First Soccer Game

Evalyn is playing soccer this fall on a U6 team in our town. Thursday was our first game. She was excited to wear her uniform for the first time and I did my best to tame her "free spirit" hair.

(insert cute picture when I figure out why my card reader isn't working)

She played in the first quarter but was thirsty and bored barely five minutes into the game. I was the sideline/goalie coach and she was playing the guard position near the goalie. I think if she was down the field helping chase the ball around she might not have gotten bored so quickly.
She had a turn to play goalie a little while later and also had fun pulling grass on the sideline. At the very end she got some ball action in just before the game was called. It was a lot of fun to watch. Evalyn said her favorite part was the snacks afterward. (Big surprise there!) They had fruit cups and pretzels and mini water bottles.

So that's the cute part. The rest of this post is my thoughts on coaching and our little team of 4 and 5 year olds.

All the sports teams here are volunteer based, no city/county parks and rec department to do the job. A friend from church who coordinates all the coaches asked if I'd coach one of the U6 teams. I almost said yes but was nervous about doing it by myself since I've never played soccer before and watched very little. I was also a little unsure how the timing of games would work out with Matt's work schedule and me needing to still watch the younger two. So I opted to be an assistant coach with my friend Sheila and that has worked well so far.

We have 7 kids on our team, 3 who played last year so they get what it's all about and our other 4 are first timers. We're trying our best to make things fun while still teaching the basics of how to play soccer. Anyone with some good tips or things you've seen work well for your kids teams... pass them along!

The hardest thing about helping coach is not knowing what to do when Evalyn says she's done or tired or bored or hungry and wants to go play on the playground with Daddy and Henry. I know she's just little still and I don't want to push her too hard where practices/games aren't fun for her. But I also want her to learn a little bit of commitment and endurance. I try to ask myself if I wasn't on the field helping with drills if she'd be more likely stay involved or if she'd just plop down next to me on the sideline and ask to go home. As it is I bribe her with "kick one more ball down the field and then you can go play" or "let's have a water break instead". Now that we're into games every week and there's more action I'm hoping she'll be more into it.