CASC partnered with Crescenta Valley High School to bring ‘coaching-free, parent-free’ pickup soccer to CV’s soccer field.
Part of a player’s development is playing in an environment where they can use their creativity, learn successes and adversity without having an adult directing everything they do. Around the world, many of the great players inherited many of their skills through small-sided games in the streets or local parks. Why? Players get more touches on the ball, they learn to attack and defend, dribble better, protect the ball, score more goals, and overall they are more involved in the game. No opportunity to hide!. Pick-up soccer is a great supplement to the more structured club environment.
In most American cities, playing in the streets has been forgotten, and long ago are the days when kids could go off for the day and play to their hearts content, as long as they were back for dinner. There are many factors for this, such as as urban spread, lack of parks, an auto-oriented society, but safety is probably the biggest concern for parents.
On Friday nights, under the lights, CASC opened up CV High field so any youth soccer player in our community between the ages of 8-17 came by and played our version of “street soccer.” We had supervisors to monitor all the games and players, and games were continuously played for the enjoyment of the kids.
Here are some photos!
