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Beating a team 18-0


Yes or No?

NO! It serves no good purpose. A coach can make adjustments in players, play down multiple players and so on to improve his team without embarassing the opponent.

Usually no. What are you proving after 6-0 or so? Attack, shoot a yard wide then regroup, buildup from the back and re-attack. Add shots from headers only if you need to. Work on other finer points that may help tip the scale for you later on in the playoffs. Develop the players skills in times like this - great coaching moments everywhere!

Ditto to what AK posted-as well for the future, you don't want to give the opponents a motivating tool for next year.

I vote no. I also Ditto what AK posted. Work in as many young players as possible for they are the future of every team.

We had a game recently that we won 11-0. At the half, I pulled all but one of my starting attackers and benched them or put them on defense, just to clear the ball or feed it to the front. My front was made up of girls that were my defense. I told them that if they had a shot, take it, but not to run up the score. I even pulled my goalie and put her as a forward. Sometimes, it's embarassing to the other team to not put the ball in the goal. It's a tough call. It's not like football where you can run down the play clock and run dives up the middle and just run the clock down. Can you imagine passing the ball and someone having an open shot and they then pull it back to the penalty arc or even to the fullbacks? It's a tough call sometimes.

Here's another question though:
If you know that you will obliterate the team 11-0 or 18-0, how many coaches would be willing to concede some goals and lose the shutout? If you know that you will win, what does it matter? Any thoughts?

This is a tough one. Obviously you wouldn't be running your first team after about 4 goals, but the backups want to play and they want to score. Pulling the GK to a forward position does nothing but motivate the rest of the team to assist them in getting a goal. Playing "keep away" is just as humiliating to the opposing team as running up the score. Why not have a slaughter (mercy) rule? After 10, the game is over. To intentionally allow another team to score to avoid shutting them out proves nothing. No one likes these types of games. There should a limit and then the game is over.

I agree. A mercy rule might be worth looking into. No one is going to stage a miraculous comeback in soccer when they are down by 10 goals.

I like Foxfan's idea of the mercy rule. It has merit. There is just no good way to coach around a blow-out.

Okay, for those of you who do not know, we were forced to shorten our field because of repairs that were not finished in the alotted time frame. This basically created a possible short from anywhere. The referees agreed that the field was playable at approx. 95 x 55. We played Stall the following night and won 9-0 with 9 players. Two or three of those are true JV players. Also, referees could suggest before an obviously lopsided game to play 30 minute halves or at least adjust the second half time to help.

Those of you who suggest a mercy rule need to remember that both coaches must agree to the game. For the most part, coaches know what they are getting into when they schedule games. When I was the head coach at Stall, we played at Sumter who was ranked in the top 5 of 4A and had several all-state and North-South players on that team. We lost 19-0, and I have posted numerous times that i do not fault the coach for that. They did put essentially a JV team in, they invoked criteria before they could go to goal. They did everything possible to keep the score down. Stall opted to schedule that girls game just as I opted to schedule Sumter. The option is that the current Stall girls would have one less chance to play a game and represent their school which is the best part of high school soccer.

Against Sumter, I would have been more embarrassed and my players more disheartened if we had travelled 2+ hours and then turned around 30 minutes later to come home after surrendering 10 goals. It all has to do with what kind of a spin a coach puts on it.

I completely disagree with total keep away and never going to goal. If a team goes to goal, it at least gives the other team a chance to steal the ball or the keeper to make a save and punt the ball out of danger. I also think it is ludicrous to even mention giving up a goal and losing the shutout.

Baseball has a mercy rule because if they did not, baseball could theoretically go on forever because it is not a time based game like soccer.

I think high school players are more resiliant than we give them credit for. My players were upset about our Sumter loss, but the year before i got there, they had 4 games. I had 26 scheduled. They enjoyed playing games. I could not schedule Goose Creek or Stratford who would have been a better opponent because of the region agreement that ADs have.