When my son was young and participated in AYSO soccer, it was a given that the best player would be taken out by injury in the first period. Even children are taught, if they have a bad coach, to injure those who are going to ‘hurt’ their team. Heartbreaking that our youth are too frequently taught that winning is more important than good sportmanship.
That is terrible. Thought soccer might have good sportsmanship (aside from the faking of injuries), but apparently it’s symptomatic of our post-Christian culture.
Okay, I’ve coached and/or worked for youth leagues since I was 14. I’ve never once seen anyone try to injure a player intentionally.
So, that’s a really bad league you are involved in.
Approx. 14 years ago, Detroit Hockey great Chris Chelios' brother moved to Michigan from California and rented the house behind me. His move was to assemble his own Junior Hockey team here in S.E. Michigan.
He created a team of teenagers from all across the country and found parents in the area to foster them while they continued their high school educations.
He had one promising kid player that he found a tryout for with an NHL farm team in Canada. The kid lasted for only one tryout since Steve's instruction to him was to focus on the best player on the team and kick his ass at his first opportunity.......
Obviously the kid was sent home and when Steve told me the story, he still had no clue about what he had just did to this kid.