Travel Run-Away Games

[Anonymous]

What is the best way to handle a run-away game?

Many of our travel games could be 20+ goal differential, but the coach slows us down to pass-only after 10 goals.

Frustrating for the kids and parents.

Wondered if we can offer other solutions to the coach that would still let the kids score the whole game, but make the game more competitive.

Has anyone pulled players to make it more competitive, or other options?

[Anonymous]

Pull the scorers back to defense.

[Anonymous]

take a player off the field so it's 9v8 or whatever.

[Anonymous]

If it is happening a lot, you need to try get into a higher division or higher league. It's not helping your team develop.

[Anonymous]

At our old team, if it got about 5 goals we had an 8 pass minimum before anyone could shoot and we did a total "flip-flop" of positions with defenders going up as strikers and strikers going back as defenders. We even swapped our goalie.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At our old team, if it got about 5 goals we had an 8 pass minimum before anyone could shoot and we did a total "flip-flop" of positions with defenders going up as strikers and strikers going back as defenders. We even swapped our goalie.

+1 Same.

I like doing it at 5 goals up because you don't have to go to no-shooting but rather 8 pass minimum before shooting. Helps the kids develop, too. And if the other team catches up, then you play hard again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If it is happening a lot, you need to try get into a higher division or higher league. It's not helping your team develop.

This.
What age is the team and what league are you in where these kinds of blowouts occur?

[Anonymous]

What league are you playing in? If it's tournaments, you need to play a higher bracket, if it's league play you need to move up a division if possible.

Lots of coaches like to sandbag to get the Ws so they can say we are winning! You may want to help coordinate some scrimmages with teams in the area to give your kids a more realistic view of their play. I'll take a 1-0 win over a 10-1 win anyday.

[Anonymous]

If we are 5 goals ahead, ours switches to passing only. They also flip positions and will even let someone else go in as goalie.

Even doing all of this, I've seen some games where our team looks like it's playing keep away from the other team, they'll be THAT bad at stealing/getting the ball.

The new rule this year adds in that they can only pass the ball 20 times in a single possession before it needs to be sent downfield for the other team to get.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it is happening a lot, you need to try get into a higher division or higher league. It's not helping your team develop.

This.
What age is the team and what league are you in where these kinds of blowouts occur?

If it is a CCL team, there is nowhere to move up for any of the teams, except at tournaments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the best way to handle a run-away game?

Many of our travel games could be 20+ goal differential, but the coach slows us down to pass-only after 10 goals.

Frustrating for the kids and parents.

Wondered if we can offer other solutions to the coach that would still let the kids score the whole game, but make the game more competitive.

Has anyone pulled players to make it more competitive, or other options?

I as a parent do not want them to score more. After about 5-6 goal and they are told to pass 15 times, they play so much better. This is when you see the true talent on the team.

[Anonymous]

What about going back to previous threads about the exact same subject, there is no lack of parents who cannot help but brag about their kids' unbeatable teams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it is happening a lot, you need to try get into a higher division or higher league. It's not helping your team develop.

This.
What age is the team and what league are you in where these kinds of blowouts occur?

If it is a CCL team, there is nowhere to move up for any of the teams, except at tournaments.

NP here. We are having this situation in CCL Next Gen. It is our first year in that league and it seems like a really poorly designed system, from the development perspective anyway. All the A teams from the different clubs play each other and all the B teams play the other B teams. Our son's team is a pretty good, but far from unbeatable, B team and they have won all the games by double digits. I think maybe there has been one goal scored against. Sounds like the situation is the same for the A team from our club.

Our coach has not made any adjustments yet though maybe he will later in the season--we've only had 3 games so far due to weather cancellations. He already follows all the best practices of rotating players in all positions, including goalkeepers, equal playing time, and stressing passing. I don't really love the way the artificial restrictions like taking players out or requiring a certain number of passes work out for either team (have been on both sides of this in the past with other kids' teams). You are not really playing soccer in that case. What I hope is that maybe CCL will be willing to re-balance part way through the season so there aren't so many lopsided games. Probably doesn't work with their structure of having two clubs' teams all play each other on the same day though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it is happening a lot, you need to try get into a higher division or higher league. It's not helping your team develop.

This.
What age is the team and what league are you in where these kinds of blowouts occur?

If it is a CCL team, there is nowhere to move up for any of the teams, except at tournaments.

NP here. We are having this situation in CCL Next Gen. It is our first year in that league and it seems like a really poorly designed system, from the development perspective anyway. All the A teams from the different clubs play each other and all the B teams play the other B teams. Our son's team is a pretty good, but far from unbeatable, B team and they have won all the games by double digits. I think maybe there has been one goal scored against. Sounds like the situation is the same for the A team from our club.

Our coach has not made any adjustments yet though maybe he will later in the season--we've only had 3 games so far due to weather cancellations. He already follows all the best practices of rotating players in all positions, including goalkeepers, equal playing time, and stressing passing. I don't really love the way the artificial restrictions like taking players out or requiring a certain number of passes work out for either team (have been on both sides of this in the past with other kids' teams). You are not really playing soccer in that case. What I hope is that maybe CCL will be willing to re-balance part way through the season so there aren't so many lopsided games. Probably doesn't work with their structure of having two clubs' teams all play each other on the same day though.

Interesting. There were some disputed assertions on CCL thread that all CCL games are close and decided by a goal or two, but this post portrays a different picture. I think this post is probably more accurate, given that CCL is a closed, by application only, system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If it is happening a lot, you need to try get into a higher division or higher league. It's not helping your team develop.

This.
What age is the team and what league are you in where these kinds of blowouts occur?

If it is a CCL team, there is nowhere to move up for any of the teams, except at tournaments.

NP here. We are having this situation in CCL Next Gen. It is our first year in that league and it seems like a really poorly designed system, from the development perspective anyway. All the A teams from the different clubs play each other and all the B teams play the other B teams. Our son's team is a pretty good, but far from unbeatable, B team and they have won all the games by double digits. I think maybe there has been one goal scored against. Sounds like the situation is the same for the A team from our club.

Our coach has not made any adjustments yet though maybe he will later in the season--we've only had 3 games so far due to weather cancellations. He already follows all the best practices of rotating players in all positions, including goalkeepers, equal playing time, and stressing passing. I don't really love the way the artificial restrictions like taking players out or requiring a certain number of passes work out for either team (have been on both sides of this in the past with other kids' teams). You are not really playing soccer in that case. What I hope is that maybe CCL will be willing to re-balance part way through the season so there aren't so many lopsided games. Probably doesn't work with their structure of having two clubs' teams all play each other on the same day though.

I think it's entirely possible that our kids are on the same team.
If so, the schedule does get a bit more challenging, as we start playing the bigger clubs from here on out.
But yes, the beginning of the season has been painful.

I would like to see a set rule that when a team goes up by 5, they pull one player, and if they go up by 10 they pull another.