Step Up To Soccer’s aim is to develop young children through athletics, rather than to develop athletes out of young children.

We do not, however, oppose competition as a developmental condition for children, depending on their personality, above the age of 7.

But as soccer grows in popularity, the misuse of competitive methods with young children is on a sharp rise. Young children are being put in soccer games with a single ball that they chase around as a group. They are put onto teams with won-loss records and league rankings.

A 1999 series of articles in a Canadian newspaper, The Globe & Mail, discussed the factors leading to a decline of Canadian competitiveness in hockey. The author, William Houston, critiqued the structure and orientation of youth hockey.

As you read, substitute ‘soccer balls’ for ‘pucks’. Read the articles in this newsletter and think about the experience for your child. Ironically, our non-competitive approach with young children is the right long term approach for developing highly skilled, competitive players!

We quote here at length from ‘A Game in Crisis’:

‘In Canada, children as young as 6 participate in twice as many games as practices. Coached by volunteers, many of whom are inexperienced, they fall well short of the 3-to-1 practice-to-game ratio recommended by Canada’s amateur body, Canadian Hockey. In the old days, Canadian children learned fundamentals on rinks and ponds away from organized hockey. But in today’s game-oriented system, there is no place for unstructured activity, and the practice time children receive is inadequate. The European system takes the other route. It places an emphasis on learning skills. While Canadians five and six years old play a 20-game schedule, children in Europe won’t start playing games until they are 7. At earlier ages, they are taught to skate, pass and handle the puck. In Canada, children 10 years old are already playing as many as 140 games in a season. In a game, even the best players handle the puck on average for about 45 seconds. In a well-structured 50-minute practice, a child will be working with the puck almost constantly. In Europe, children play no more than 30 games and participate in more than 100 practices. They are taught by professional coaches. Skills are learned in high-tempo practices that incorporate game conditions. Canadians’ obsession with hockey, once a stimulant that drove Canada to be a world leader, has given way to the pursuit of winning at all costs. It isn’t the children who insist on playing games and winning. It is, instead, the parent who dreams of seeing his son in the NHL. It is the coach who thinks he has a future in pro hockey. And it is the volunteer-association official who covets the bragging rights that go with being the head of a winning organization. “It’s all ego,” McMurtry (author of a report on violence in amateur sports) said. “Parents, coaches, organizers can call it anything they want, but it’s ego. If they really cared about the standard of hockey in this country and they really cared about the kids, they wouldn’t be doing it this way.” ‘

Step Up To Soccer does care about the kids. By focusing on their development, we provide the best start possible for both competitive and non-competitive players.