Scores at South Lakes Soccer Club

Scores are not posted for u5 and u6 age groups. Scores are recorded by the referees and these are used to help with bracketing of teams for the following seasons.

Scores are posted in all age groups, u7 and above. However the referees have been instructed to not record scores of greater than a 10 point goal differential. Scores will not be posted on the website at more than a 6 point differential on the website.

We encourage each coach to manage their game to make it as competitive as possible. Remember a game which is won or lost by 10 or 20 goals is not beneficial or fun for either team. Here are some tips on how to manage your game when your team is ahead by a lot of goals. Or rather than waiting to 6-0, start managing the runaway game when it gets to a 4-point differential.

•Encourage passing and possession by your players.
•Move your players around, forwards to defense, goalie to forward etc. Use this as a learning opportunity and encourage your players to try new things.
•Encourage your players to try 1v1 moves (ie scissors, stepovers)
•Encourage left-footed soccer (or push the kids to play with their less-dominant foot)
•Let your strongest players only play 50% of the game; have them sit the bench otherwise. These players aren’t benefiting from a game like this, allow your other players to take charge.
•Remove a player from the game, ie play a player down

Although we do not recommend forbidding your team from scoring, as this is contrary to the objective of playing soccer; we do encourage you to also work on other aspects of this great game, passing and possession. It is also easier to do this in a game if you have worked on these techniques in practice.

Here are two distinctly different scenarios of the same problem:

After a runaway game in which a coach did well keeping the score differential tight, the opposing coach shook his hand and told him 'the kids never knew'. That is successfully implementing sportsmanship.

The opposite happened 09/26/09 at North OKC. During a runaway U8 game a coach yelled to his team "the other team wants you to start sucking now!" What do you think the reaction was from the opposing sideline?