U is for unbalanced games

If you’ve never been involved in kids’ football, some of the scorelines in Foul and Fair might have caused some raised eyebrows. In my time coaching, I saw my team win by margins or nine or ten, as well as losing by a similar distance. I never personally encountered a defeat on the scale that the Hawks handed out to Moorlands, but I know 20-or-30-something to nil really does happen from time to time. The problem with a game like that is that nobody benefits. It may be fun for the winning team to run in goal after goal, but it won’t help them to develop as players, and as for the opposition, it’s hard to keep on going for week after week of thrashings.

Results like that are also a consequence of coaches like Kieran from Foul and Fair, who are constantly looking to poach the best players from other teams. A friend of mine lost his team’s top scorer three seasons in a row (different players each time), with a resulting escalating loss of morale for the boys who stayed behind and saw their team steadily decline over that period. I’d have two questions for the poaching coaches: first, if you’re such a great coach, why not develop your existing players and help them to improve? Secondly, wouldn’t it be better for your team’s development to have plenty of evenly matched opponents to play against, rather than go on an ego-boosting victory lap against inferior opposition every week?

One of the Football Association’s solution to the problem of unbalanced games, for younger age groups at least, is to let the team who is losing put on an extra player. It wasn’t introduced to the league we played in until my team was past the age where it applied, so I’ve never experienced it personally, but my understanding of the rule was this: it only came into effect if a team was losing by four clear goals, and if the tide turned and the scoreline dipped to below that margin, then the extra player had to be withdrawn. As a result, a team with an extra player won’t steal an unlikely win because of it – they’d need to score four goals on even terms for that to happen. More significantly, the game becomes more useful for the development and enjoyment of both teams. The team that is winning gets a more challenging game, and the team that’s losing isn’t humiliated by a non-stop stream of goals conceded. Everybody gets more out of the game and everybody enjoys themselves more.

The trouble is, many people react to innovations like this with a knee-jerk rejection. ‘They’re trying to take away competition’, ‘What’s wrong with losing?’, ‘No one gives you an extra player when you’re grown up – they should get used to the real world now.’ But this isn’t about doing away with losing, just mitigating against a lack of balance and giving everyone – on both sides – a better experience. And as for getting used to the adult world, we’re talking about seven-year-olds here – they’re not grown-ups yet, and football is meant to be fun.

I know of one coach who even objected to the extra-player rule when it worked in his favour. It made him feel that his team were being patronised when they were losing, so he chose never to take advantage of the opportunity. It’s a shame that his players had to suffer for the sake of his pride. Sometimes us coaches have to swallow our egos and just do what’s best for the kids.