no halftime speech, too busy talking to each player individually......

An awesome read today Mike!! Thanks for putting in writing what we've all experienced so many times and probably "forget" are the best times and moments of volunteering our time at coaching youth soccer. Lance Eber Merced United FC, California

Know how you felt,Mike. As a novice coach, of my son's prep school, my debut was carefully planned in three parts over 90 minutes - a talk about soccer; skills practise and a fun scrimmage. Thought that would set them up nicely but, what did I get?     On a patch of bare earth behind the school my fifteen excited boys (6-11 years old) were everywhere,horsing around, climbing trees, and rolling in mud puddles. I lost five valuable minutes rounding up the little monsters and sat them at my feet. Not one had thought of putting on their (mostly brand new) soccer gear - another ten minutes blown away sorting out shirts, shorts and stockings. Boots had to be laced and tied.    All ready? Not quite. 6years-old Ronnie Blackett's shorts were too big and fell to his ankles. A spare lace solved that problem. And, "What's this, Billy Thorpe?" The laces were tied from foot to knee, criss-crossed, Roman legionnaire fashion. And young Colin Cook, a grandson of an Admiral of His Majesty's Royal Navy, limped around painfully with feet splayed out like Charlie Chaplin's tottering tramp.   "Perhaps your boots are too small" I suggested, "Let me check."  Oh, dear!Colin had his right boot on his left foot and the left on the right! This revelation changed his worried frown into an angelic smile of relief and the rest of the group fell about with giggles and laughter.    The carefully planned session was already in ruins. However, the boys had great fun and were eager to do it again. Our first match was only three weeks away, so we trained real hard.    Our league debut, against a local prep school, was a shock for our youngsters. Facing bigger and stronger opponents, already experienced in team play, they had no chance to show off my 4-4-2 strategy. We were slaughtered 0-19!    The second and third matches finished 0-15 and 0-11, but we were getting better!In our fourth match Colin Cook, boots on the correct feet, scored! Result 1-4.   Colin scored again in the fifth game to put us in front but their equalizer was clearly off-side to anyone other than their referee. But, we finally showed our class with a glorious victory 1-0 in the sixth match; Colin doing it for us again. We were on our way to the top! I learned a lot. All coaching theories abandoned, I tried to encourage the boys to develop basic skills and apply them in a disciplined team without losing the fun element.  During play I kept quiet, leaving it to them to do their best.  At half-time I'd suggest one or two simple solutions to problems they had met, adding a few words of encouragement to keep up morale. It seemed to work - we finished third.

Fantatic. I'm still laughing. So true. I'll use that halftime prep talk for my GU18's and I'm sure they'll love it. Nice job.

Hilarious. Great stuff.

I coached girls soccer for 20 year and when I read this it brought be right back. Yes! this is the real world of coaching middle school aged girls.

I couldn't stop laughing throughout. Marvelous piece.

"COACH MIKE: We’re down 1-0. So what? Yesterday we were down 2-0! We just need to ..." So you transmitted to a u13 girls team that they were losing as your first statement ..and "we just need to" excuse me the game belongs to the players not to "we" you included. And why the heck were you worried abouty the score at u13 it should be development not worrying about state cup etc., why did you not praise the players for what was done right in the first half and encourage them to do the same in the second. Or did you not see what they did right but only focussed on the score. Do some self examination and ask is it right as a coach in highly competitive club to worry about the score after the first half rather then the way your players played and excuted the things you were teaching in the season ? And why a second game in two days ? Sorry to come off as a negative nancy not enjoying the humor of your article but seriously why are you coaching if being down 1-0 at half is an issue when developing a love for the game and a future for your players... no wonder they stepped up and took the converstion away from you and made it their own, good on them.

Hey Doug, lighten up. Mike's not trying to save the world. He's making just two points: One is that what's may seem important to a coach often is not what is important to players, and the other is that sharing, i.e., socializing is to girl players one of those most important things.