Italians play soccer for fun, Americans play soccer on a schedule

A

Azzurri

SILVER

http://www.socceramerica.com/article/70378/italian-american-playing-youth-soccer-in-italy.html

Italians play soccer for fun, Americans play soccer on a schedule

My son’s new school in Italy is attached to one of the many local churches, Chiesa del Carmine. As tourists, we had often marveled at the number of churches in Italy, rarely seeing the hidden courtyard sheltering a small calcetto court behind (think: small-sided games of 5v5 on a basketball-style court).

The Carmine courtyard has a small-sized soccer field, and numerous well-spaced trees that act as goalposts for any number of after school pick-up games. As the courtyard turns into a public park in the afternoons, kids from the neighborhood rush to pick teams, wearing last years Juve or Milan shirt bought at the market for 10 euro.
 
Nice post and article. IMO many US players would be better served if we changed to something closer to what the Italians or Icelanders are doing.

Too much structure, schedules, and parent involvement in soccer for our great country.

I'm glad both by kids learned to have fun & play in the streets, playground, church, school, before my job relocated us back to the states.

Having known nothing about how futbol/soccer was in the US they were really surprised to find out there were so many people telling them what or what not to do on these huge fields with so many players you could run into them if not carefull They were more comfortable playing indoor or futsal and took some time to adjust to the us style of soccer.

My daughter almost quit us soccer because she didn't like all the noise and non-sense on the sidelines, coaches & people yelling all the time, players getting violent, thought it was nuts that grown adults are so crazy about a kids game, like it was super important or something. Wanted to just play like she had at a young age without all the distractions.
 
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Fascinating article. However, its basically a long-winded way of saying the difference is cultural. The only way that the culture will change in the US is organically over time. All the initiatives from US Soccer and other organizations will do little if any to change the culture. Sure, US Soccer can do things to improve soccer like promote more touches, both unsupervised and supervised (but not joysticked); however, no amount of copying foreign systems is going to change American soccer into European soccer.
 
In my opinion the biggest problem is that our youth has too many distractions and as parents we doing promote kids playing in the streets or local parks. In other parts of the world kids will play soccer before the bell rings at school, during recess, and after school at their local street or park with 6 other neighborhood kids. Our kids go straight to their electronics and will not play unless there's practice. Personally at home I promote having a ball inside the house at all time so they can kick the ball against the walls or juggle during their electronic breaks.
 
SoccerFan4Life said:
In my opinion the biggest problem is that our youth has too many distractions and as parents we doing promote kids playing in the streets or local parks. In other parts of the world kids will play soccer before the bell rings at school, during recess, and after school at their local street or park with 6 other neighborhood kids. Our kids go straight to their electronics and will not play unless there's practice. Personally at home I promote having a ball inside the house at all time so they can kick the ball against the walls or juggle during their electronic breaks.
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My sons got a miniature nerf basketball when they were just old enough to run and kick. They soon set up a 1v1 arena between a chair under the family room table and the door of the laundry room. Eventually the ball was replaced with #1 tournament souvenir ball, slightly deflated. I sat on the stairs and refereed for years.

I didn't bother to patch and paint the cracks in the wallboard until they had both moved out.
 
Azzurri said:
http://www.socceramerica.com/article/70378/italian-american-playing-youth-soccer-in-italy.html

Italians play soccer for fun, Americans play soccer on a schedule

My son’s new school in Italy is attached to one of the many local churches, Chiesa del Carmine. As tourists, we had often marveled at the number of churches in Italy, rarely seeing the hidden courtyard sheltering a small calcetto court behind (think: small-sided games of 5v5 on a basketball-style court).

The Carmine courtyard has a small-sized soccer field, and numerous well-spaced trees that act as goalposts for any number of after school pick-up games. As the courtyard turns into a public park in the afternoons, kids from the neighborhood rush to pick teams, wearing last years Juve or Milan shirt bought at the market for 10 euro.
Click to expand...
Good article. Enjoyed to see how the game is looked at from a different perspective.
 
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