The game where your player does everything wrong

What age?
Hopefully you didn’t make the car ride home terrible. Your kid likely knows they had a crappy game. You don’t need to do a big review on the way home.
Crappy games happen. Especially with youth players. Especially with girls.
Heck - Lebron James has bad games. Tom Brady has bad games. Bill Belicheck does a crappy job coaching once in a while. And these guys are paid millions to be the best in the world. It's ok if your teen/pre-teen daughter lays an egg once in a while.
 
I've written before about how mine had the mother of all meltdowns during tryouts in his first scrimmage for a silver team. He's a keeper and got scared since he had never been exposed to the pace of the silver game or strength of the kicks, and his coaches at his former team hadn't prepared him for handling the backpass. Despite having had a great tryout record until then, it wound up with him getting cut and set in motion a series of other unfortunate adventures.

It taught him a good lesson about how the failure to learn from our mistakes has consequences, it showed us that he had some issues with inattentive ADD that we've since addressed, and it was good to see that he responded to the adversity by hunkering down and raising his game, instead of wilting. But it was also really hard for him, and those were tough lessons to learn at such an early age (9).

I joked with him tonight well at least things ended well and you aren't Sven Ulreich. He's been really upset with the whole Ulreich thing and feels sorry for the guy and is angry the teammates aren't also getting part of the blame.
 
After moving to a new club, one of my DD had months of laying eggs in the games. Going through a rough patch personally (middle school) and it spilled over majorly into her play. She couldn't find her groove and even when she loosened up and played a bit better, she always hit bad luck -- for example, don't know how many times her shots hit the post, over and over, top post, side post, couldn't do that if you were paid to. Thankfully her new coach believed in her, knew she could do much better and was really patient with her, or she may not be playing to this day.
 
GoWest said:
Yes, my DD had one of those games where it seemed everything went wrong. It's good for growth and maturity or at least that's what I tell myself LOL! Anyone else have to live through "one of those" games? #therapy
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If anyone says they've never had to live through "one of those" games watching their kid play, they are either delusional or their kid hasn't played long enough.

My kid has had some of these, and I eventually realized that those days are the days that I earn my stripes as a parent. It's easy to be the dad or mom on the day your kid scores the winning goal or saves the game. It's on those days where your kid really botches things up that you've got to bring your "A" game as a parent.

For me, there's two types of bad games. 1. The teachable game. Where your kid or the team makes mistakes that are valuable to learn from. At the right time (not immediately after the game!) the player can review this game and the mistakes can be used to make a player better and more resilient. Usually, this is a game where some subtle errors in judgement were made and are easily correctable. 2. The "Burn the Tape" game. Sometimes it is just not your day. Either everything goes wrong or there is just one, gigantic, flukey, one-in-a-hundred mistake that ruins everything and the Soccer Gods (Peace be Upon Them!) have decided to take a gigantic crap all over you. There's nothing that can be done about this and it happens to everyone at some point. In this game, your player will fail to do things they usually always do, and make mistakes that they usually never make. Often, it's one error that gets in their heads, a total "brain lock" moment and then the wheels start to come off. In these situations, pro coaches don't even review the tape with the team, hence "Burn the Tape Game." There's nothing to learn here. It was just a really sh*tty day. In these cases, I find it's best to immediately go on to something completely unrelated to soccer like a surprise shopping trip to Brandy Melville (god, I hate that place) or go play some laser tag, paint ball, or video games, get an ice cream treat, go to her/his favorite restaurant, or whatever non-soccer thing your kid is totally into. Wash that taste out of their mouths and move on. My DD had two back to back games like that once. Circumstances were just right for a total meltdown performance and she was wrecked afterwards. All I said was, "This weekend doesn't define you, and you know that already don't you?" And we never talked about it again, except eventually she'd make jokes about it when it was a distant memory.

Good luck to you and your player!
 
Just so long as you accept that it's "her" or "his" (bad) day, not yours, your spouses, your families, and not a reflection of who you are as a parent, who your kid is as a person, etc. Of course they happen, the coach will say what he/she is going to say, and then everyone just MOVES ON. It's when the kid melts down, the parents melt down, and make it about themselves, play the blame game, etc. that problems occur. If parents can just accept it, allow their kid to deal with it in whatever way works for them, support them in a loving way, and move forward then learning (in so many ways) can take place. Best of luck, sounds like you're all doing fine.
 
My keeper son had a bad few weeks... in State Cup final he slip and let one in maybe he should have had. That was the start. His team lost 3 to 2 to the gotsoccer #1 team. They are legit. We played the same team in the NPL finals a couple weeks later and the first goal went right through his gloves. We lost 3 to 0. In the Presidents Cup semi-s with maybe a minute left we are tied and he missed a smother dive. We lost 1 - 0. It was rough. Each time the ride home was quiet and tearful. We stayed quiet and let him begin each conversation. We talked about the positives of the season and how at times he kept his team in it. On the long way home from the final error, he sent a message to his teammates on his own. He apologized to his friends for his errors and he vowed to train harder to try and get better. I believe he learned and grew from it. Me I don't care as much. I just love to watch him play.
 
Everything....never say never but seems that a bit too much for youth players who are still developing and learning.

On the flip side how about when player(s) are perceived to do "everything" right or correct. Perfect game, score on all their attempts, shutout the opposing team and the player(s) is/are praised by just about everyone. How to handle that situation when it happens often or frequent. Staying humble can be just about as difficult as struggling to keep up.

Expectations now that's another topic, if you don't have can you be happy no mater what happens?

Remember this is youth soccer, at the end of the day enjoy the journey, keep things lite & fun for the kids and they will thank for you that later.
 
vegasguy said:
My keeper son had a bad few weeks... in State Cup final he slip and let one in maybe he should have had. That was the start. His team lost 3 to 2 to the gotsoccer #1 team. They are legit. We played the same team in the NPL finals a couple weeks later and the first goal went right through his gloves. We lost 3 to 0. In the Presidents Cup semi-s with maybe a minute left we are tied and he missed a smother dive. We lost 1 - 0. It was rough. Each time the ride home was quiet and tearful. We stayed quiet and let him begin each conversation. We talked about the positives of the season and how at times he kept his team in it. On the long way home from the final error, he sent a message to his teammates on his own. He apologized to his friends for his errors and he vowed to train harder to try and get better. I believe he learned and grew from it. Me I don't care as much. I just love to watch him play.
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How about another 10 players on your team that ball had to pass before you goalkeeper missed that goal?
Tell him not to be too hard on himself.
How about that Sven Ulreich blunder? Even the best in world make critical mistakes in key games.
 
Eagle33 said:
How about another 10 players on your team that ball had to pass before you goalkeeper missed that goal?
Tell him not to be too hard on himself.
How about that Sven Ulreich blunder? Even the best in world make critical mistakes in key games.
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that is always part of the conversation but he sees the end result. He doesn't see the errant pass that leads to the countering shot or the foul committed that leads to the shot on frame that slips under him. It is the life of a keeper. They are an odd bunch of kids who enjoy the closes wins and losses and hate the games where they stand even though it is a victory.
I used to re-live every save and goal with him. No we only talk of our favorite saves of the match (win or lose).
 
vegasguy said:
My keeper son had a bad few weeks... in State Cup final he slip and let one in maybe he should have had. That was the start. His team lost 3 to 2 to the gotsoccer #1 team. They are legit. We played the same team in the NPL finals a couple weeks later and the first goal went right through his gloves. We lost 3 to 0. In the Presidents Cup semi-s with maybe a minute left we are tied and he missed a smother dive. We lost 1 - 0. It was rough. Each time the ride home was quiet and tearful. We stayed quiet and let him begin each conversation. We talked about the positives of the season and how at times he kept his team in it. On the long way home from the final error, he sent a message to his teammates on his own. He apologized to his friends for his errors and he vowed to train harder to try and get better. I believe he learned and grew from it. Me I don't care as much. I just love to watch him play.
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Oh my gosh, I don't know why, but this just kinda of made me tear up a little. So awesome that your son sent a text to his teammates. I hope that they were kind and supportive. I know my son, in the past, has sent his team positive texts to his team when they have had a rough tournament or game. I always marvel at how sweet some of these young boys are and how positive and encouraging they can be!! I feel like the team becomes stronger/closer with these setbacks.
 
Having a daughter that is a keeper makes every mistake magnified, as well as people sometimes thinking she made a mistake because of a certain score. You ask her after a 4-0 loss and she'll tell you she couldn't get to any of the goals, and most times she is correct in her evaluation. Never lets it get her down.
Headers on crosses that are redirected the opposite direction, a defender letting someone get to the 12 right in front of the goal and take a shot, easy to see where the goals come from.

Sometimes bad play doesn't show up on the score board. 1-0 win but she'll tell us she didn't play that well, the crispness of her passes, some drop kicks not going well, getting lucky on a play that she misjudges and hits the crossbar.

Funny Goal keeper makes one bad play and you lose 1-0, but having your forwards kick 4 over the top bar and 6 right at the opposing keeper is really just as bad, or worse since it seems to happen multiple times.

Her two biggest mistakes in the last couple years were dropping a shot and turning her body at the same time which allowed the ball to go into the net, and she whiffed on a pass back to her that bounced over her foot. Pretty sure she tried to tackle the girl when she ran past her to get to that ball. :p
 
GoWest said:
Yes, my DD had one of those games where it seemed everything went wrong. It's good for growth and maturity or at least that's what I tell myself LOL! Anyone else have to live through "one of those" games? #therapy
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Absolutely. I just tell her, “no dinner for you tonight”.
 
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