Score? What Score?

How do they do it? This is the question on many a parent's mind while watching the opposing team score goal after goal....after goal.

Maybe it's not as bad as we think. After all, Noodle's soccer team has only played two games so far. But both times, it was total annihilation. She and her teammates meander around the field, chasing behind the other team and the ball, kicking it out of bounds every 10 seconds. The other team's goalie picks grass and watches the action since the ball never seems to make it's way down to his end of the field.

We don't want to be those crazy parents who yell at their kids from the sidelines and grumble about their failings all the way to the car. We don't want the kids to think that playing soccer is all about winning. However, we would also like the kids to have fun playing and score a goal...um, once.

So, the question is, what are we doing differently? Granted, our coach is just a mom who graciously stepped up to be the coach when we found there was no one to do it. She knew nothing about soccer and had to look up the rules on the internet. The other parents (including Seth and I) step in during practices to act as assistant coaches for our flock of five and six year-olds. So, that could definitely be counted as a disadvantage.

The first team our kids played against seemed really aggressive and coordinated--a group of quick, slim little boys who seemed single-minded about kicking the ball down the field. Someone asked their coach how he got them to be so aggressive. "They play football together all the time," he answered. Not only were those kids already friends and neighbors, they'd been playing an aggressive sport with each other for ages! Noodle's coach and I looked at each other and shrugged....It wasn't exactly a strategy we could use.

Noodle's league is for both genders. If it weren't for the fact that the boys on her team seem to have the same amount of skill, coordination and agressiveness as the girls, I might point out that the other teams they've played were all boys. Noodle's team is more than half girls. But I don't think it would matter if we made clones of the boys on her team to beef things up. Things wouldn't change.

On the positive side, I think they're getting better. The goalies now know how to stop the ball in front of the white line instead of behind it. Noodle didn't fall down at all this time. She and her teammates also seemed to know which direction to kick the ball, even if they didn't get many chances to do it.

Maybe they just need more practice. Maybe by the end of the season....maybe....

It's a good thing nobody keeps score.