>Thus, playing like FIFA just means you lose the ball to the opponents and you lose the game.
You're coming from a place where winning seems to be the goal. For a kids' team shouldn't having fun come first?
You're coming from a place where winning seems to be the goal. For a kids' team shouldn't having fun come first?
But as the kids get older, if winning and losing isn't on the table at all... what's the point? Why can't we use our hands? It's not like it affects the nonexistant outcome. Why are we chasing the balls instead of just running around on the playground? It's not like it affects the nonexistant out come. Why are we... non-existant outcome... etc. The whole activity has no foundation whatsoever if there's no victory state, and kids do eventually notice.
Yeah, some people get way too excited about it. This is not the dominant problem that I see; I see more people entirely destroying all reason to play the game at all by trying to remove the pain of loss, at the cost of the thrill of victory, any reason to work on improving oneself, and any reason to even be playing at all.
Not everything has to be competitive. I mean, duh, right? But taking an activity that was designed to be competitive and then trying to strip out the competitive part isn't a good idea. Far better to start over again and design something not competitive from the get-go.
Looking clumsy or looking skillful is a consequence in and of itself.
It's like you have never even played California Games.
I even remember once in my 20s in a local basketball league, we only had four players show up one night, including one fat guy who didn't run and couldn't shoot. We defeated our opponents who had a full bench and a couple of subs, who on a normal night were only slightly below our team's ability at normal strength. Rather than feeling elated that we defeated a full team when we were almost at half-strength, we felt bad for our fellow team, that they had such a bad night that they were defeated in such a way.
Winning is fun and a rush, absolutely, but I've had plenty of boring wins and plenty of awesome losses - there's more interest in a good challenge than a win, per se. If you distill the success of the game (in a local league, at least), just down to win/loss, you're doing it wrong, IMO.
For young kids, the focus should be on fun (otherwise they won't play) and skills development (fundamentals). Of course you try to win the game, but the idea is that you don't try to win at all cost, especially at the expense of those other two things.
The strategy you would employ with a team of kids to win as many games as possible is very different from the one you would use to develop them the most as good future players.
Teaching ball control and possession are probably better suited for more organized, competitive leagues for older children.