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"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king,
but he still only has one eye."
Johan Cruyff
While that sounds like a
simple question a quick look at many practice fields reveals a bewildering
answer. Many practices find children facing situations that they never see
in an actual match. This should lead a coach to evaluate the practice by
first asking, "is it soccer?"
Soccer is a game.
The children are involved in an
activity that pits them against an opponent. It is, in most cases, about
winning and losing, competition and cooperation. It is also a leisure
activity. The children are there because they want to be there. They want
to play a game.
To play a game of soccer you
first need a ball. Then an opponent. Add
a field, a couple of goals across from each other, mix in a few
soccer rules and you have a game of 1v1. But
this is hard work and you can't play it for very long. So you get some
teammates, and to keep it fair, a few more opponents.
With these elements you can play soccer all day.
These are the elements of
soccer.
They make the game what it is. If you
remove a key element such as the ball or opponent it can't be soccer.
Likewise, to change an element too much you can move too far from the
game. Playing with two balls or three teams might be fun and a game, but
is it soccer? To pass a football across a grid and run to a corner involves
kicking techniques, but is it soccer?
Soccer also involves the
element "chaos." Opponents, team mates and the ball are all moving in
different directions. Players, parents and coaches are shouting different
instructions and information. Bringing "order out of chaos" is an
important skill in learning how to play the game.
Soccer is a game with certain elements.
There must be a ball, teammates and opponents, a
field with boundaries,
goals
opposite each other
and soccer
rules.
A soccer coach coaches
soccer, not something else. This
thought is at the heart of the Dutch Vision. A practice is
either soccer,
soccer
like or
soccer
strange.
 Click
on the image for a short Real Time video on What Is Soccer taken from the
"Street Soccer"
DVD.
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