I coach youth soccer in America, and my sons play. A while back the USSF went to a small sided game model for training. Since I got into coaching (and I played throughout my entire childhood) I always thought that running drills is... fine. But, it doesn't promote creativity.

I also see a lot of questions here in this subreddit about "What drills should I do to accomplish X?" And, my answer is almost always, "Don't do drills, just play soccer."

In the last week or so, more things have been on Reddit and other places talking about pick up soccer and it really has me thinking. I figured that /r/bootroom would be a great place to get some dialouge going on the topic.

19 Rules of Playing Football When You're a Kid was in /r/soccer today.

Pickup soccer connects the generations of American players, too On Sports Illustrated last week.

I feel like American kids are so caught up in the other 4 major sports that there's virtually no pick up soccer being played. When I've been in Chicago I have seen kids kicking a ball in the par, but never an actual competition. Here in Michigan I've never even seen that.

We've all played pick up baseball, basketball, American football and street hockey. But, how many kids are playing soccer?

But, kids are playing organized soccer! And, they're playing it in droves. From Wikipedia:

"Youth soccer

The largest category of soccer in the United States in terms of participation is boys' and girls' youth soccer. Soccer is one of the most played sports by children in the United States. In 2012, soccer was the #4 most played team sport by high school boys, and soccer overtook softball to become the #3 most played team sport by high school girls.[34] As of 2006, the U.S. was the #1 country in the world for participation in youth soccer, with 3.9 million American youths (2.3 million boys and 1.6 million girls) registered with U.S. Soccer.[35] The number of high school soccer players more than doubled from 1990 to 2010, giving soccer the fastest growth rate among all major U.S. sports.[36] In recent decades, more youth sports organizations have turned to soccer as a supplement to American football,[citation needed] and most American high schools offer both soccer and football in their fall sports seasons. Due to the rising number of youths playing, the term soccer mom is used in American social and political discourse to describe middle- or upper-middle class suburban women with school-age children. Americans between the ages of 12 and 24 rank professional soccer as their second favorite sport behind only American football.[37] And in 2011, the FIFA video game ranked as the #2 most popular video game in the country, behind only Madden.[38] Though organized locally by organizations all over the United States, there are three main youth soccer organizations working nationwide through affiliated local associations. The United States Youth Soccer Association boasts over three million players between the ages of five and 19, while American Youth Soccer Organization has more than 600,000 [39] players between the ages of four and 19. Finally, the USL offers a number of youth leagues, including the Super-20 League and the Super Y-League, which have almost 1,000 teams and tens of thousands of players from the ages of 13 to 20."

To me, I think one of the biggest reasons that US Soccer is behind the rest of the world is because we only have formal training. I know that our best athletes often ultimately choose to play a different sport, that's a serious issue for soccer progress in America, but that's a whole different discussion.

With my teams, I try to offer as much free play soccer as possible. During the off seasons we offer drop in pick up games to all the kids across multiple teams and multiple age groups.

I think it helps to foster the friendships, the team's relationship, creativity on the field, speed of the game, field awareness, ball movement and plenty of other things.

So, /r/bootroom, questions for you:

*Do you think America needs to grow the pick up soccer culture?

*How much of an affect do you think a stronger pick up soccer culture would have on the US Soccer system?

*What's something you could do in your own community to nurture a pick up soccer culture?