A bad example to follow

Grassroots football must have two maxims above everything else, have fun and learn (Docere et delectare Aristotle said in his Ars Poetica). Winning or losing has to be in the background. Logically, of course I care about winning, in part because losing has little funny, but when it comes to training children there are things more important than the result.

Several stories, including the urban legend and the real story, suggest that the least liked of Don Santiago Bernabeu football were the parents of the players. On the pernicious influence of the fathers upon the children who play soccer (or any other sport) a few weeks ago published a great article in El Pais Eduardo Rodrigálvarez: Dad is a 'hooligan' .

Without exaggerating one iota, I have heard a parent at a soccer match your child's yelling at the child You're so bad, son, very bad, or Take eggs, fuck, you do not look my son. Referees are often subjected to the injustice and poor parental education, to the extent that one can find a group of parents to sing in chorus puuuta Hijooooo, I have experienced, as I have had to see how stop a match in which he was participating because the referee had to escape from the camp pursued by three parents brandishing umbrellas as swords. The players had eleven years.

But parents can not just turn into a bad example for children. The coaches have as much or more ascendancy over the young players in regard to transmit the values ​​of sportsmanship. Learn to accept defeat, to be fair and respectful in victory, acquire a taste for competition among rivals, not enemies, etc., are just some of the lessons that sport can leave a child for their future adult life. So the figure of the coach can be very important in the development of the personality of the young.

All this comes to mind the story I tell. This week, taking advantage of the flu that shut me home, I saw the vast majority of games Alevín Arona International Tournament, held every Christmas by The Stringer Foundation Jose Ramon de la Morena. The fact is that one of the meetings of the first stage, a microphone approached the coach one team, not tell you what not to decentralize, to ask the question why I was so angry. The technical response to his lungs, was as follows: The referee does not want to win, has been from the beginning!

I will not say it is something "incredible but true" because I do not think anyone would be unlikely. That guy, coach of Spanish club fry an important first two controversial decisions of the referee did not speak, but he vomited bile. If in the middle of a party could still win (and, incidentally, won) loses his head to howl tremendous blunder, I do not want to imagine how they might behave in a much more tense. Of course, if I were a manager of the club and come to my ears like behavior, very alert to that coach and if I see that this behavior is common, the street with him.

All people who give of their time to do grassroots for their love of the sport of football, which honors them as per se. But regardless of football knowledge they have and their ability to transmit, we all know that many do not measure up as educators. Teaching a child is not easy and nobody is born learned to do so. Manage a group of kids is even more complex.

Asking such a level of professionalism to smaller clubs is not fair, since many of them even have trouble finding coaches for all categories, but the First Division clubs, as is the case we are talking about, they should be required to have fully trained professionals for the work of education and training of their pupils. A guy at the minimum is not cursing the referee seems to be the best person to lead and educate some kids in their early stages.