First of all, you are correct, those that moved down to pool two are much better off. The pool one coach has spoken to my son more times this fall than he did all of last year. As for pool 1, no parent is going to move their child off that team. No parent from that team has any experience with soccer. They agree that the coach does not necessarily work well with younger players, but all they care about is winning. Because of their lack of experience with the game, they hardly know better than to question development. Add to that the fact that the coach intimidates the players, the parents and other coaches. The coach in question did not develop any players on the team. No one was a better player than when the season started. So there was no dumbing down for weaker players. As a coach, I made sure during the devlopment ages everyone got experience various things in a game. When the pool one teams played each other in the finals of a tournament last year, the coach let the players decide where to play. The assertive players made the decisions, when the others didn't agree they just got pushed around. If my son and a few others had not done what was for the best of the team, we would have been playing with 4 strikers and 4 center mids. In the coaches mind this may be a "learning" situation, but I can't say I agree.
Last edited by kdlsc; 11/01/06 06:17 PM.
