Reply to Ball Hog

Forum Index » Soccer

Reply to "Ball Hog"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]idk. my kid was a major ball hog for years and her coach never really stopped her. I'm glad though in retrospect because she developed incredible ball handling skills. she moved clubs at 13 and had to learn a whole different way of playing. her new coach loved her skills but was able to teach her when and where to dribble and show her skills. [/quote]

I think this is the concern others have - the ball hog is hogging most of the development.  So at 13 their kid can't make a better team as they've been sitting around watching another kid dribble for years.  If everyone tells their kid to be a ball hog, there's no passing at all.  Then it comes down to who recovers the ball from the other team defensively.  Everyone wants to recover it, and now we're playing bunch-ball like 5 year-olds.[/quote]

not really. my daughter (the one referenced up top) was one of only a couple players on the team that really wanted the ball. might have been the make up of the teams she was on, but the teams' tactics were to try and get her the ball. until she switched clubs at 13.

one of my other daughters was the kind of player that just wanted to make a good pass and get rid of it. she never wanted to carry the ball.

and fwiw, no one told my ball-hog daughter to be a ball hog. if i had told my other daughter to hog the ball, she would have said absolutely not.

i think there is too much focus on passing and sharing the ball at too young an age and players aren't encouraged to be creative and fail to develop comfort on the ball.

[/quote]

Sounds like it may not be totally fair to call her a "ball hog" from this.  Teams need risk-takers who occasionally beat some defenders on the dribble.  A true ball hog imo is one that goes well past what the team needs and what that player is actually capable of.

My daughter played on a team that had no dribblers.  Like you said, there was probably too much emphasis on getting rid of it and no one wanted to be a star.  It was frustrating, for parents and for the kids. We would get pinned in our own half way too often, making only safe passes.  Eventually I told my daughter to beat some people on the dribble no matter what on the first possession in the offensive half, don't stop until you score or it gets taken.  She argued against it adamantly, but agreed.  Beat 2-3 players and almost scored.  It was funny to see the light bulb go off that maybe she could dribble more.  Even the coach, who praised good passes, was like "YES!"  She probably started overdoing it for a season, but it helped the team do much better, and she settled down into a better balance of dribbling vs passing.  She got a lot better after having a brief period as an arguable ball hog.  She also realizes now that every good team needs some risk-takers.

I know a dad of a very good player, dad also played at a high level, who challenges his own son in some games to always take 7+ touches for a half, 1-touch, or 2-touch.  I'm sure in the 7+ touch halves he looks like a ball hog, but he's generally a distributing CM and whatever he's doing is working.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics