Anonymous wrote:Hopefully the coach handles it. When DS was u9 he played in a game where the ball hog on his team scored several goals and played his best game ever. After the game, the coach met with the kids and praised my DS for his passing and a few other players for various things. He said nothing about the ball hog. He didn’t say a word about all the goals scored. You could tell the kid who was a ball hog was expecting praise for the win. It seems to work because he passed the ball more after that.

Anonymous wrote:I find it insane that adults pressure their kids to not pass to their teammate because that player dribbles more than the parent (who know nothing about soccer or development) would like. Do you also pressure her to not pass to the kids that pass it’ll directly to the wrong team or dribble out of bounds under no pressure? Or is it just the dribblers that you don’t want her to pass to?

Parents are the worst, purposefully creating a toxic environment.

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Anonymous wrote:How do you help your child deal with a teammate who is a ball hog? 9v9

Are you the team coach?

This. It's for the coach to deal with.

Anonymous wrote:How do you help your child deal with a teammate who is a ball hog? 9v9

Anonymous wrote:More stupid parents complaining about dumb shat.

Anonymous wrote:If the coach isn’t concerned, you shouldn’t be either. Perhaps your child needs to be more aggressive.

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Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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.

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.

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Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

If you are giving this much credit to a players ball-hogging for your child’s potential ability to make a better team at 13, you are completely focusing on the wrong thing.

Your 13 will not make a better team not because of the coaches “team tactics” or another players ball hogging, its their lack of technical skill. Before 13, focus on individuals skills and learning to use it in a game. Have you thought that the ball hog doesn’t want to pass to other players bc all the other players have shitty touches?

This isn't wrong, but it is pretty selfish. Sometimes the best development path for your own kid is to also be extremely selfish. In the presence of a single ball hog, other parents will start advising their kids to also ball hog. The ball hogs will move up and learn to pass, and the current passers will stay on crappy teams.

I’m going to assume the ball hog refered to by the OP is not very good. That is, they are trying to develop/hone their individual skills during game time and prob not doing much outside of game time.

Because most players don’t really complain about a ball hog that is more successful than not because parents and kids like to win.

My kid was a ball hog. Played striker for years and was never coached at all on what to do with the ball. But no one complained because they were effective. And they were effective because they practiced their passing, dribbling, juggling on their own time whenever there were no games or practices and also watched pro soccer all the time so eventually learned when to pass, take on a 1v1 or dribble
and carry, etc.

All of that a kid can do in their own time to get better (assuming they want to).

FWIW, my kid no longer plays striker because when they moved to a better team, the coaches could tell he had the skills and confidence to play any position. Being a ball hog was essential for them to develop the confidence to use skills they were learning on their own.

So I say work on your individual skills first before becoming a ball hog.

Ball hogs and apparently thier parents too never think they do anything wrong and think they are the only one that puts in the work and have the skills. Most forwards want touches and don't just want to make run after run and never see the ball because no one ever tells their 'skilled ' teamate to pass to the open man. If it was child that put in the work and never saw the ball you would think differently winning or not.