When young children put on their soccer boots who controls their experience? Many would argue the coach or the child.
When it comes to Soccer the parents condition the child’s experience.
Parents have a bad habit of bombarding their children with unrealistic goals, past frustrations, their own motivations and the bitter taste of vanished dreams.
Before I fly off the handle lets establish a few things first.
Soccer is a sport.
Soccer is the beautiful world game.
Soccer this, soccer that. What most people forget to acknowledge is that soccer is an education. An education in life.
If you search the web, read books and buy magazines, chances are you’ve read pages and pages of information about soccer. Most authors will publish pages of fluff and useless information to portray their authority in the subject.
Ask them for a definition or what soccer means and they probably start with the origins of the game, history of the game and all the information only historians would stomach.
Big deal.
Anyone can Google soccer and be flooded with the same rehashed information that has been floating the web for years.
How would you describe soccer?
What does soccer mean to you?
Do you need time to think about it? How many pages could you write about the beautiful game?
Could you write a book?
Would you describe soccer in your own words or would you sell out and copy someone else’s thoughts.
What’s that you ask?
How would I describe soccer?
I’ll save you the pages or book and give it to you in 5 words.
“A means, not an end.”
Could I be wrong? Possibly, after all it’s my opinion.
The point I’m trying to make is information should be checked and referenced to facts. Information should be multi-sourced and players should be encouraged to define the game themselves.
Too often we hear the same bullshit from people who haven’t even kicked a ball. The amount of bullshit floating the net today is amazing. More alarming is the same inaccurate information being passed around all the forums and social networks.
What really gets my blood boiling is marketers trying to sell soccer products or soccer advice.
You might think to yourself, “so what”.
But remember this next time your reading something on the Internet,
Inaccurate information means inaccurate decisions.
Is it worth establishing the truth in soccer? What untruths have been holding you back?
“May the winds of destiny blow you to the stars.”
This is exactly what I have been talking about for years. You have summed up a lot of what I have been thinkng about, and many of the reasons I am trying to set up Pure Game. I am in the early stages of my own blog and have been writing and rewriting most of what you have mentioned above (never posted!). I think my fear was upsetting the people I was writing about. Maybe I should have less fear and do it anyway! Soccer is a great game and sadly it is being turned into a big money business. This means the kids of today can’t enjoy it as the older generation did. This also sounds a lot like what they are saying over at Give Us Back Our Game. Keep up the good work, let’s do what we can to bring the fun back to the game.
“Soccer this, soccer that. What most people forget to acknowledge is that soccer is an education. An education in life.”
BINGO THOMAS! This is the ultimate statement that sums up US soccer. Therefore they do not approach development as an education for a child. An education through which my child would discover his or her characteristics, and along the way, get to know the world. Many parents do not know what this sport offers a child. That is the sad part of soccer in america. We do it just for the sweat, while elsewhere, it is a vehicle of life.
I always say to my players-use the game to tell the world about YOU.
In life, you might end up poor, but you always have to aspire to getting to the top. If you are going to change your life for the better, it will come from the way you live it. You are your game, and your game is what you’ve trained yourself to be good at. It’s all about you.