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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]As a coach, I’d estimate about 1/2 of parents are contacting coaches to opine about their kid and, eventually, it slides into commentary on the team as a whole, other players, etc. And it’s markedly worse than 5-10 years ago. Unfortunately, I see a lot of coaches who - possibly unintentionally - acquiesce to the parent’s demands/“suggestions”.[/quote]

When you say "opine", what do you mean?  I approach my DS' coach about my son once a year about 1/3 of the way through the season - but just to ask how he's doing, what he should be focusing on, and what reasonable expectations should be as far as recruiting goals.  Are you including this sort of behaviour, or is this people trying to tell the coach that their kid should be used differently?[/quote]

Nothing wrong with that. It’s parents with “my kid is better at position X”, “my kid doesn’t want to play position X”, “my kid should be practicing/playing with the A team”, “player X [not their kid] hasn’t been scoring much at Striker, they might be better as a Center Back”...[b]And you see it where the parent’s kid gets the opportunity with the A team, even if they aren’t the most deserving kid.[/b] Unfortunately, especially in the current climate, clubs and coaches are responsive to it because they don’t want players leaving.[/quote]

Both team managers kids on my son’s U16 team.  They aren’t even in the top 5 of best players on the team.  Not even close.[/quote]

I think this definitely happens.  However it is also true that many parents do not know enough about soccer to reliably know which kids "should" be starting.  I'm not just talking about the inbuilt bias every parent has towards their own kid, but a genuine inability to see and understand what the coach sees when he looks at a soccer player.  This remains true at all levels of kids' soccer - as the kids get better the parents tend to know and see more, but it gets harder to distinguish between two talented kids.  Parents can see speed, one-on-one wins, and they can see goals and assists easily enough - but it's harder to pick up on things like first touch, and soft feet and I would guess that very few parents can reliably assess off the ball movement, awareness and decision-making.

[/quote]

OP’s credentials indicate he/she does have that level of soccer knowledge.

I find it’s the ones with zero soccer playing/coaching —or just rec, low level travel or jv Hs soccer that are the worst offenders.[/quote]

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