Youth Soccer
"What Really Counts In The Long Run?"

While what you're saying is true, that the general public is over-focused on outcome and wins, your job as a coach remains important and the same: To continue to help young players understand that the wins and losses at these young ages are not what really counts in the long run. As the coach, what you say holds a lot of weight for young athletes. If you are genuinely focused on your players' technical and tactical development and this is how you evaluate whether they "won" or "lost" after a game, then you will be helping your players learn to focus on what's really important. If you continue to "catch" your kids doing things right technically and this is what you reward, then they will ultimately get the message. This is not an easy job to do in today's win-crazed sports world. It doesn't matter if everyone else around your young players measures their success or failure by the game's outcome. What does matter is that you as the coach never fall into this destructive and development-arresting trap. If your players continually see that they are improving their skills and tactical knowledge of the game, then these critical "victories" will ultimately outweigh the "fool's gold" of winning the game. The way that you help them understand this is by reminding them, over and over again that good soccer can only be played on a solid foundation of proper technique and sound game tactics. You need to help them see that in the long run, their game will go the farthest by keeping their focus here rather than on the won-loss column. You do this by reminding them daily of what's important. Furthermore, you can help them develop a little bit of mental toughness in the process by teaching them that when they keep their focus on executing what they can control, i.e. their skills, role, etc., they have a much better chance of winning. Those coaches who over-emphasize the outcome ultimately end up distracting their players from the game and tightening them up. Paradoxically, this gives the team less chance to play well and win!