End of season letter from soccer coach to parents

Parents: We are switching to futsal mode this week for winter. I wanted to take a few minutes to tell you how pleased I am with the progress your girls have made this fall season. I think you should be very proud of how hard your daughters have been working this year.

There’s an important lesson here that sports can teach us if we’re willing to learn it, and I’m happy to say it’s a lesson I think your daughters are learning. It’s one that I think should be strengthened.

There are games we win and games we lose.

There are games we play well and games we don’t play well.

There is an important difference…

If we’re in the right division, then our competition needs to be even on a skill level for game outcomes to be uncertain; These are the games and the opponents that will push us to stretch just a little bit beyond what we thought our limits were.

When we are playing well, we are doing our best to use our abilities as individuals and as a team, and playing with good sportsmanship. wWe have to play hard, we have to push ourselves throughout the game, we have to face uncertainty and difficulties and move on.

That’s when we’re playing well: when we can see the right play and do our best to make the right play, regardless of the outcome.

As we get better at our technical skills, we’ll be able to make those plays more often, which will earn us more, which will lead to tougher competition, where the cycle will continue.

For me, the last game of the season captured the essence of playing well. Every girl on the field that day was doing her best to play to the best of her ability. You saw them compete for the full game against a very good team. You saw them weather the attacking storm in the first half, and not only did they not break, but they fought back and scored the first goal. They came out in the second half and pushed forward in attack, using their teammates to combine with passes and creating a number of scoring chances.

They weren’t playing kickball; they were trying to play with patience and skill, even under pressure. They never stopped running, even when out of breath. They kept trying to move on.

When I see that, when I see them trying to play the beautiful game with skill, as hard as they can, it really fills me with joy, because they’re doing what they’re supposed to do. They are showing total commitment to the team and to themselves. They are not holding back. Being able to do that when the game is on the line, not knowing how it will turn out, but going for it anyway, is the highest form of courage.

In my opinion, playing well (i.e. playing hard, playing skillfully, playing with good sportsmanship, trying to make the right play as an individual and as a team) is more important than the specific result, although I like winning just as much as the next person, having been competitive in my life and in my profession since I was a puppy.

There are games we win and games we lose.

There are games we play well and games we don’t play well.

There are games that we win when we don’t play well, and those are dangerous games because we can learn the wrong lessons.

There are games we lose when we don’t play well, and they challenge our character: can we get up and work on our shortcomings and take responsibility for ourselves and our results?

There are games that we win, when we play well: that is the greatest joy and we have done it several times this year.

There are games that we lose, when we play well: that happened yesterday. Our girls are not giving up and played some of their best soccer of the year until the final whistle blew. Sometimes these are the hardest lessons to learn: that you can play your best and still not win that day. My job as a coach is to help the girls see that difference and use it as fuel to keep going, keep getting better, respect the effort they put in, and keep that effort alive in their practices and in their next games.

That is what we will do in futsal: improve our individual skills, work in small games to improve our tactical game and keep the momentum of a good outdoor season.

Each and every one of your daughters has had a great season and I know you are as proud of them as I am. We are going to have a great indoor season.

Thank you very much for the trust you have placed in me to train your daughters. I promise to keep striving to live up to her example.

– Trainer