If your youth coach wants to practice headers...

I played CB, I simply don't know how that position could be played effectively without heading the ball. The game would change drastically if they removed headers from the game.

I do think it would be great if we taught kids more possession based play and less ping pong ball. Even watching some of the MLS Next Cup games I cringe a bit.
 
Kicker 2.0 said:
Heading is a part of the game. Would you like to get rid of punts, set pieces and corners to further reduce the potential for injury?

Please show me where I even insinuated that every coach insists on this.
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More accurate to say that both Grace and Toucan put forward that, if you insist on no headers, your kid will lose their spot. So far, this has not been my experience. Not heading just means you need to work harder on traps and foot skills.

For now, heading is a part of the game. Flopping at minor contact and lining up 3 yards from the free kick are also part of the game. Some parts of the game don’t actually make the game better.

Eventually, FIFA might actually take a break from lining their pockets with bribes and think for a moment about player safety. Probably not.
 
watfly said:
I believe the same can be said for knee injuries particularly ACL which I've heard may be a function of anatomy. Difference in concussions?
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Look at neck size and head mass. Girls have slimmer necks and smaller heads, both of which put them at greater risk of concussion. About 6x, if I remember right.
 
watfly said:
Very well said. I would just add the concussion awareness has improved significantly in soccer the last few years. For the DA and the MLS Next they had/have concussion baseline testing of each player at the beginning of the season and are supposed to follow strict concussion protocols. Even in a 30 minute crossing drill there aren't not that many headers. While an integral part of the game, headers aren't practiced much or actually done much in a game. To repeat to the OP if your worried about CTE from soccer, headers aren't the significant issue.

Slide tackles are an integral part of the game as well, and make you vulnerable to getting kicked in the head (as my son can attest). Where does the list stop of things your going to tell the coach your son won't do? Will only play on soft fields etc?
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This... My DD is a defender and starting at about U15 if you are trying to bring the ball down and play it with a forward on you rather than head it away (including long balls and keeper punts) at elite levels and high school you will be pulled. You try to bring it down with chest or thigh and you just created a 50/50 ball in your own 1/3 with nothing between you and the keeper. Unacceptable. Its just a fact and coaches know it. Heading is a very important skill as a defender and if the player doesn't do it or does it wrong they won't last in that role. While practicing 20min every practice seems excessive they need to practice technique just like every other skill and the proper technique will actually reduce their risk of injury. Using the muscles in the neck to absorb the impact rather than just letting it smash your skull makes a difference.

A single concussion will not cause CTE it is the repeated blows to an area that is already damaged. This is why the concussion protocols exist. Player gets concussed they need to come out immediately and stay out for at least 24 hrs. Tossing a ball and heading it will not cause CTE. It is the hard hits player/player, player/ground, player/goalpost and then another in the same area before the first one heals.
 
Heading is a small part of the game, especially at grassroots level.

Should kids be taught how to head the ball with the correct technique to avoid injury and concussion? Absolutely.

Is it really necessary to practice headers often during training for grassroots teams? No.

Teach your players to get themselves into the correct position and understand/anticipate the game in such a way that heading the ball can be minimized. If you are exceptional with your soccer IQ and feet, any lack of heading ability won't matter much. You can coach your players how to position themselves and put someone off (physically) so that they cannot get a clean header during a challenge; that way, any kids who are hesitant about heading the ball or potentially clashing heads, can still compete and just do their thing once the ball comes down ;)

"If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he'd have put grass up there." Brian Clough. Legend.
 
dad4 said:
More accurate to say that both Grace and Toucan put forward that, if you insist on no headers, your kid will lose their spot. So far, this has not been my experience. Not heading just means you need to work harder on traps and foot skills.

For now, heading is a part of the game. Flopping at minor contact and lining up 3 yards from the free kick are also part of the game. Some parts of the game don’t actually make the game better.

Eventually, FIFA might actually take a break from lining their pockets with bribes and think for a moment about player safety. Probably not.
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Are you insinuating that heading a ball is as useless in game as flopping and lining up 3 yds fro a free kick?

Did you play soccer?
 
espola said:
Speaking of heading, whatever happened to the Full90 headband?
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Yes, concussions have happened from youth players intentionally heading the ball, both when using proper form and not. Unfortunately, there is little convincing evidence that the headbands designed to lessen the risk actually do so.
It is important to keep in mind that this exact same discussion was had not long ago with american football. The NFL says they have a concussion protocol, but there is a near certainty that repeated sub-concussive hits over time also result in CTE.
Luckily, there is a big difference between soccer and american football regarding hits to the head. But if we are honest with ourselves, can we really doubt that the inexorable march has begun before we find out that heading in soccer has some negative results especially after many years of playing at a high level.
Every parent should discuss this topic with their children playing soccer and with their coach/club, and make a decision for their family based on their own assessment. However, don't go into the decision thinking we've scraped the depths of the scientific understanding of the consequences, because it is more likely that we are only starting to understand, and the article linked is a good example of what might be out there.
 
dad4 said:
Or teach them foot skills. That works too.

Not sure where you get the idea that every coach insists on heading clearance balls. The coaches I have met are far more reasonable than that.
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Because for the aerials (either on defense or offense) the other players are attempting to win it at the highest point (not to mention the keeper with his hands). If you wait for it to be chested down and use the feet, the keeper already has it or the forward has put it forward and an attacker is 1v1 with the keeper

in the boys game, higher levels, this is a ludicrous suggestion.
 
Paul Spacey said:
Heading is a small part of the game, especially at grassroots level.

Should kids be taught how to head the ball with the correct technique to avoid injury and concussion? Absolutely.

Is it really necessary to practice headers often during training for grassroots teams? No.

Teach your players to get themselves into the correct position and understand/anticipate the game in such a way that heading the ball can be minimized. If you are exceptional with your soccer IQ and feet, any lack of heading ability won't matter much. You can coach your players how to position themselves and put someone off (physically) so that they cannot get a clean header during a challenge; that way, any kids who are hesitant about heading the ball or potentially clashing heads, can still compete and just do their thing once the ball comes down ;)

"If God had wanted us to play football in the clouds, he'd have put grass up there." Brian Clough. Legend.
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At the grassroots levels I agree they do it at lot less. It’s hard to get the ball in the perfect zone. I wonder how folks would feel about banning headers for flight 2 and below?

the ball over the top (along with the thru ball) is one of deadliest balls and one of the few scoring opportunities in the boys game at higher levels. It forces the defender to choose. Fall back too far and you put the attacker onside with only you and the gk behind you.Too forward and you’ve let the ball into open space 1v1 with the keeper. For the keepers too it’s one of the hardest skills: they need to decide whether to guard the space behind the line and sweep or whether to fall back and protect the goal…but the one zone they can’t defend is the space immediately behind the back line…a ball goes in there and it’s one of the few times the defender is clearly at fault and the goalkeeper is rightly screaming at them. That area is 100% the defenders area and both defenders and strikers are trying to win it at the highest point (the striker to put it into the area behind the line, the defender to the mids). Learning proper positioning is all fine and good but it doesn’t eliminate this tradeoff. It’s a direct consequence of the offside rule (made worse by the ability of the gk to punt or to gk it long [in this last case with No offside restrictions])
 
golazo7 said:
The cumulative risk of dying in a car accident from all the driving we do in crazy SoCal to practices, games, and tournaments is probably higher than the risk of developing CTE from headers
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Cognitive decline from heading is apparently pretty common:


“Players with the highest lifetime estimates of heading had poorer scores on scales measuring attention, concentration, cognitive flexibility and general intellectual functioning.”

Text further down shows significant cognitive impairment in 20-80% of players, depending on the study.
 
It’s not helpful to cherry pick data

here’s more recent data that refutes these findings

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Heading in football, long-term cognitive decline and dementia: evidence from screening retired professional footballers - PubMed

These results suggest that once a player ends their playing career, their risk of harm falls in line with the population, suggesting either that changes are reversible or that heading may not be as harmful as commonly thought. Future longitudinal studies of large numbers of professional football...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


My general point is that there is inherent risk in so much we do already. It’s up to each family to mitigate as we see fit.
 
dad4 said:
Cognitive decline from heading is apparently pretty common:


“Players with the highest lifetime estimates of heading had poorer scores on scales measuring attention, concentration, cognitive flexibility and general intellectual functioning.”

Text further down shows significant cognitive impairment in 20-80% of players, depending on the study.
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Hmmm...maybe I could've gotten that Ph.D......

Of course I used to skateboard without a helmet too...
 
golazo7 said:
My general point is that there is inherent risk in so much we do already. It’s up to each family to mitigate as we see fit.
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Agreed, but there are some that believe its up to the institutions or someone else to protect them from risk, ie "Nanny Staters".

NorCalDad said:
Hmmm...maybe I could've gotten that Ph.D......

Of course I used to skateboard without a helmet too...
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Drink water out of a hose? Lawn darts? WD40 a tennis ball and kick it around after you lighted it on fire?
 
golazo7 said:
It’s not helpful to cherry pick data

here’s more recent data that refutes these findings

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Heading in football, long-term cognitive decline and dementia: evidence from screening retired professional footballers - PubMed

These results suggest that once a player ends their playing career, their risk of harm falls in line with the population, suggesting either that changes are reversible or that heading may not be as harmful as commonly thought. Future longitudinal studies of large numbers of professional football...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


My general point is that there is inherent risk in so much we do already. It’s up to each family to mitigate as we see fit.
Click to expand...
Not much of a refutation. It says “yes, there is cognitive impairment, but it mostly does away after a while.”

No thanks. I’ll keep focusing on foot skills.
 
My gk son and I just had a discussion about balls over the top in the boys game over dinner (other than the Uswnt, and a few games from his gf and cousin, he hasn’t seen enough of the girls game to judge)

He was very animated. He said balls over the top are probably the third toughest play he faces…after cutbacks on the ground and cutbacks in the air. Unlike a thru ball on the ground, he says it’s one he and his gk peers worry about because the ball is out of control and unlike the ground there is no really fixed routine to stop it. It makes it more dangerous for them and the two times he’s had a serious collision has been with this type of ball.

he said that the thru ball on the ground is probably a result of a defensive tactical mistake and he bears part of the responsibility for failing to see it. But the ball on the air is totally the defenders responsibility for failing to challenge the aerial. He said he’d totally go off on a teammate that put him in that situation by whincing away from the aerial (gks yell a lot), it would absolutely destroy the trust which is so important between the cb and gk (trust which he recognizes go both ways and which in the past he’s merited a loss of) and that a player that did that wouldn’t survive long in the higher level boys game. He brought up the bad experience he had with these balls on one team that led to 4-8 1v1s a game and he said it was absolutely awful (no but I’m grateful I got better on 1v1s…just it sucked).

it was a good convo so thanks for that…was surprised his feelings on the subject were stronger than mine. As to the risks he said there’s a lot riskier stuff going on in soccer and if the adults feel it isn’t safe for kids they should change the rules, but not by throwing gks under the bus.
 
crush said:
I played 8 years AYSO and I could never master it and I gave up. I got a headache every time I tried and is probably why I got GK job. I told my little one not get into jump balls and NOT try and head and jump with the big girls. She only will use her head to score a goal and the game better have something on the line or she is not going in with her head. Using your head to score makes the game fun to watch and cause GK to get frozen.
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4:20 , Drogba vs Bayern in CL finals to put it ET is my vote, where I think he scored the final PK for Chelsea to win it . Insane skill
 
golazo7 said:
It’s not helpful to cherry pick data

here’s more recent data that refutes these findings

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Heading in football, long-term cognitive decline and dementia: evidence from screening retired professional footballers - PubMed

These results suggest that once a player ends their playing career, their risk of harm falls in line with the population, suggesting either that changes are reversible or that heading may not be as harmful as commonly thought. Future longitudinal studies of large numbers of professional football...
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov


My general point is that there is inherent risk in so much we do already. It’s up to each family to mitigate as we see fit.
Click to expand...
I read that and think of all the head bangers at metal shows. Probably the same thing.
 
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