Back to Basics: Shifting The Focus From Winning And Losing To Skill-Mastery

 

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INSIDE SOCCER 2006 Tournament Camp Guide

By Angela Musso

Similar scenes play out at fields across the country. Children as young as 8 years old are thrust into the ultra-competitive rep soccer environment. Win, and your team may move to the next level. Lose, and you may find your team is torn apart in the off-season because you did not live up to the expectations of coaches and parents.

The rep soccer culture is one of high pressure and high expectations. These pressures and expectations increase as a player gets older and as his or her team becomes more successful. Unfortunately, in many cases the goal of developing Canada’s next top players is overtaken by the need to win at all costs.

The parent that truly wants their son or daughter to develop their soccer skills and maximize their talent is caught in a tough position. They have to balance the training and development options available to them with the harsh reality that in order to consistently play against the best players available, they either have to move their children from team to team, or continually deal with the stresses of having to try-out against a steady stream of players brought in to keep the team at the top of the heap.

If you want your kids to be as good at a sport as they can be, the priority has to be skill-mastery, not winning games. Finding soccer environments with that priority is difficult in traditional soccer settings, but it’s worth it to keep looking until you find it.

Studies show that, at the group level, teachers and coaches who create a mainly mastery climate (by letting kids know that personal improvement and learning are the most important things), are helping to build not only skills, but self-esteem and a continued motivation to practice.

Let’s say we have two talented soccer players who have just lost a game; one is a girl who was taught that she is learning how to play soccer so that she will win games. The other is a boy who was taught that he is learning how to play soccer so that he can become a highly-skilled player. Even if they have both learned good skills and used them during the game, the girl will still feel like she has failed, while the loss won’t change how the boy sees himself. It won’t make him think he was wasting his time in learning skills, either, although she might think that. The fact that he knows that the most important issue is skill-development will motivate him to continue working hard at the game.

A study of 10 and 12 year-olds showed that in mastery-oriented conditions, natural motivation grew a lot more than in competitive conditions. In other words, young athletes are more likely to continue developing their skills if it’s about being the best they can be, rather than about winning and losing. The more willing they are to work at skill development, the greater their successes will be.

Learning how to win and lose is an important part of player development. However, it should not come at the expense of the development of the basic skills necessary to become an elite soccer player. A program that reinforces the importance of skill development over that of winning and losing is the optimum environment for player development.

Angela Musso is an elementary school teacher in York Region (OON). She has a Bachelor of Psychology and Masters of Education from York University.