Latin American Youth Soccer Has a Dark Side
The scene looks innocent enough: Five boys, including my ten-year-old son, Mario, sitting on the bench next to the street soccer court in a barrio west of Bogotá, Colombia, sharing a bottle of soda from plastic cups. But the seemingly innocuous soda bottle was actually the ill-gotten gains of a bet placed on the previous night's game, in which my younger son's team, led by the highly-skilled and speedy 14-year-old Javier, had beaten my older son's team.
A few minutes before the amiable sharing of the soda, my sweet, Mennonite, 12-year-old son, Gabriel, had run down the a member of his team as he was leaving for the capital city in his father's taxi cab and persuaded him to hand over the 700 pesos (about 40 cents) that he owed toward the losing team's debt. Yes, my nice American kid has been in Colombia for three weeks and he is already adept at enforcing gambling debts. I'm a little horrified.
I had noticed the night before that the game, however, was played with a slightly elevated level of tenacity and enthusiasm. Since Gabriel, the other captain, is only 12, he had been allowed to pick first. He chose an 11-year-old named Juan with a rocket launcher for a foot. The rest of the players on both of the teams were fairly ordinary nine and ten year olds. Both teams were struggling for possession for the first few minutes.
Javier sent one really nice pass up his right side line to Christian, but the hard pass found Christian flat-footed and the ball went by him. Then Javier, who appeared to be a little frustrated by the previous play, tried to dribble out of the back in front of the goal. Javier has great foot skills and when playing with younger kids he can usually get away with doing things like dribbling right in front of his own goal. His goalkeeper, utterly confident in Javier's skills, was not even paying close attention. Gabriel miraculously stuck out a foot and not only swept the ball away from Javier but passed it cleanly into the right corner of the net.
The underdogs were up 1 to 0.
But Javier was only inspired by the deficit and he began dribbling past the ten-year-olds on Gabriel's team like they were soccer cones, and blasting balls into the goal that the goalkeeper could only watch in admiration. Soon Javier's team was winning, 6 to 2. Gabriel's team started marking Javier with more determination, passing better and making better runs off the ball, and they miraculously made up much of the deficit. But even though they were marking Javier better, he managed to beat Gabriel's defenders and play a beautiful pass to Mario's feet. Mario then scored the lone goal that Javier did not shoot in his team's 8 to 6 victory.
For years I've been hearing at soccer coaching conferences and classes that the way kids play pickup soccer in Latin America is fantastic. The authorities have told me over and over that the kids organize the games themselves. They pick even teams, set the rules, and teach each other. This model is always held up as one of the "missing links" in American youth soccer development. "
American young soccer is too top down, too structured by adults," teacher after teacher has told me. "The kids need to learn the creativity and spontaneity that comes naturally when they are playing on their own." After three weeks of living directly in front of one of the basketball court-sized cement soccer fields that dot neighborhoods all over Latin America, I can see the wisdom in these authorities' statements.
The kids, many of whom have never been on an official youth soccer team, have excellent ball control and field vision. Any one of them would probably be one of the top players on a typical American Under-10 travel team. Like ten-year-old everywhere, they tend to bunch around the ball and forget to mark players on defense. But they play with lots of nice moves, speed and they make accurate passes under pressure. They insist that everybody take a turn playing goalkeeper, so they all have decent goalkeeping skills.
But all these experts who have been extolling the importance of youth-organized pickup games never mention the evil of gambling. They never mention kids wasting their lunch money to buy soda for the game winners. They never mention the pressure on kids without money to come up with something to help the team pay its debt.
The morning after Mario's team enjoyed its ill-gotten soda, Mario said at breakfast that he had not known about the bet, otherwise he would have refused to play. Mario, who is a little conservative by nature, likes to save his money, not waste it on bets. "When money is involved, I refuse to play," he said as he forked his scrambled eggs into his mouth. I agree with Mario.
On principle, I don't think kids should be playing even low-stakes street soccer. But the authorities who heap so much praise on Latin American street soccer always compare it to the way basketball players have historically developed in American cities. And anybody who knows anything about that scene will admit that gambling has always been part of the territory. I consulted a Canadian psychologist who has studied adolescent problem gambling extensively, and he agreed that kids should not be allowed to bet on their games.
"Children do not have the maturity to set and maintain limits," said Jeffrey Derevensky, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal. But I'm happy to report that the betting issue has not come up again recently. It could be because Javier – one of the dominant players in the neighborhood – seems to be focusing on homework. The other day there were fewer kids playing.
When this is the case the kids often play a free kick game that is a great example of what the experts like about Latin American pickup soccer. It can be played 1 v. 1, 2 v. 2 or 3 v.3 For most of the game, each team has to stay on their half of the court and take turns shooting free kicks from their end, about 20 yards. The team being shot on can use their hands to prevent a goal. They tend to form a wall about ten feet in front of the goal, giving the shooter lots of practice at trying to bend balls around walls. If the shot hits the post, the players yell, "Chuteas," and a small-sided game is played until someone scores a goal. After the goal is scored, it's back to the free kick game.
Another popular soccer-related game is "Elimination." It is a fairly simple game, which nonetheless can sometimes take a long time, in which everybody shoots from the penalty spot on everybody else and whoever allows the most goals is eliminated. Then there's another round of everybody shooting on everybody else, until finally a winner is crowned. The move to Colombia has definitely involved some sacrifices and frustrations. Personally I really miss the luxury of hot running water. But the soccer mom in me could not be more pleased. From the first day, when our 10-year-old neighbor, Carlitos, came to our door and stuttered in his best English, "You want play soccer?" the game has been a sort of universal language that transcends barriers. The local kids easily accepted my sons, partly, I think, because of their soccer skills. Of course the fact that they brought a beautiful blue and red Nike ball, the likes of which had never before been seen in the neighborhood, probably also helped. Though we came here so my children could connect with their father's heritage, I can't help but imagine their soccer-crazy father up in heaven, smiling down as they learn to play the game much the way he learned as a boy going to school in Colombia in the 1960s.
The scene looks innocent enough: Five boys, including my ten-year-old son, Mario, sitting on the bench next to the street soccer court in a barrio west of Bogotá, Colombia, sharing a bottle of soda from plastic cups. But the seemingly innocuous soda bottle was actually the ill-gotten gains of a bet placed on the previous night's game, in which my younger son's team, led by the highly-skilled and speedy 14-year-old Javier, had beaten my older son's team.
A few minutes before the amiable sharing of the soda, my sweet, Mennonite, 12-year-old son, Gabriel, had run down the a member of his team as he was leaving for the capital city in his father's taxi cab and persuaded him to hand over the 700 pesos (about 40 cents) that he owed toward the losing team's debt. Yes, my nice American kid has been in Colombia for three weeks and he is already adept at enforcing gambling debts. I'm a little horrified.
I had noticed the night before that the game, however, was played with a slightly elevated level of tenacity and enthusiasm. Since Gabriel, the other captain, is only 12, he had been allowed to pick first. He chose an 11-year-old named Juan with a rocket launcher for a foot. The rest of the players on both of the teams were fairly ordinary nine and ten year olds. Both teams were struggling for possession for the first few minutes.
Javier sent one really nice pass up his right side line to Christian, but the hard pass found Christian flat-footed and the ball went by him. Then Javier, who appeared to be a little frustrated by the previous play, tried to dribble out of the back in front of the goal. Javier has great foot skills and when playing with younger kids he can usually get away with doing things like dribbling right in front of his own goal. His goalkeeper, utterly confident in Javier's skills, was not even paying close attention. Gabriel miraculously stuck out a foot and not only swept the ball away from Javier but passed it cleanly into the right corner of the net.
The underdogs were up 1 to 0.
But Javier was only inspired by the deficit and he began dribbling past the ten-year-olds on Gabriel's team like they were soccer cones, and blasting balls into the goal that the goalkeeper could only watch in admiration. Soon Javier's team was winning, 6 to 2. Gabriel's team started marking Javier with more determination, passing better and making better runs off the ball, and they miraculously made up much of the deficit. But even though they were marking Javier better, he managed to beat Gabriel's defenders and play a beautiful pass to Mario's feet. Mario then scored the lone goal that Javier did not shoot in his team's 8 to 6 victory.
For years I've been hearing at soccer coaching conferences and classes that the way kids play pickup soccer in Latin America is fantastic. The authorities have told me over and over that the kids organize the games themselves. They pick even teams, set the rules, and teach each other. This model is always held up as one of the "missing links" in American youth soccer development. "
American young soccer is too top down, too structured by adults," teacher after teacher has told me. "The kids need to learn the creativity and spontaneity that comes naturally when they are playing on their own." After three weeks of living directly in front of one of the basketball court-sized cement soccer fields that dot neighborhoods all over Latin America, I can see the wisdom in these authorities' statements.
The kids, many of whom have never been on an official youth soccer team, have excellent ball control and field vision. Any one of them would probably be one of the top players on a typical American Under-10 travel team. Like ten-year-old everywhere, they tend to bunch around the ball and forget to mark players on defense. But they play with lots of nice moves, speed and they make accurate passes under pressure. They insist that everybody take a turn playing goalkeeper, so they all have decent goalkeeping skills.
But all these experts who have been extolling the importance of youth-organized pickup games never mention the evil of gambling. They never mention kids wasting their lunch money to buy soda for the game winners. They never mention the pressure on kids without money to come up with something to help the team pay its debt.
The morning after Mario's team enjoyed its ill-gotten soda, Mario said at breakfast that he had not known about the bet, otherwise he would have refused to play. Mario, who is a little conservative by nature, likes to save his money, not waste it on bets. "When money is involved, I refuse to play," he said as he forked his scrambled eggs into his mouth. I agree with Mario.
On principle, I don't think kids should be playing even low-stakes street soccer. But the authorities who heap so much praise on Latin American street soccer always compare it to the way basketball players have historically developed in American cities. And anybody who knows anything about that scene will admit that gambling has always been part of the territory. I consulted a Canadian psychologist who has studied adolescent problem gambling extensively, and he agreed that kids should not be allowed to bet on their games.
"Children do not have the maturity to set and maintain limits," said Jeffrey Derevensky, a psychology professor at McGill University in Montreal. But I'm happy to report that the betting issue has not come up again recently. It could be because Javier – one of the dominant players in the neighborhood – seems to be focusing on homework. The other day there were fewer kids playing.
When this is the case the kids often play a free kick game that is a great example of what the experts like about Latin American pickup soccer. It can be played 1 v. 1, 2 v. 2 or 3 v.3 For most of the game, each team has to stay on their half of the court and take turns shooting free kicks from their end, about 20 yards. The team being shot on can use their hands to prevent a goal. They tend to form a wall about ten feet in front of the goal, giving the shooter lots of practice at trying to bend balls around walls. If the shot hits the post, the players yell, "Chuteas," and a small-sided game is played until someone scores a goal. After the goal is scored, it's back to the free kick game.
Another popular soccer-related game is "Elimination." It is a fairly simple game, which nonetheless can sometimes take a long time, in which everybody shoots from the penalty spot on everybody else and whoever allows the most goals is eliminated. Then there's another round of everybody shooting on everybody else, until finally a winner is crowned. The move to Colombia has definitely involved some sacrifices and frustrations. Personally I really miss the luxury of hot running water. But the soccer mom in me could not be more pleased. From the first day, when our 10-year-old neighbor, Carlitos, came to our door and stuttered in his best English, "You want play soccer?" the game has been a sort of universal language that transcends barriers. The local kids easily accepted my sons, partly, I think, because of their soccer skills. Of course the fact that they brought a beautiful blue and red Nike ball, the likes of which had never before been seen in the neighborhood, probably also helped. Though we came here so my children could connect with their father's heritage, I can't help but imagine their soccer-crazy father up in heaven, smiling down as they learn to play the game much the way he learned as a boy going to school in Colombia in the 1960s.
posted by Rebecca Thatcher Murcia | 2:51 PM
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