WIN, WIN and WIN

One of the most serious problems in sports is that parents are desperate to see their children win. This is the attitude they instill in their offspring. Sportsmanship, enjoying a great move, improving skills and knowledge of the game appear to have little importance. The only word on their lips is win, win and win.

No team, especially a new team like ours, however good, is capable of winning all the time or in our case winning at all. We all have to take turns winning and losing although, I am well aware that our turn at winning has not yet arrived. Why are so many people unhappy and afraid of failure? It is because they have this attitude, “Win and you are brilliant, lose and you’re a failure”. This attitude is transmitted to their children, which means they don’t enjoy or get as much out of soccer as they should.

I remember once seeing a girl, who had just finished playing a game on one of my girls teams, as she was leaving with her mother. She looked so unhappy that I became concerned and asked her what was wrong. She didn’t reply. Still concerned I asked again what was troubling her. She looked at me in silence. Fearing that there was a serious problem, I approached the mother and the father. They also looked very unhappy and for awhile they tried to deflect the question but finally they exploded. “What’s wrong? They’re hopeless! They were winning 2-0 and they ended up loosing 3-2. They shouldn’t give away a 2-0 lead”.

Imagine the type of day or week that girl was going to have, branded a failure for losing. A girl, who at least in theory has come to play for me to play soccer, learn and have a good time. As far as the mom was concerned, I explained that the Hungarian team of the 50’s – with Puskas, Kocsis, Bozsik, Hidekuti etc. went FOUR years and nearly 40 matches destroying the opposition. They scored seven goals against England , and Austria , 8 against Italy , 9 against Germany and 10 against Portugal ….. Than came the 1954 World Cup final against Germany . This was the match they wanted to win more than any other, but they lost 3-2. Ironically, they were winning 2-0 after 30 minutes.

I will never forget the look on the girls face and I thought to myself, “ If only parents realized the pressure they were putting their children under. Such stress could lead to a serious illness”. It is normal for parents to see their children as an extension of themselves and to want only the best for them, but unfortunately, sometimes the feelings are too strong.

This is because their own self-worth is affected directly by the success of their children. A parent who never made it in the game might want to experience success through his children and achieve some reflected glory. On the other hand, a parent who was a “star” might resent and reject his/her child if he does not achieve similar success. The worst possible scenario is when a child is “forced” to succeed in order not to be seen as a failure by his parents. Every time the boy plays a game, any thoughts of enjoyment or pleasure is crushed by the heavy weight of expectation thrust upon him by his parent/s. The only way to make his parents proud is to do well and succeed. This inevitably puts the youngster under stress, which might drastically affect his future.

This is a good point to digress for a moment and ask – "Why do we enjoy playing sports as much as we do?" This question has intrigued philosophers and scientists for years and only recently have they come up with a reasonable hypothesis.


We are all born with the need for stimulation and excitement, what we call entertainment or fun. When our level of excitement is low, we look for stimulation via games i.e. pastimes, hobbies or some type of entertainment we enjoy. But if the reverse happens and we become over-excited then we become overly anxious and nervous.

So now we understand that we have an obligation to help the players satisfy their need of enjoyment, allowing them to experience their sport as both exciting and stimulating, but not allowing it to become too stressful. A soccer player who is nervous and under pressure, apart from causing concern for his mental well being, also performs worse on the field. I am not just referring to soccer at grass roots level: As some of you might be aware that Johann Cruyff was one of my all-time favorite players, I read and researched everything about him. This is how I came across a document in which he was advised by Rexach after seeing an article on a player, “We should not sign this player. He is very tense when he plays - Look at his clenched fists, his angry stare…. This guy suffers when he plays and we are only interested in players who are relaxed and enjoy themselves playing soccer.” This is the advice of the Club Chairman to the Coach of Barcelona, Johann Cruyff.

I would like to conclude this ‘blog’ by TRYING to demonstrate to parents that soccer is NOT as simple as everybody thinks it is.


This sport of ours is a very complicated and tricky business. It is not an exact science. Even the so-called experts often struggle to identify exactly how well a team has done or how various players have performed in a particular game.

Other sports have more straightforward performance structure containing quantifiable elements that make them easier to calibrate. Also, the latest scientific techniques make it easier to compare and contrast the amount of effort during training sessions and the level of achievements during competitions.


However, in soccer, the overall team performance rarely matches the sum of the total potential that each individual team member is able to achieve. Whether or not the team produces more or less than the total of the sum of all its individual components depends on the physical and technical ability of each player and whether they are able to gel together as a team. By this I mean that it is unlikely that a team made up of the best 11 individuals is automatically going to be the best team – it just doesn’t work that way.


As we have seen, a team relies on the group dynamics of the players, something that can not be predicted with a mathematical formula. For this reason it is important to know each individual and to know how best these players compliment each other in order to find the most effective combination for the team.

How should we measure the qualities of a player, or a team? Of course, first, we can look at his intrinsic qualities, fitness, coordination, explosive power, to which we can add teamwork and playing his role in the tactics. Next we should consider, the extrinsic qualities, the weather, CONDITION OF THE FIELD, the crowd, the REFEREE, and finally the essential factor, the strength of the opposition.

The reality of the situation is that when a painter has finished a picture, his talent is reflected in his work. A soccer player can have talent, but if he does not get the better of his opponent then it is difficult to demonstrate his true ability. Unfortunately, few people take the opposition into account when judging a player or a team.

Also true is the fact that few people know how to measure performance while taking into account the specific factors of a particular game. For this very reason many people link performance to victory and defeat. For example, in the tournament at Washingtonville after we had beaten the lower division team 7-0 everyone went away happy even forgetting, NOT THE LOSSES, but the poor performance by our players. Then on Sunday we lost 1-0 on a poor REFEREEING decision and most people went away sad and disgusted, even though the team had performed to a far higher standard than in the tournament games, some of the fans (parents), were not able to appreciate this, went away disappointed, thinking the team is hopeless.

Parents should realize that soccer is more complicated than it seems, and for this reason they should leave the real coaches to get on with their work. I promise to all of you, that the wins will come! But until then please don’t emphasize it and leave it to me and coach Pete, as we will make your sons better soccer players and ultimately winners on and off the field.
As this blog was written many weeks ago but never posted, we can retrospectively say that our boys by producing a beautifull prformance game in and game out achieve the win automatically.

GO DEMONS>