I'm Here For You, Bruce

Our family has been involved in soccer since our boys were in elementary school. You bet we’ll be watching TV to see if the United States national team under coach Bruce Arena can redeem themselves against Italy in the World Cup. I can empathize with Bruce. Youth soccer is the only sport I ever coached. And my teams didn’t win much either.

“You made it fun for the kids,” my wife would console me. True, I concocted some soccer tactics rarely seen in our co-ed recreational league.

I took my coaching role very seriously, though probably not as seriously as Benny, a middle-aged taskmaster with a thick Italian accent and a stern, dramatic approach. Once, when his goalie strayed too far from his mark resulting in an easy goal for the opposite team, Benny stormed the field in front of awed parents, spectators and the other pre-teen players.

“You stay between this post and that post,” he scolded loudly, pointing to each soccer goalpost. “And don’t come out of here unless it is an emergency.” I could see the poor kid was confused, as if thinking, “Does he mean a bathroom emergency?”

One of my innovations was introducing the position of “shadow defender” to the kids. We were playing against a team with a striker extraordinaire, the Pele of kid soccer in our league. I assigned one of our players, a girl actually, to do nothing but follow this kid around the field to make sure he didn’t get the ball.

It was a fairly successful strategy as this young lady followed the little stud here and there about the field. And she would occasionally dart in to kick the ball away from him. He seemed a bit unnerved by my tactics too. Of course, he did eventually score a goal or two and we were badly beaten again, but in my mind, point made.

Another innovative tactic was having two kids play the same position. Every time I made my line-up, kids would beg to play one of the favorite positions, usually center midfielder (England’s David Beckham plays a similar position). So I came up with the idea of having TWO center midfielders. Since we changed positions after every quarter, that meant eight kids, or over half my team would have the opportunity to play center midfielder. Great idea in concept.

In practice, it didn’t work well. It was like having two pitchers on the mound, or two goalies in the same net in hockey. The kids didn’t know which one of them was supposed to step in when the play came their way. Oh, well.

Lastly, I had my kids practice something often seen in hockey, but rarely seen in soccer: pulling the goalie. Not that I actually would pull the goalie out of the game as happens in hockey, but I would send him forward to the attack. What team wouldn’t be terrified to see the opposing team’s goalie dribbling forward in his brightly colored, flowing silk shirt.

Alas, I didn’t try this for real in a game, since my goalies seemed too reluctant to do this even in practice. I think they were all veterans of Benny’s team.

But, hea, Bruce! If you need some ideas on your match-up with Italy, I’m here for you. I’ll have the phone on my lap, awaiting your call.