Fed up of child's football coach

[YellowRoses100]

I've looked to see where I can post this. But not sure so posting for traffic.

Firstly I want to say the guy is really decent and I do fully appreciate him volunteering his time for the team. On a personal note I get in well with him.

My child has been playing football since they were 4. They've had some bad luck with teams. Due to bankrupsy, no one able to coach etc. So they had to change teams a few times. They have now played for this team for 3 years its Sunday team and they're in Division 2. The players on the team are good. They all play for different teams on Saturdays at Junior Prem level as well as some County players.

At the end of last season they lost a few players to other teams and recruited some new players, some never played before.

They're a great bunch of kids. However my child and loads of the others are getting fed up with the managers tactics. He always has 4 subs. And he changes 4 players at once. He calculates how much time each player is entitled to play for equally and this is how he subs. However he doesn't sub players off with mixed abilities. The team will be winning and then he will put on the 4 weakest players, and remove the 4 strongest players. They have now lost all their matches this season conceding the lead when changes happen. My child has asked him to stop doing this. They said its confusing and mixes up the game too much. Opposition parents have told us their team hold back their strongest players till he does this and then subs them on as they see the managers tactics.

My child is now wanting to leave the team and I feel really sad about this as they struggle to make friends, but they are really ambitous and they want to win.

This is a really tricky position to be in as I know I'm not the coach but
I do volunteer to run the line, take pics and am always early to set up. I always thy the kids snacks. Even though my child plays in other teams this is the one they really wanna excel in and I feel conflicted. What would you do?

This seems very odd. Is he betting against his own team or something?
Otherwise I can't see why he would do this.

It happens every single match. The one match he didn't do this was when my child approached him in training that week and explained how it makes her feel. They drew that match.

This is the only explanation. Otherwise it's totally weird.

I have been a football mum myself for many years with 3 children, and am also married to a youth football coach.
experience tells me he will not take coaching advice from anyone unfortunately.
Alot of this goes on , it's the managers way of training up the weaker players. It's more worrying when the managers refuse to let the weaker players play anything other than the last 5 mins tbh.
Although why he doesn't bring off the weaker players and replace them with stronger players when the score is against them is odd, because at youth level you can roll your subs on and off.

He sounds like a good guy letting the weaker plays play.

It's hardly the world cup is it?

What age are the children?
Would expect at young ages that all players are given equal opportunity and as much as possible equal time.
It is about developing the players. Would questions if the groups of 4 are '4 strongest ', '4 weakest' and request he puts more thought out mix into the 4 which will play together

It sounds like you need to have a word with him.

It sounds normal to me. Our coach does the same. Every child needs a chance to play. My son is a stronger player but I explain to him that they are his friends and a team. He gets frustrated but it's a good learning curve too.

At least he is giving equal playing time. Maybe not in the most effective way, but we traveled 50 mins each way today for a 60 minute game that my child played 10 minutes of.
You could offer to be assistant coach and then make your suggestions?

*Opposition parents have told us their team hold back their strongest players till he does this and then subs them on as they see the managers tactics.

*This seems odd - in our league we only play a team once per season, so would have no idea what the "tactics" are of another manager? And even if we'd played them last season, I'm not sure any of our coaches would assume the manager would use the same tactics a year later (or, to be honest, have taken particular note of what they did).
But maybe other leagues operate differently, or you're child is playing at an older level where its competitive and perhaps then opposition tactics is noted more!

That's rubbish, they should get 50% match time unless there are unusual circumstances, even for the older ones.

I wonder how you'd feel if your kid got no game time op?

I wonder how you'd expect your kid to develop match day confidence if he was never played?

Many (most) teams with ample players play like this. There will be teams that only play the best team. You're ethos seems to match this. So your job is to seek one of these types of teams and get your son to join that one.

Big problem will be... they'll likely already have a 'best team' that they play every week. Which will likely mean your lad sits on the bench game, after game, after game. You may understand the problem then. He'd have to earn his place by being consistently better than the other lad in his position. But do that without game time.

Something I have learned over my many years as a football mum is that no grassroots team is perfect, and you will have varying problems wherever you are. If your child is a decent player though, I’d try and find them a team where all the players are fairly well-matched.

I’ve never seen a grassroots game where they don’t have rolling subs. Are you saying the coach makes subs once and once only? That’s odd.

But if it’s a mixed ability team then your child needs to suck it up and support their team members to keep on improving. It’s development football, and the focus should be on improvements not results.

@32quietlyshocked I know, it’s heartbreaking to see him just sat on the bench. He used to play the development game but we don’t have one now they are U11.
He always looks sad. I wish he stuck with rugby, it’s so inclusive.

Assuming they get the same minutes..he.is being fair and sticking to an equal minutes format that is simple.
It also avoids the relentless moaning and complaints you get with some teams with those parents who count every minute. Having experienced that when DH coached DS's team he was tactically playing to.win each week, but some poor kids didn't get enough minutes and the backlash from parents was horrendous. Football teams are nearly always mixed ability so it doesn't work.or seem fair to give more minutes to stronger players

Urgh it's all about the winning, this is why I hate childrens team sports. If parents are that invested then they need to put themselves forward as coaches or deputy coaches etc

This happens a lot. Giving all children a chance is important, but if I'm doing do each match is lost, one has to question it. I'd talk to him first.

If that's happening consistently talk to the club child welfare officer (assuming you are in England) as that shouldn't be happening, especially not in U11 who are only in their first year of competitive football. We had a manager like this and he got worse telling some kids they weren't good enough for the team and he eventually quit before he was asked to leave. As parents we didn't report to the club until it got bad but we should have done as they took it seriously once that happened.

He gives everyone equal play time. My child played for 20 minutes today. I'm not the type of pushy parent who thinks my child should play the whole match. Its U14 level so pretty physical. 11 a side.

What the kids who have been there longer have asked him is to mix the subs up. So subbing the new players with the more experienced players. Instead of taking off all the experienced ones at the same time. They don't expect the new players to play less. That would be ridiculous, how would they learn? No ones suggested this.

How are the weaker players going to develop if they don't get a chance to play? It would be better if he mixed ability up so it's more even when he switched them out but everyone is entitled to play and gave equal time

Rather than approaching the manager can you speak to one of the other coaches? There may be a reason behind it eg if the stronger players will refuse to pass to the weaker players so effectively the only way they get a chance to play the ball is to have them divided like that. If all kids are getting equal minutes I don't think you are reasonable to complain about the gane tactics.

YANBU. It’s really frustrating when coaches do this. DS2’s (under 15) coach used to do this a bit, but he’s got better now. He basically has about 6 players who play the whole match, and 5 who are subbed on and off. I think this is the best way. It means the weaker players do get game time, but the stronger players are able to secure wins, so they don’t decide to leave.

DS1’s coaches were brutal - they brought subs to games and sometimes didn’t play them at all, which always seemed harsh.

It’s not necessarily the parents being invested. It’s the kids. When you’ve got a bunch of teenagers, it gets harder to get them out of bed on a Sunday morning if they know they’re going to be beaten. So they quit, and then there’s no team at all.

YANBU, he sounds frustrating and woolly