The movement now afoot in Alberta to take scoring out of soccer for kids under the age of 12 doesn’t include Eddie Escobar.
“I’m a believer in scores, but I do believe in having mercy rules,” the director of soccer at The Edge School in Springbank said.
“I believe in the Under 10 philosophy of only have a one-nil score show up. I think naturally kids — and the way we are in general — when it comes to competition there’s going to be a winner and there’s going to be a team that loses.
“But taking the score completely out of it? I don’t think it gives the right mentality of how the game is played. That’s how the game is built.”
The Alberta Soccer Association is considering following the lead of the Ontario Soccer Association by removing official scoring from U12 play. The Alberta association currently only reports U10 game results as 1-0 regardless of the actual tally and scores aren’t kept below U10 in the province.
Alberta Soccer Association provincial coach John Clubb of Cochrane clarifies that scoring is not being eliminated, but rather standings.
“When you’ve got two teams of children playing against each other there is going to be a score,” he said. “Someone is going to score goals and someone is not going to score as many.
“If you are competing in a game there’s going to be goals. (The ASA is) suggesting that at that age we don’t need to keep track of league standings. They aren’t as important.”
Clubb recalled a trip to an ASA Mini-Stars U12 event in Edmonton earlier this month where the score wasn’t kept and he said players didn’t appear to notice.
“I asked the girls after the first game what the score was and they couldn’t tell me because they were too busy playing the game. It was 2-2. I asked the parents and they got it spot on.”
The discussion to remove scoring from U12 games in Alberta will begin in April. Escobar said he believes it will be approved.
Escobar two years ago created a partnership between The Edge and Springbank Minor Soccer Association that brought an elite program to Springbank, which before just offered community soccer to its kids. In February, Escobar was hired by SMSA to also serve as its technical director.
