The Official American Youth Soccer Organization Handbo

FIRESIDE

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Copyright © 2001 by The American Youth Soccer Organization

Illustrations copyright © 2001 by Risé Reading

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

FIRESIDE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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Designed by Christine Weathersbee

Manufactured in the United States of America

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

American Youth Soccer Organization. The official American Youth Soccer Organization handbook : rules, regulations, skills, and everything else kids, parents, and coaches need to participate in youth soccer / Vincent Fortanasce, Lawrence Robinson, and John Ouellette; illustrations by Risé Reading.

p.   cm.

Includes index.

1. Soccer for children—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc. 2. Soccer for children—Coaching—United States—Handbooks, manuals, etc.   I. Fortanasce, Vincent.   II. Robinson, Lawrence (Lawrence John).   III. Ouellette, John.   IV. Title.

GV944.2 A52 2001

796.334′083—dc21   2001040119

ISBN 0-7432-1384-X

eISBN: 978-1-451-60351-4

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Thanks to everyone at the American Youth Soccer Organization, especially Cathy Ferguson, Mark Valdez, Kim Lewis, Eric Veach, and Mark Alch for their invaluable help in writing this book, and Doris Cooper at Simon & Schuster for such a great editing job.

For soccer players everywhere and those who love to watch them

CONTENTS

Foreword

Introduction:

The Beautiful Game

chapter 1:

A Soccer Philosophy: Welcome to AYSO

chapter 2:

The Team

chapter 3:

The Skills

chapter 4:

The Goalkeeper’s Skills

chapter 5:

The Laws of Soccer

chapter 6:

Playing the Game

chapter 7:

Short-Sided Soccer

chapter 8:

For Coaches

chapter 9:

For Parents

chapter 10:

For Referees

chapter 11:

For Players

chapter 12:

A Brief History of Soccer

Glossary of Youth Soccer Teams

Index

FOREWORD

As with great soccer, this book was a team effort. There are three authors listed on the cover, but we elected to pool our knowledge and experiences of youth soccer. Each incident recounted in the book actually happened, to at least one of us, more often than not to all three of us: Lawrence as a player, Vince as a parent and coach, and me as, well, as just about everything—from player, parent, coach, and referee, to distributor of oranges at halftime, to national coach of the most respected youth soccer organization in the United States.

Working as a team is as crucial off the soccer field as it is on. Little can be achieved in soccer or in life without the cooperation, hard work, and loyalty of others. So I would like to thank all my teammates at AYSO for their continued support of all our youth soccer programs and for their contribution to this project in particular. Our goal was to create a document that would not only detail the rules and regulations of soccer but also provide an understanding of the subtleties and nuances of the world’s game and maybe help a few baffled parents understand their child’s passion for what is still an unfamiliar sport to many.

Enjoy the read and enjoy the experience of youth soccer.

—John Ouellette

AYSO National Coach/Technical Director

INTRODUCTION:

The Beautiful Game

That beautiful game I love so well, the game I live to play …

—Pelé

We are obsessed. And we have been since the first time we kicked a leather ball. By the time Lawrence was 5, for example, he was playing every evening after school with the neighborhood kids on a thin strip of grass that fell away in an alarmingly steep slope beyond his backyard fence. We threw coats or sweaters down as goalposts, he remembers, and played until dusk, when my mother’s calls became too loud and insistent to ignore.

John’s parents proudly remember how conscientious he was as a youngster, always arriving at elementary school early. I never told them that all the kids met up every morning to play soccer. The game, consisting of a swarm of kids chasing a ratty tennis ball around the school playground, started before their first class, resumed at recess, and concluded during lunch. It seemed that there was always a soccer game to be played.

Vince played for the elementary school team, the Cub Scout team, and a Saturday morning team whose name he can’t quite remember. Then there was high school. Because of the size and reputation of the school, making the junior varsity team at the age of 14 held all the prestige of playing for one’s country. When I pulled that crisp polyester over my head for the first time, he says, I felt like Pelé preparing to play for Brazil or Cruyff for Holland.

Lawrence recently met up with two of his closest friends in Los Angeles, and as they so often do, they reminisced about their years playing for the Danbury Boys Under-10s (U-10) through Under-16s (U-16). Richard (Babs) is now a farmer. Back then he was the team’s striker (primary goal scorer), a player best described simply as an enigma in front of goal. Dave, on the other hand, was a more consistent performer, usually beside Lawrence in defense, who went on to become a successful broker on Wall Street.

They all remember those Sunday afternoons with nothing but warmth—which means that youth soccer played the role it was meant to in their lives. They don’t have mantle-pieces littered with trophies or careers as professional players to look back on. They don’t even have memories of winning many games. But what they do have are bonds of friendship that were formed on the soccer field and that have remained unbroken by time or geography. The best we can wish for any child playing youth soccer today is that in 25 years he or she will be able to say the same about their childhood teammates.

Groups of men and women, boys and girls, kicking a leather ball around a rectangular patch of land may seem like a silly pursuit to some. But the game of soccer has a way of generating such emotional intensity in those it touches that each game becomes a brief reflection of the muddled blend of drama, competitiveness, joy, and tragedy that saturate that other silly pursuit: the game of life.

Soccer, football, futbol, futebol, calcio, fussball, fuβbal, voetbol—call it what you will, no other sport has the rich history or heritage to match the beautiful game. No other sport breeds the passion, the insanity, the ecstasy, or the despair. Forget the hooligan reputation of a minority of soccer supporters—that’s a social problem that has nothing to do with sport; ignore the allegations that it’s a game for wimpy, bespectacled geeks—most soccer players, men and women, are supremely fit athletes; and dismiss the notion that the game is un-American—it’s certainly no less American than golf.

Soccer is a wonderful pastime, an unstructured, flowing game that at its best blurs the line between sport and art. There’s an intrinsic balletic quality to a sweeping passing move that carries the ball from one end of the field to the other and climaxes in a perfectly executed volley or a crisp diving header on goal. No, the scoring in soccer isn’t as high as in other American sports, but that’s part of the appeal. The scarcity value increases the importance of every goal, every missed shot, every fingertip save. The fact that goals are rarer and harder-earned than runs in baseball or points in basketball adds to the excitement and anticipation every time the ball is played in close to goal.

So, it’s no wonder that today, more kids in America play soccer than any other youth sport. The Soccer Industry Council of America estimates that more than 26 million children under the age of 18 will play soccer at least once in 2001. More than 4 million kids are registered to play with American youth soccer organizations, half a million more than with Little League, and that number is increasing at an annual rate of 8 to 10 percent. The sport is no longer reserved for first- and second-generation Americans, the sons of immigrants clinging to a tradition from their homeland. It’s a game for everyone, a philosophy that the American Youth Soccer Organization, or AYSO, has taken to heart. Boys and girls are not registered on their merits as soccer players, but rather according to their interest and commitment.

Enthusiasm, said the great Pelé, is everything. To that end, the objectives of AYSO are to enthusiastically teach, promote, and cultivate youth soccer in the United States and to develop American youngsters in both body and character. Winning always comes second to enjoyment. With the beautiful game, everyone plays and everyone has fun.

Whether you’re already a devoted soccer aficionado or, like more than 70 percent of AYSO’s parents and volunteers, you’ve had little or no previous contact with the sport, this book is for you. It’s an ideal reference to the game of soccer, its rules and the philosophies and regulations of the American Youth Soccer Organization. We hope it will also stand as a testament to a group of kids half a lifetime ago who learned the most valuable lesson that youth soccer has to teach: The results soon fade from memory, but the fun and the friendships can last forever.

Chapter 1

A Soccer Philosophy: Welcome to AYSO

Through soccer, kids are able to gain self-confidence, develop a healthy attitude toward competition, create long-lasting friendships, and improve their physical health.

—Dan Calichman, soccer pro and AYSO spokesperson

The year 1964 was memorable for many reasons. Lyndon Johnson was reelected president in a landslide victory; the U.S. military launched attacks on North Vietnam; race riots erupted in Harlem and other neighborhoods across the country; the Olympic Games were held in Tokyo; Cassius Clay defeated Sonny Liston to become World Heavyweight Champion; UCLA won its first national title in college basketball; and in the World Series, St. Louis beat the New York Yankees, 4-3. Meanwhile, in a small residential garage in the quiet Los Angeles suburb of Torrance, a group of soccer parents, frustrated at the lack of youth soccer teams available for their kids, assembled a roster of 125 players and formed a nonprofit organization they christened the American Youth Soccer Organization, or AYSO. The founders spent long hours huddled in the tiny garage determining a set of five philosophies that would guide their organization and protect the well-being of all the participants. These were the following:

Everyone Plays.

Balanced Teams.

Open Registration.

Positive Coaching.

Good Sportsmanship.

In the ensuing years, U.S. presidents came and went, peace descended over Vietnam, Cassius Clay became Muhammed Ali and retired, and the idea of St. Louis beating the Yankees in the World Series became almost unthinkable. Amidst it all, AYSO has evolved into a vibrant national organization with more than 630,000 players and 250,000 volunteers, and unprecedented influence over the development of youth soccer in the United States. And while AYSO’s founders quickly outgrew the suburban garage in Torrance, the five philosophies determined in 1964 endured and now seem timeless.

The Philosophies

AYSO programs are open to all children from the ages of 4 years 6 months to U-19 players who love to play soccer. The organization offers training programs for players, coaches, referees, and volunteers designed to promote a fun-packed, family environment based on AYSO’s five philosophies.

Everyone Plays

The goal of AYSO is for kids to play soccer, so each child who registers, regardless of ability, is guaranteed to play at least half of every game. In AYSO everyone plays because children learn skills, teamwork, and sportsmanship, and develop confidence and self-esteem by playing, not by being spectators.

In our day, the coach recruited and selected players, which was fine only if you had an experienced coach and a winning team. The Danbury Boys’ Coach Gravett was certainly well-meaning. He gave up every Wednesday evening for training and every Sunday afternoon for the games. It saddens Lawrence now to remember how unappreciative he and his teammates were of the time and effort this man put into the team. But the truth was, for all his good intentions, the coach was bordering on the clueless when it came to coaching and organizing a soccer team.

Inevitably, the results gradually deteriorated throughout his first season, as did the enthusiasm of many of the players. By his second season in charge, they were struggling to field 11 players every week and rarely had enough kids turn up to provide us with the luxury of substitutes. Consequently, the policy Everyone plays was embraced by Coach Gravett and the Danbury Boys with all the necessity of a lifesaver for drowning man. But that is the key to why Lawrence and his friends enjoyed their time at Danbury Boys so much. Regardless of their abilities, they always got to play.

The AYSO founders knew how crucial the philosophy Everyone Plays was to the acceptance of the organization. Kids flock to play soccer because it’s fun to play. Soccer involves movement, athleticism, notes John. "Players can’t learn these skills sitting on the bench watching. Soccer can only be learned by doing." Games should be seen as an extension of practice sessions—further opportunities for the players to learn. Everyone has more fun when everyone plays.

Balanced Teams

Since games are more fun when the teams are of equal ability, every AYSO region sets up teams as evenly balanced as possible. Team balancing dates back to AYSO’s first season, when the 50 or so players who showed up on registration day were simply distributed randomly. After a few friendly scrimmages, adjustments were made to assure the teams were comparable in talent.

Balanced Teams means competitive, interesting games for all who play and watch.

Winning 3-2 leaves youngsters with a greater sense of achievement than winning 7-0, for example. The more effort victory takes, the greater the sense of accomplishment. It’s certainly better for the losing players to be defeated by only a narrow margin. With Danbury Boys, we were on the wrong end of 3-2 and 7-0 score games many times. No matter how much we loved playing the game, how much fun we had just being on the field, when people asked the score, it wasn’t too painful to say, We lost 3-2. We were unlucky. The same story never quite rang true when we had lost 7-0 or 8-0.

When teams are leading or trailing by so many goals, the effort and determination of players on both teams starts to wane. Players on the losing team know that with 10 minutes left they’re never going to be able to score 7 goals to tie the game, so often they give up trying. Similarly, players on the winning team know that the game is already won, so there’s no incentive for them to exert themselves any further and they coast through the remaining minutes. However, if the game is tied at 2-2, for example, or close at 3-2 with 10 minutes left, there’s still everything to play for and every player has to maintain 100 percent effort. At the final whistle, win or lose, every player can take satisfaction in having played his or her heart out for the whole game.

Open Registration

AYSO has sign-ups, not tryouts, and does not restrict membership on the basis of talent, race, religion, gender, financial status, or any type of belief or attitude. Every child may register to play. Unlike Little League, kids can sign up with their parents in any community they choose, not only the one they live in.

In the early years, open registration had one very questionable provision: AYSO was open only to boys. But that inequity ended in 1971, when the girls program was started. With the initiation of the VIP (Very Important Player) program for kids with special needs and the Team-Up program for the economically disadvantaged, today the open registration policy is truly open to all.

Open registration complements the Everyone Plays philosophy. Regardless of sex, race, financial status, physical or mental abilities, every child has a place to play soccer.

Positive Coaching

AYSO promotes coaching through encouragement rather than criticism. Positive coaching is the glue that holds