As you may know, one of the five
tenants of AYSO is Positive Coaching.
As the poem above points out, we
coaches have a lot of influence on our
team’s players — positive and
negative. They follow our lead, as do
their parents.
In
support of Positive Coaching and in
the interest
of everyone having fun,
we have the “slaughter
rule.” This is
not to say you shouldn’t
teach your
team good soccer and the
desire to
win. What it’s saying
is that winning
by 5 to 0 does not mean
your team
won more than a win of 3
to 1. Either
way, your team wins. The
difference
is the way the other team’s
players
feel when they go home. In the
3 to 1
game, they still “came in
second” but
they will go home feeling
better
about the game than going home
after
a 5 to 0 loss.
Now you may ask what you are to do
about this… For starters, as coach, it
is your responsibility to be proactive
as soon as your team is up by 3 points.
Some of your options can be to make
the game more challenging to your
players. Tell them they can only score
with their weak foot. For most
people,
this is their left foot. Or tell
them they
have to pass three times in
the penalty
area before they can
score. Or implement both
of these
techniques at the same time, if
necessary. Be creative.
If your better players have already
played their 1/2 or 3/4 (depends on
division) of the game, let your other
players get more game time.
