The Soccer Sidelines

Whether you're a coach, a parent, or an interested observer, you bring more than your lawn chair to a game. You bring your ability to spot leadership, form a thought about that leadership, courage to share your thoughts, and an ability to express yourself. These are powerful tools!Accidental leadership may not even be noticed by the person leading or it might be attributed to something other than reality. But when you see and recognize leadership in action, it's awesome! This is something that gets me excited after three decades of leading people and after ten years of coaching. Are you cultivating leadership around the game? How I Define Accidental LeadershipI've been in the leadership game for a long time. I've mentored many leaders from complete newbies to seasoned veterans who have been leading others for decades. Some of what we do as leaders is learned. Some of it comes from who we are - whether we realize it or not. Accidental leadership happens around us all the time. People are doing things that bring others together, that help people overcome challenges, and that help others become the best versions of themselves. Many times, accidental leaders don't even know that they are having this positive effect on the world - or they attribute the positive things going on around them to other things besides their leadership. This phenomenon of having positive leadership effect, or not intentionally acting as a leader, and perhaps not realizing what they are doing is what I call accidental leadership. This Episode Inspired by Coach EmilyThis past week, I brought together half a dozen of my coaches - mostly from my 11U recreation program. Two of these coaches are doing their first season in recreation. Two have a few seasons under their belt. One is a veteran. We came together to solve a problem. The teams were wildly unbalanced this Spring and scores of 10 - 0 were all too common. We were working through the process using one of my favorite problem solving models:What's the problem? What are the causes of the problem? What are the potential solutions to the problem?What is your (our our) recommended solution to the problem?We were brainstorming our way through the discussion and Emily brought up that she had her 11 year-old recreation players teaching her 9-year-old recreation players certain skills. She saw this as a positive for her team and the reason why her team gelled so nicely on the pitch. She told the group that a father from the opponent's team commented on her's teams cohesiveness after a game and asked her what her secret is. Emily was convinced it was her 11-year-olds. I asked her to describe how she ran her practices. She, a teacher by trade, not having much experience with soccer, explained that she set up some friendly competitions. She told her players that whomever is able to do the skill they were training the best would be able to teach the others how to do it. Her 11-year-olds most often got the skill first and then took great pride (and had fun) demonstrating the skill for others, then guiding them through improvement. To be clear, there is a very valid reason to use players, assistants, and/or trainers to help demonstrate a skill during practice. As coaches, we are not likely going to be the best at demonstrating every technique that teams need to learn. For some of us, soccer wasn't our sport. For some of us, it's been decades since we've played. For some of us, the idea of dropping a bicycle kick shot on goal makes us wince. Using talented players, bringing in players from older teams, bringing in volunteer coaching assistants or trainers... all of these have their place in a good season. However, that's not exactly what was going on here. Teaching others how to do a skill was clearly framed, in Emily's example, as a reward. But she was establishing culture.  Encouraging her players to do their best, seasoning her practices with friendly competit...

Putting the ball up in the air... should be do it, or should we keep it on the ground? Choosing what to train in youth soccer and when to train it is a combination of science and art. US Youth Soccer gives us some useful guidelines, but how closely we follow those guidelines requires a look at individual players, team strategy, club strategy, and even individual coaching philosophy. Let's explore the vertical game in soccer! 

Why Talk About This?

This episode is dedicated to coach Rick Watts and the excellent coaches of the Saint Mary's Soccer Club in Maryland. Rick is a listener and member of our Soccer Sidelines community. He's also the VP for Recreational Soccer at Saint Mary's. He sent me a question last week  - Thanks, Rick! - along with an email exchange between he and a few of his coaches. They were exploring the vertical game, when to use it, if they should use it, etc. 

In this exchange, coach Dave, one of Rick's coaches - presumably from his recreation program - asks "(I) Want to clarify a rule with you for U8 girls. It was my understanding that we are supposed to keep the ball on the ground due to the shortness of the field we play on. We played a team last week that kicked in the air the majority of the time. I mentioned it to the coach and his response was that’s how soccer is played. I just want to make sure of the rule so I can teach my girls the right way to play."

"(I) Want to clarify a rule with you for U8 girls. It was my understanding that we are supposed to keep the ball on the ground due to the shortness of the field we play on. We played a team last week that kicked in the air the majority of the time. I mentioned it to the coach and his response was that’s how soccer is played. I just want to make sure of the rule so I can teach my girls the right way to play.”

Rick's response to Dave reflected his experience and some very specific statistics he's been keeping on the game. He asked for my thoughts on the subject and suggested that this might make a good subject for a podcast. 

Well, first, thank you Rick for sharing this idea! I agree that this makes a good subject for the show, and I think this is a great question to help illustrate some important principles of a developmental style of coaching - as well as give us some insight into how we think about what we teach. 

What is The Vertical Game in Soccer?

Put simply, we're talking about putting the ball into the air. This could be a long punt from the goalkeeper, a chipped pass over the heads of pressuring defenders, a high diagonal long pass over a group of players, or a high cross from the wing or as a corner kick into the box. 

Big Punts or "goal kicks" from the goalkeeper

Chipped or Lofted Pass

Lofted Cross to Change AOA

The above illustrations show a few examples of the vertical game in soccer. There are many variations to this, of course, but the simple explanation of the vertical game is that the ball is played in the air as part of the game tactics. The objective may be to change the angle of attack, move the ball into space behind a pressuring opponent, or maybe to give teammates an opportunity to score. The opposite of the vertical game would be playing the ball on the ground. 

The vertical game in soccer has a well known effect on the game and individual team strategies. In the February 27, 2019 match between the US and Japan in the She Believes Cup, Ali Wagner was chatting with JP Dellacamera about the vertical game as being one of the strengths of the US Women's National team. 

The US Women's National team demonstrates one positive example of the vertical game being employed in a meaningful and productive way. 

Ali Wagner and JP Dellacamera from Fox Sports One

In every group, there are the "insiders.'  If you're one of them, you can often tell the difference pretty quickly. If you can't tell the newbies from the insiders, chances are you're one of the newbies. There is nothing wrong with being a newbie, of course. We've all worn that title at some point. But today I'm going to help you advance from the rookie ranks, help you understand some of the more subtle things worth knowing about the game, and at least make it seem like you've been around the game a little longer than the time it took you to walk from your car to the sidelines. 

The "Offsides" Foul is Actually the "Offside" Foul

I didn't figure this one out until I started hanging out around referees. I had coached for years calling this the "Offsides" foul. In fact, although I corrected the title and show notes to reflect the proper name for this foul, I recorded episode #18 titled "The Offside Rule Explained" calling this foul by its wrong name. I could fix the text, but I couldn't fix what I said when I recorded the show. If you listen carefully, you'll hear my blunder. This foul is discussed in more detail as Law #11 of the 17 laws of soccer described in the FIFA rules. It's arguably the most complicated law of the game & one of the hardest to spot correctly. Newbies, wanna-bees, and know-it-alls can often be heard yelling at a ref for calling this foul incorrectly. This is something true soccer insiders might find amusing if it wasn't so ignorant and disruptive. Most people yelling at the ref about this call are not even in a position to see the call - even if they knew how to call it. This call is full of nuances like:

* an offside foul is made at the time when the ball is kicked

* hands and arms don't count

* a player can be in an offside position and not draw an offside foul

* a player can draw an offside foul without ever touching the ball

* some judgment on the part of the referee is both allowed and encouraged

True soccer insiders know to leave opinions about this particular foul to the judgment of the referee team. There have been many times as a coach where I thought I saw an offside (or missed an offside) foul, but I wasn't in a position to see it properly. I keep my mouth shut - and I know the rules. My alternative is to don the yellow uniform and run the field as an assistant ref. Don't get caught yelling about this one. It's a sure sign you haven't been around long enough to know how to evaluate the game. 

There Are Many Different Size Soccer Balls

I do a show-and-tell every single season for parents in the sidelines and this one never fails to get some "Oh wow" comments. True soccer insiders know that soccer balls are numbered. The most common sizes of soccer balls we see on a youth pitch are sizes 3, 4, and 5. Like everything in the youth game, balls are sized to be appropriate for the size of the players using them. In our academy, which serves kids from 3 years old to 8 years old, we use a #3 ball. Players jump up to a #4 ball when they turn 9 and continue to play with that until they are 13. Once they turn 13, they move up to a #5 ball. Then, when players strive to get really good, they will sometimes seek out smaller balls and go back to working with a #3, a #1, or even a tennis ball to practice juggling with. The smaller surface requires more precision for older players. They know that when they work with a smaller ball, they will have more control when they play with a #5 ball in a match. I go into much more detail about the different ball sizes in

All birds have to leave the nest or they will die. Our kids have to find their own lives too. They are going to leave. It's not a matter of if they will leave. It's a matter of when AND how well prepared will they be when they do. Letting our kids go is a challenge not only for parents but for coaches too. We know and like these kids. For all of us, parents and coaches alike, they represent our hope for a bright future and by the time they leave, we might consider them our friends. We've shared history together and there will come a time, very soon, when they start a history that doesn't include us.Like any skill, letting our kids go is a process that starts earlier than most people think and it takes practice for most of us to get better at.

The ever-changing challenge of Letting Our Kids Go

Did you notice that I said it takes practice to get better at letting go? I didn't say it takes practice to master. At the time I recorded this, I leave room for the possibility that the skill of letting go can be mastered, but I don't know of anyone who has mastered it. Letting go isn't a binary thing. There are degrees of letting go. Letting our kids go off to school for the first time might be one example. Letting them cross the street by themselves might be another. I pulled my car over and cried the first time I dropped my oldest child off at a daycare center. Not only was I letter her go in the care of another person, but I was letting go of the notion that the stay-at-home parenting style I saw my mother doing would be a possibility in our family. My kids would never know that. We were inviting surrogate parents in to watch over them during the day so my wife and I could work.I personally believe we are forever learning to let go, and the challenges aren't necessarily harder as our kids get older, but they are definitely different. As a parent, once you think you've overcome one form of letting go, a whole new way to let go presents itself. I suppose we'll be learning how to let go until the moment we die. Even then, we'll be facing the prospect of letting ourselves and our loved ones go in a whole different way. 

Detachment Parenting - The Start of Letting Our Kids Go

In the context of youth sports and parenting (or coaching) our way through the youth sports "window" between 3 yrs old and 18-years-old, letting our kids go has a specific meaning. As parents, we must learn to detach from our kids so they can have a shot at making their own mistakes (nature's best teacher) and living their own lives. Kids who are sheltered from adversity or never allowed to make mistakes will enter the world weak and unable to effectively deal with risk or adversity. This is one of the big reasons we created the youth sports platform in the first place - to give kids a safe platform where they can be challenged, makes mistakes, and overcome adversity. Building a foundation with our kids is important. This is referred to as Attachment Parenting by Dr. Carl E Pickhardt Ph.D. Learning how to let go and empower kids to live their own lives is called Detachment Parenting.If the child psychologist, Carl E Pickhardt, is to be believed, the detachment parenting phase begins when kids turn nine years old. He says we start letting our kids go this early! Of course, we're not tossing them the car keys when they turn 9, but we can let them go play a game and make their own decisions! We can encourage our kids to get involved in some of the decisions that affect them in life, then supporting their decisions to the extent possible - assuming, of course,

In Episode 34 I first revealed our partnership with Global Image Sports and the Stoke City Potter. I interviewed Andy Foxall from the Stoke City Academy after we spent a few days together running the Maryland ID Camp together. Then in Episode 40, I talked about taking my kids to Atlanta for the National Soccer Camp. In this episode, number 76, we complete our journey through the system with an international youth soccer tour in the UK. This is the last episode in the series. In it, I will reveal the last piece of the puzzle after having gone through the entire system with both of my kids. I will take you inside both the Boy's international youth soccer tour experience and the Girl's international youth soccer tour experience.Have you ever wondered what happens after you come through one of our ID camps?. A Recap of the International Youth Soccer Tour ExperienceBecause you may be just joining the show in this episode, I'll give you the real quick highlights so you know the background. In 2017, I started talks with Global Image Sports. These guys are like brokers between US clubs and International Clubs. Their mission is to identify kids in the US who would like an opportunity to compete nationally, and/or ultimately train with world-class academy coaches overseas. They have partnerships with many top teams in Europe. They partner with Clubs like mine, and with our help, start the process of identifying talented players who would like to experience soccer around the world. I don't know exactly why I received the first call I did, but our Club has been around for 31+ years. At some point in our history, I'm told we had relationships with DC United and with Washington Spirit & ended up on somebodies list. Apparently, it's a good list to be on because it lead to our becoming the only partner club in the state of Maryland. In December of that year, I flew down to Atlanta, met with Stoke City executives - where I first met Gareth Jennings (their Academy Director at the time) and Paul Lakin (the Stoke City COO). We closed our deal and we were off to the races. Gareth hosted some in-person coach's training with Club leaders/coaches from Georgia, Tennessee, New Jersey, and Texas while we were there so we got to experience first-hand what our kids would be getting from Stoke coaches. In June and July of 2018, we ran an ID camp (see Episode 34) and a development camp.  Stoke City Community Trust coach, Daniel Johnson even marched with us in our annual parade. It was a positive year all around, though for Club administrators, I have to admit that we lost money in year one putting this together. Our marketing was still young and we were not well known in the international youth soccer camp business. The ID camp cost well under $200. For that money, we gave players either 3 or 4 days of training with world-class coaches we flew over from the UK and a t-shirt. The coaching was superb and if players had nothing more than this experience, I think it was money well spent. The top 20% of the players at ID camp were invited to compete in the GIS National training camp at the Darlington School in Rome, GA. These camps lasted for a few days each, cost $635 per player, and came with two high-quality training kits, a ball, room and board, and several days of world-class coaching. Entire teams of Academy coaches flew over for this event and for the first time, we started seeing the confluence of the many training Academies like Stoke City, West Ham,

Mental health is something I've always regarded as something we enhance through youth sports. Until last week, I though mostly about positive enhancements. The youth sports platform is great, for example, for helping kids learn empathy, self-discipline, respect, gratitude, work ethic, mental toughness, etc. This is true, of course when the club, coach, and parent teams are not driving obsessively towards winning at the expense of these important foundational building blocks. As a coach, my understanding of mental health in soccer has expanded to include working on a few of the typical challenge areas like developing courage, confidence, a sense of teamwork, and overcoming mental blocks that stifle performance. The Alter Ego Effect by Todd Herman is a great book I'd recommend if you're interested in overcoming mental blocks. It's always a huge victory for me when I see players overcoming mental challenges and emerging as newly improved players and people. Last week, Hayley Woolner and her soon-to-be husband Paul and I found ourselves in one of the most interesting three-way conversations I've had in a long time. I was hiking up and down the staircase at the Wolverhampton Wolves  training academy in the UK. While our players were getting some world-class training I was feeling cramped and unexercised after several days of long plane and bus rides. Hayley's desk was at the foot of the stairs. While I climbed up and down the small staircase to stretch my legs, I asked Hayley why she was there and what her passion is for soccer. She said: "My passion is for the ones that don't make it." The Darker Side of Mental Health in SoccerHayley's question stopped me in my tracks. Literally. I turned, came down the stairs and parked myself in front of her with a big open question mark over my head. "What you just said got my attention," I told Hayley and Paul. "What is your background and what can you tell me about the players that don't make it? I'm interested."Hayley is a mental health nurse. Paul worked security for the Academy. One of Hayley's biggest concerns is for mental health in soccer. One of the problems she would love to solve has to do with the unacceptably high suicide rate among players who don't make the cut. As with any competitive process, getting onto a First team that plays in the English Premier league is a gauntlet. Kids start off very young. They train hard. They hope to get noticed. They try out - often more than once - to make the Academy. If they make the Academy, their first year is all about proving themselves. They compete against other players who have been playing since before they started primary school from countries where football (AKA Soccer) is by far the most popular sport everywhere - from backyards and schoolyards to pubs and stadiums. It would be fair to say that most everyone knows the game of soccer, millions of kids (and/or parents) have dreams of playing on a first team, and being in the culture or out of the culture have an impact on everyday life. The talent pool is deep and the competition for those coveted first-team spots is intense. If a kid spends their entire life working towards one goal. If a family invests all of its resources towards one goal. If siblings are sidelined in favor of superstar players and those who are passed during the climb up the Academy selection process are looked down at as lesser capable people, mental health-related conditions like anorexia, anxiety, depression, and even suicide are often not far away. The lights came on and left me feeling a little uneasy as I thought about the very small percentage of children who make the cut over and over again on their way to the first team - and even more about the vast majority who don't. With Hayley's help,

Youth Sport is bigger than any player. We do our best to let them go and let them play when they're on the field. That's a good thing. But coaches only get kids for at maximum, 2 or 3 hours at a time. Parent drive them around, pay for their access, eat and play with them at home, share their perspectives and experiences every day.Family Playing Football In Garden TogetherParents also make up the bulk of the volunteers for any club. Parent engagement is a key component of every program. If parents are not connected with what's going on. If they are not on board with the development program, then that development program is already in trouble. What is the problem with parent engagement and what can we do to make the youth sports experience better for everyone through effective parent engagement? What's the Problem With Parent Engagement?There are two main problems with parent engagement in youth sports:* it's really hard* it's really importantRemember back to when kids played bumble bee ball? 3, 4, 5, and even 6-year-olds all chasing the ball around like a swarm of bees. The kids had no idea of the rules. Everyone just wanted to kick the ball. In the younger ages, they were not even aware that they had teammates. They played next to one another in parallel play as opposed to with one another as a team. It was great fun!Parents stood around the field - usually all the way around the field if they could. Cameras were out. Smiles were on every parent's face. Parents were engaged and they were having fun! Fast forward 5 or 10 years and we see a very different picture on the sidelines of some soccer fields. Parents red in the face, yelling cheeseburger comments at the top of their lungs. Yelling at the referees. Kids shrinking with embarrassment. No, this doesn't happen at every soccer field. I hardly ever see it on my Club fields, but when I travel just a few miles, I can find it in abundance. What happened? At some point, kids seem to have advanced in their knowledge of the game and in their connection to the stuff that matters in youth sports. Progress over perfection, I always tell my players. But parents were left out. They have no developmental goals to anchor their passion for their kids. They don't celebrate the passback or the sportsmanship or the respect they gave to other players on the field. They celebrate or fail to celebrate one thing: the scoreboard. The scoreboard is the one thing that everyone can see. "What's the score?" parents ask as they wander down on the field and set up their chairs. "How's our team doing?" they ask. They mean this question in terms of what the scoreboard says. The typical response is "We're up by one," "They're killing us," or "We're doing great... it's 3:1." Would it be odd if parents came down and said "How's Chris doing with her game today? She's looking good. Is she enjoying the fitness?" Or "Hey! I saw Jason pick that kid up when I came down. He's really getting this sportsmanship concept out here!" or "Ama just never gives up out there! It's great to see her spirit really bloom out there on the field!"Of course, there are more practical reasons to have a good parent engagement program. 1. without it, we risk treating parents like taxi drivers and wallets instead of the development partners they are. 2. They have questions that need answering and it's best for everyone if they enjoy the experience as much as possible. Without our parents, folks... youth sport goes away.What are the Causes of the Parent Engagement Problem?I believe we're missing out on some of these really great conversations because we've failed to bring parents along when it comes to the real reasons for youth sports. All parents want their kids to succeed, and in the absence of any relevant markers for success, they use the scoreboard as the proxy. A win means their kid is a winner. A loss means their kid can do better next time. We miss the point!

Not enough kids have access to the game. Language barriers, cultural differences, and financial paywalls are leaving significant numbers of kids on the sidelines. How big is the problem and what can we do about it? What's the Problem with Limited Access to the Game?The obvious answer is we have fewer kids playing and a shallower pool of players to draw from for the professional leagues. Fewer kids also mean fewer teams and less revenue for local clubs. While this is all logically true, these arguments leave out some important stuff that matters. In a study done in 2013 by Kaplan University, Duke University, and the University of California, San Diego titled Heterogeneity and Group Performance: Evaluating the Effect of Cultural Diversity in the World's Top Soccer League, the study revealed that "more diverse teams outperform less diverse ones." They put numbers to this and found that a one-standard-deviation increase in the average team's linguistic distance is associated with a .33 rise in per-game goal differential. In laymen's terms, this means that this study showed mathematically that diversity leads to more goals. The opposite must also be true: less diversity leads to fewer goals. We could argue all day, I'm sure, about why this is is true, but an article in the New York Times publish June 2nd, 2014 titled "Diversity is good for team performance in soccer" suggests that at least some of it has to do with the "benefits of (bringing together) diverse talents, perspectives, and experiences..." Whether you are in the camp that we need more talent, more teams for our kids to play against, more revenue to support the game, or stronger teams as a result of a wider range of problem-solving approaches, there don't seem to be any downsides to improving access to the game.  The Discussion Today Around Access to the GameI'm not aware of all of the discussions going on around the country or around the world regarding access to the game, but I can share what's going on in a small corner of the world. The State of Maryland's Youth Sports Association invited me to participate in a road show they organized for Clubs around the State. I'm pretty sure their main agenda was to connect clubs around the state and to facilitate dialog around sharing best practices and talking through problems we all are facing. Any time groups of like-minded people come together to solve problems, interesting and often powerful things happen. Parent education was a big topic, and will likely be the focus of a future episode. Access to the game was up there at the top of the list too. I listened as Clubs described challenges with getting marketing materials put together that will reach their community. I listened as I heard clubs lament about how cost was keeping good players from turning out. I listened as clubs talked about challenges associated with giving special needs kids access to the game, reaching and communicating with kids who speak more than one language, and finding ways to pay for kids to play without charging mom and dad a fortune. The good news is: leaders in the industry are talking. Getting this conversation going is not easy and it's filled with land mines today. I often wish we could just wave a magic wand and make the problem go away, but it seems we still have some work to do. The Cause(s) of the ProblemAs with most things, I doubt that there is any single cause to this problem. If this were simple, we'd have the access problem solved. We need more brains combining horsepower and contributing to the solution. Which, by the way, is something you can do on our Website at TheSocc...

"What do you remember about the best coach you ever had?" John O’Sullivan asked. He had passed out yellow sticky pads to all tables in the room and asked us to write down our top five characteristics- one per sticky. He stood in front of a room full of coaches, team managers, and a few other invited guests as he spoke. What he would reveal to us in the next five minutes would become an “ah ha” moment for many in the room and a lesson for you to think about the next time you're on the field of play. 

List Five Qualities of the Best Coach You Ever Had 

On March 6th, 2019, I received a generous offer from the Potomac Soccer Association in Potomac Maryland to attend their annual coaches dinner as a guest. Laurie Lane, the Executive Director for the Club reached out to me - honoring a practice of connecting with her community that I have come to admire. She and her leadership team spent some money to bring John O'Sullivan, the Founder and CEO of Changing the Game Project, out from Oregon and she knew how much I've been inspired by his work. The evening didn't disappoint. The food was good. The company was invigorating, and the Keynote speaker, John O’Sullivan, was inspiring as always. He gave us a few minutes to write down the top five qualities we each remember from our favorite coach or coaches. “What things really stand out for you?” He asked. "What do you most remember that made them great?"When he was done, he pointed to two walls on either side of the dinner hall. The room was well lit so the light tan walls stood on either side of us like towering empty white boards. This should be interesting, I thought. Brainstorming, maybe. I wonder how he's going to sort these answers. There were easily 60 people in the room. That's at least 300 stickies by my count. I looked around as the last of my fellow dinner guests - most of them coaches and team managers - put down their pens. Lists complete. 

John O'Sullivan (right) and I (left)

"If your sticky has to do with your coach's knowledge of the sport, the techniques, the tactics,” he said “place your sticky (on the wall to my right).” "If your sticky has to do with your coach's ability to connect," he continued, “this is the stuff like emotional intelligence, the connection, caring..."  listening, inspiring, and other soft skills that don't have to do with knowledge of the game, tactics, or game strategy. "stick it on the wall to my left." 

Within seconds, the throng of people moving to the soft skills wall made the point loud and clear. The "connection" wall that had nothing to do with knowledge of the game, with tactics, or strategies was soon covered with yellow stickies. The "knowledge" wall that had to do with the stuff that traditionally gets taught in coaching courses had some stickies, but there was no comparison. If I had to guess, the ratio looked like 4:1 in favors of coaching soft skills. 

"Do we notice a pattern emerging? he asked. The message he was sharing with us became clear in a very physical and visible way. 

Coaching Skills Beyond the Credentials

Skills centered around caring, listening, and passion seemed to top our list that evening, but it was clear that most items on the "Connection" wall, the stuff that this room full of adults remembers most about those who influenced them in life, had to do with making deep personal connection, supporting and inspiring people vs the technical elements of the game. 

If this little impromptu exercise is repeatable (the fact that John has done this all over the world suggests that it is) and if there is something to be learned here, it is that good coaching is about a lot more than teaching X’s and O’s.