Filed under: Dave Clarke, Soccer Coaching, Soccer Team Management | Tags: winning at soccer
I woke my son this morning and said come on we’ve a match to play. He pulled the covers back up over his head. “Must I? I don’t want to play this match today.”
“Why not?”
“They’re top of the league, dad, they’ve score over 100 goals and let in 3, I don’t want to play.”
This is a team playing below themselves, they shouldn’t be in this league, but we are down to play them. We’re a good team and give as good as we get so I was a little surprised by my son’s reaction.
But they had been talking about the game in school and how many they would lose by – half the team had already lost the game before we even kick off.
As my son ate his breakfast I spoke to him about Andy Murray playing against the unbeatable Rafael Nadal at tennis. Murray had put up a great fight the night before our match and made huge progress in his tennis even though he lost. “Next time Murray will win,” I told my son. “And even if we lose the match today we will learn a lot and next season we will beat them because we will be the ones who have progressed.”
He took this on board, and was more agreeable to playing the game. We played well and only lost by a single goal. Next time we will beat them, next time all that we have learned in this match will help us win.
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