this? That player that you have pigeon holed all season "because he kicks it a long way therefore must play in defence" might want to try playing somewhere else. Your goalkeeper might want to have a try playing out on pitch. In my experiences, I have one or two outfield players in my team that think they are a goalkeeper and love messing about with the gloves on, so let them play a game there maybe!


3. Let the learners decide on the formation and strategy to play.  
Have the discussion with the players - what is best to play and why? If we play a 2-3-1 and they play a 3-1-2 where does this mean we have advantages? Where does this mean they might have advantages? Rather than you decide every game what and how it shall all be done, relax and listen to the views of the children. They might have some really good ideas!


4. Manage the parents expectations.
If you have the kids taking ownership of the day on some of the matters above, share this with the parents. Explain that the kids have decided on certain aspects and they should be commended for having a go at trying something new. Share the definition of success for the day. 


One of the best pieces of advice is to ask your parents to bring a chair so they can sit down, relax, and enjoy watching their kids have a good time playing football. The ones you can get at a motorway service station, 2 for £12 that fold up and have a drinks holder in the armrest, brilliant, get yourself some of them!


It's amazing how chilled parents become if they are sitting down watching a game rather than standing up, edging along the touchline desperate to shout what they think is advice to their son or daughter!


5. Understand the day from their perspective. 
Tournaments and festivals are often long days, sometimes with long breaks between games and lots of boredom. However, it is a real necessity that you manage the health and energy levels of the children appropriately. Make sure they drink enough and have sun cream on, especially in hot weather. Make sure they eat enough, sensible reasonably healthy food too. The last thing you want is the players filling themselves with sweets throughout the day, massively high blood sugar levels (and managing them!) and then when they crash down, having to pick them up to play in a game. 


They will be very excitable at the start, probably expend more energy when they aren't playing doing other things (still playing, chasing each other, messing about) and then wonder why they have nothing left in the tank when it comes to game time. Try and ensure the players get rest between matches too and by engaging them in the tasks 1-3 above, this keeps them focused on football without racing about or throwing water over each other!


It can also be a time that pressure builds, depending on how far they might get in the competition. Manage this, make sure they don't feel under pressure to "have to win" but to constantly "try their best". That's all you can ask of them. 


And if they lose on penalties in the semi-final, expect them to be upset, expect a few tears. What is important is the learning and lessons that come from times like this, so focus on these factors rather than your own disappointment. This needs to be hidden away from their view - no flailing arms, moaning at the referee or shouting at anyone - be a good role model to the children, that's what they want from you. 


Children just want to know everything will be ok, you still love them regardless of whether they won or lost and that tomorrow is another day. 


Enjoy!

It's Not Non-Competitive. It's Child-Centred Competition.

I think it's time to clarify, clear up, eradicate and move on from some of the nonsense I keep reading about some of The FA's plans for youth football. 

Let's get this very clear from the outset: The FA is not making youth football non-competitive. The game is a competition; the battle between two teams to see who wins over the period of time the game goes on for, whether you are 7 or 57, the game is still about seeing if my team can beat your team. End of story. Hope that's now clear. 

Non-competitive implies everything is a friendly, like the game doesn't matter. That's simply not the case. All games matter to the kids, for some adults it matters too much and therein lies a lot of the problems.

What the plans are looking at are about making flexible competition, where children can still experience the importance of winning and losing, still feel the highs, the lows, the exhilaration and depression that all get associated with the game we know and love. However, this is about making sure that they experience a children's approach to competition, not an adult's approach. 

We have taken the adult model, league tables, three points and goal difference, and imposed this on young people. What we have found from listening to young people is that it has increased pressure and is a reason they leave the game. I can't find any academic research that says pushing children down an over-competitive route is good for enjoyment or development. None. All I can find is the opposite, such as the writings of Lynn Kidman. 

I have heard from managers about children being sick before the game because they are so nervous about losing a game in a relegation battle and children not turning up or wanting to go on because they were so scared at doing something silly and making a mistake and they didn't want the repercussions. The repercussions from adults after a kid makes a mistake?! I heard one manager about Christmas time last year say to his U11 team that today was a "must-win game"! Nothing is must-win when you are 11. Please, give it a rest!

However, children have also told us they like seeing their progress and they like to see themselves get better, something they like from leagues. We simply have to find the balance between the two that enables development and enjoyment from a young person's perspective. 

So, the plans are this; Give leagues the flexibility to organise football for the children in the primary school age group which involves periods of development matches, time to learn the game, interspersed with periods of competitions, where they might play for a trophy or two. 

And this flexibility is open to the league. For example, one of the issues we have found from looking at youth football around the country is in most leagues there are only two maybe three teams that might win the league and they invariably know this before the season even starts! The teams that aren't great know they are never going to win anything either, therefore might monitor development and progress in a different way - losing by less goals, sneaking a draw here and there, social and player outcomes etc. 

What we are saying to the leagues is this - can you find a better way that encourages and promotes more opportunity for more teams to be competitive? So, in a division of 12 teams, have 6-8 weeks playing development matches, putting into practice what you have been learning and then some form of competition, but be clever and smart with this. Organise a little competition for the top six teams to play for a trophy and the same for the bottom six, where the teams in the bottom six now have a realistic chance of winning something, of feeling good for this, or feeling down because you lost in the final. Something the kids might otherwise never have felt. 

And use the scores from the blocks of development matches to get teams in the right groups. No team wants to have games that are too easy or be beaten by loads every week so there is a crucial role still in the administrators making sure teams get pitted evenly against others. 

One guy from a league said he had 32 teams at the U10 age group, could he organise a World Cup format with 8 groups of four, little round robins and then go through to a knockout and a final? Absolutely! Do things that are going to capture the attention of the kids. Just don't stick them in one league for 8 months a year!

When this has been discussed and understood by people on my travels they have started to get it, to understand why. Not listening to hearsay, fourth-hand information or making up their own spin on something because it suits them. I met the KNVB (Dutch FA) Technical Director, a UEFA Grassroots Panel member, a month ago and discussed these with him - he was hugely impressed with this modern approach and asked if I would meet with his team to discuss further what we are planning. England leading something in football and the Dutch liking the ideas of!? There's a first!

This isn't saying what we have doing has been wrong for years, we are saying this might be a great way of engaging more kids in the game we love, for longer, in a more modern way. We have to move away from the win-at-all-costs culture in this country, we quite simply have to. It is ruining the game for everyone, stifling development and hindering enjoyment. Winning is important, but somewhere down the list behind a number of other more important factors. 

Striving to win? Absolutely important.The score? Not as important.

The game is evolving rapidly; new types of player and no longer just giant athletes, new types of football and no longer just 4-4-2, new formats of the game and no longer just 11v11. 

"The difficulty lies not in new ideas but in escaping the old ones" (John Maynard Keynes). And he was a smart man.