Perhaps the only person in the history of western civilization wherein the gender line was blurred was within the American-Indians culture.  Thus, many different spheres may create variants between males and females; however, when examining these variants across all scopes, predominantly one shall ultimately discover that the same broad principle is always applicable.  When a parent becomes their child’s soccer coach, they shall effectively see this phenomenon between genders on the pitch.  Given this, just as in every other sphere of the world were there is a difference between genders, the same is true between the sexes on the pitch.  Even though youth league soccer players are at a younger age, the same basic principle always regulates males and females. 

In so far as coaching soccer is concerned, one may want to take note of these differences.  This is because boys and girls have different reactions to different instructional methodologies.  Nonetheless, one should not overtly apply these differential treatments because ultimately you want everyone on the team to feel as though they are equal.  Moreover, this is the case because the main operative function of a football unit is to be one big moving cohesive organism.

Physical Differences:

Although not as pronounced prior to puberty, boys and girls still do maintain general physical differences.  The first difference is that a boy tends to be bigger, faster, and hence, more athletic - barring anomalous cases- than a girl.  Thus, when coaching a coed soccer unit, a coach should not let the boys pick on and aggressively dominate the girls.  Allowing such behavior can damage your squad cohesion, more importantly it could cause serious psychological damage to a girl.  This will manifest itself after a girl has been demeaned and/or humiliated in front of the peer group.  Thus, within the lines of reason, a coach should always cease aggressive behavior. 

Secondly, due to the fact that boys are more athletic, they tend to undergo a dominant role in so far as the team play goes; furthermore, boys will emphasize winning at all costs against the opposition.  Both these boy dominant/aggressive tendencies need to be checked as soon and as best possible.  The reason for this is because when girls play, they tend to focus more on team play (nurturing) and social involvement - not aggressively dominating the ball to win at all costs.  Thus, if one keeps this detracting polarity at bay, they will reap the wonders of uniting - not divide - a cohesive organism.

Finally, just because boys are better athletes, does mean that you should give them a majority of the playing time just to win.  Everyone on the team should get an equal amount of time on the pitch.  Mis-allocating playing time as such will cause a girl to isolate and detract from a cohesive unit as she will lose interest.  When you sit down a boy he won’t detract from the team; however, when a boy gets upset he will take his aggression out on the opposition - not upon himself, and consequently not the unit.

Cognitive/Emotional Differences:

One huge difference between the sexes cognitively is that girls tend to be much more analytical than their counterparts.  In other words, boys act without thinking and impulsively, whereas girls tend to be re-actionary in so far as girls cognitively analyze input before behaving.  For an example if you tell “Tommy” to make a cross pass at the 15-minute mark, he will do so without asking questions; however, if you were to ask “Mary” to do the same, she would ask you “why” before making the cross pass.

As far as criticizing the sexes goes, one should approach this in a different, yet equal manner as well.  When girls receive criticism from a coach, they usually tend to take it very personally; however, when boys receive criticism, they tend to take it defensively and take it out on outside forces.  Thus, whenever one criticizes either sex it use usually the best rule to do so by means of constructive criticism.  Alas, kill two birds with one stone: promote good self-esteem and make the team much better.

Trackback URI | Comments RSS