I would like to highly encourage any parent of a current or future soccer player to read the book by Dan Blank called Happy Feet. In this website we tend to stress the female side of the game of soccer but this is great reading whether your soccer player is a girl or boy.
Dan has written several books about the game of soccer and I recommend them all and plan to discuss them on later blogs. However, today I am going to focus on the first section of Happy Feet.
A copy of Happy Feet should be handed to every parent when they first sign up little Jonnie or Suzie for their first year of soccer. Dan does a great job in the first part of the book of explaining the game of soccer. He goes over the verbage used in soccer as well as the different styles of playing soccer. The most important part in this early section of the book is the area where he talks about the Rules of Soccer. How many of you have heard parents on the sideline with no clue about the rules of the game. One of the best ways we can help our children with their game is by knowing the rules of soccer. Knowing the rules of the game will also cut down on the number of misinformed comments directed at coaches and especially referees. Parents can make total fools of themselves on the sidelines when they do not know the rules of the game. Dan does an especially good job at explaining offside, playing the advantage, and hand balls. Knowing the rules makes the game so much more enjoyable to watch.
On a side note, I would like to encourage parents to take it a step farther and take a training class tobe a referee. Just help out with the younger age groups and you will do two things. You will get a better understanding of the rules and you will get a better understanding for what it is like to be a referee at the higher levels. You will find out that even in games with seven year olds it is not always the easiest thing to determine who touched the ball last before it went out of bounds.
In my next post I will talk about the second section of Dan's book where he talks about what coaches would like parents to know. Don't wait for the post. Go out to Amazon or your favorite bookstore and pick up a copy of Happy Feet. You will love this book.