by Greg Bach
Compress: Compress the injured area by using athletic tape or any other type of material to hold the ice in place.
Elevate: Have the child elevate the injury above his heart to prevent blood from pooling in the injured area.
After any swelling, discoloration, or pain subsides, you can allow the youngster to return to competition. If any symptom is present for more than a couple of days, a physician should examine the player before you allow him back on the field. You never want a child to return to the field when his injury hasn’t completely healed, because it puts him at greater risk of reinjuring the area and missing an even greater amount of action.
Other injuries
At the more competitive levels of soccer, as the players become bigger and stronger and are capable of kicking the ball with tremendous force, the door opens for the possibility of other types of injuries. Take a quick look at some of these injuries and how you should respond:
Concussion: A concussion is a jarring injury to the head, face, or jaw resulting in a disturbance of the brain. Concussions are classified as mild or severe. Symptoms include a brief loss of consciousness, headache, grogginess, confusion, glassy-eyed look, amnesia, disturbed balance, and slight dizziness. Immediate care includes rest on the sidelines with an adult in attendance to provide careful observation. If you see any evidence of something more serious, such as prolonged unconsciousness, change in the size of eye pupils, or convulsions, take an immediate trip by ambulance to a hospital for further observation. Mild concussions may require up to a week for recovery, and the decision to return must be made by a physician. Severe concussions require at least four weeks of recovery, and permission to return should be given only by a specialist.
Foreign object in the eye: Any foreign body lodged in the eye, such as a fleck of dirt, needs attention. Usually, this kind of injury is just a nuisance, but if the irritation doesn’t go away, it needs to be evaluated by an eye specialist. Symptoms are tearing, pain, and redness. Most objects can be easily removed with a cotton swab and saline wash. If the surface of the eye isn’t seriously injured and vision isn’t impaired, the youngster can return to competition as soon as the object is removed.
Injury to the eyeball: A direct injury to the eyeball is an immediate medical emergency. Symptoms are extreme pain, loss of vision, hazy vision, double vision, change in vision colors, or obvious lacerations or abrasions of the eye. If the vision loss is the result of a direct eye injury rather than a head injury, a dry, sterile eye patch or piece of gauze should be applied to the eye, along with a bag of soft, crushed ice. The youngster should immediately be taken to an emergency facility.
Poked in eye: When a youngster is poked in the eye, examine the eye. If the youngster isn’t in significant pain, and you see minimal redness and no discharge or bleeding, simply clean the area out with cool water and allow the athlete to rest before returning to play. If you see any type of discharge or blood coming from the eye, get the child to a doctor immediately.
Orbital fracture: An orbital fracture is a fracture of the bony frame around the eye. All orbital fractures are serious and require expert medical treatment. Symptoms include severe pain with possible double vision or other vision problems. It may be accompanied by cuts, abrasions, bleeding, and black-and-blue marks. Any youngster who suffers significant injury to the area around the eye should be transported to a facility where she can be x-rayed to determine whether a fracture has occurred.
Shin splints: Shin splints are common in a sport like soccer where repetitive running is involved. The primary cause of the injury is related to the weight pounding down on the shin. Other factors that can contribute to the injury are muscle weakness, poor flexibility, improper warm-up and cool-down exercises, and improper footwear. Symptoms are typically easy to identify because the athlete has pain in the shin. The four stages associated with shin splints are pain after activity; pain before and after activity without affecting performance; pain before, during, and after activity, adversely affecting performance; and constant pain that prohibits activity. The early stages of shin splints are relatively mild, but later stages can become much more severe. If the injury isn’t properly managed, it can result in a stress fracture. If a player develops shin splints, use ice to reduce pain and swelling and eliminate any weight-bearing activities to allow the affected area time to heal.
Wind knocked out: A youngster who has the wind knocked out of him for the first time is likely going to panic when he has trouble breathing. Comfort the youngster, and have him take short, quick breaths and pant like a puppy until he’s able to resume breathing normally again.
Tooth knocked out: If a child has a tooth knocked out, retrieve the tooth, place it in a sterile gauze pad with some saline solution, and have the child immediately taken to a dentist.
Nosebleed: Nosebleeds are fairly common in youth soccer. Gently squeeze the nostrils together to stop the bleeding. If the bleeding doesn’t stop after a couple of minutes, get the child to a doctor, because it could be a more serious injury, such as a nasal fracture.
What to do with the kids during an injury stoppage in play
Kids are obviously very curious about what happens to a teammate who’s injured, but they should be kept away from the injured child. You don’t want the entire team crowding around the injured child, which can make her more panicked than she already is if she sees everyone hovering over her and staring at her with concerned looks on their faces.
During a serious injury to a player on the opposing team during a game, you want your team to return to its sideline. You need to immediately check on the injured child with the other coaches and provide any assistance that’s needed. You don’t want your players to be a distraction or unnecessarily get in the way while treatment is being provided.
Watching the Weather
Mother Nature and her tremendous power should never be taken lightly. Severe weather poses a great risk to youngsters, and your responsibility is to get them off the field before trouble arrives. During a game, don’t rely on the league administrator or the official to stop the game when bad weather approaches. Never try to squeeze in another minute or try to get the game in so you don’t have to deal with the hassle of rescheduling. Think about it. Endangering the safety of your players simply to finish a game is never worth the risk. Be aware of the following potential weather problems:
Lightning: Lightning is a big concern simply because it can show up so quickly. If a storm moves in on you unexpectedly, and lightning is in the area, safe places to retreat to with the kids are enclosed buildings, fully enclosed vehicles with the windows up, and low ground. Be sure to stay away from trees, water, wide-open areas, metal bleachers, light poles, fences, or any other metallic objects.
High winds and tornadoes: If for some reason your team is caught in severe weather that involves a tornado, you should move your players inside a building immediately if one is available. If not, get the kids into a ditch and lie down, or move to some other low-lying area where they should use their arms to protect their head and neck.
Heat: Children don’t acclimate to heat as well as adults do, so you need to consider several points. You should be aware that certain temperatures present an extreme stress to kids. As a general rule of thumb, when the humidity rises above 70 percent and the temperature is above 80 degrees, you need to exercise extra caution with your team. Encourage the kids to drink extra water and wear lighter clothing. When the temperature rises above 90 degrees with the humidity between 70 and 80 percent, heat illnesses may occur. When these types of conditions are present, practices or games should be suspended or at the very least significantly curtailed. The kids should wear only cool, porous clothing, and you should never withhold water as a form of discipline, no matter how serious the infraction or broken team rule.
Sun: Exposure to the sun is an often-overlooked health risk in youth soccer. Our skin is an excellent recordkeeper of our time outdoors, and every moment we spend in the sun adds up, accumulati
ng like money in the bank. Unfortunately, the payoff is often skin damage and skin cancer. The best defense to protect your athletes from the sun is to encourage them to use a sunscreen with an SPF of 30. Make sun safety a priority with your team.
Following a Healthy Diet
You can teach kids the proper way to head a ball, deliver a corner kick, or make a tackle, but if they aren’t eating the right foods before arriving at the field, their performance is going to be compromised. Although you can’t control what your team eats before practices and games, you can spend some time during the season discussing the importance of following good nutritional habits in order to maximize performance.
Discussing nutrition with your players (and even their parents) and how fueling the body can improve performance by giving them energy and added strength can make a difference and carry over to general eating habits. Television commercials sing the praises of candy bars packed with caramel centers and covered with great-tasting chocolate shells, but nutrition is found in the four basic food groups, not in candy bars. Children bring home ideas from many sources, and they can bring home healthier eating habits from you if you take the time to explain it to them.
The two primary ingredients for fueling a child’s muscles during practices and games — and which get used up the longer the activity goes on — are
Fluids: Kids lose fluids through perspiration, which is why water is such a vital ingredient to keep a child’s body temperature from rising during exercise. The longer children exercise without replacing lost fluids, and the more extreme the temperatures and conditions are, the less effective their performances are and the worse they feel.
Glucose: Although we don’t intend to give you flashbacks to your seventh- grade science class, you may recall that glucose, a sugar derived from carbohydrates, is an important muscle fuel. It’s carried to the working muscles through the bloodstream and stored in the muscles in long chains called glycogen. With all the running, stopping, and starting that’s required in a game, a child’s glycogen stores are steadily depleted. The more carbohydrate fuel children lose during competition, the less energy they have to perform at their peak.
What your child eats and drinks before, during, and after games impacts her performance, as well as how quickly she recovers before the next outing. The following sections cover what should be going into those young mouths before the shin guards are strapped on; share this information with your team.
Talking to kids about how today’s food can affect their health years from now is ineffective. But if you frame your discussion in terms of how their meal this morning affects their performance in the game this afternoon, your chance of grabbing their attention is much better, and the team is much more interested in what you have to say on the topic.
What to eat — pre-game
When your players show up at games without eating or after having devoured a burger, fries, and a soda, their energy levels are down, and they have trouble performing and concentrating. Although often overlooked, a nutritious pre-game meal clears the way for the children to execute at their optimum level. Youngsters who eat a healthy meal — or at least some healthy snacks — comprised of plenty of carbohydrates have the muscle energy to play and play well.
The pre-game meal needs to be comprised of foods that have most of their calories from carbohydrates, because they convert into energy quicker and more efficiently than other nutrients. For the most nutritional punch, youngsters should opt for pastas, breads, cereals, and whole grains, along with fruits or vegetables. Good pre-game snacks are bagels, yogurt, dried fruit, fresh fruit, energy bars, fruit granola bars, and whole-grain crackers with peanut butter or cheese. Stay away from candy, cookies, doughnuts, and regular and diet sodas.
Players should consume their pre-game meal 2–3 hours prior to the game. They should avoid eating within an hour of game time, because their bodies will spend the first half digesting their food, which detracts from their performance.
If your players feel sluggish in the second half of games or really seem to tire and not perform as well as they do in the first half, their diets may be the culprit. Have them experiment by changing their eating habits on practice days. Have them consume some healthy snacks prior to a practice and see whether they notice any difference in their energy levels. If so, they can utilize that knowledge and feed their body those types of food prior to their games, too.
If your team has a morning game, and the kids simply aren’t able to get up early enough to have a proper pre-game meal, make sure they focus on eating a nutritionally sound meal the night before, which helps prepare their bodies when they step on the field the following morning. This meal should be a big serving of pasta with some vegetables, chicken, or fish. Even the night before a game, kids should steer clear of candy, ice cream, and pop, which have the ability to rob them of much-needed energy on game day.
What to eat — post-game
What you say — and how you say it — following your team’s game impacts each child’s confidence and self-esteem. Similarly, what the players eat following a contest impacts their bodies and how they feel. Rewarding kids for a game well played with a tasty snack is fun, but giving them junk food sends the wrong message about the importance of following proper nutritional habits. The following are some post-game tips:
Think carbohydrates: Foods rich in carbohydrates that also have some protein value are the most beneficial for youngsters. Ideally, the post-game meal or snack should look a lot like the pre-game meal, with the only difference in the portions, which should be a little bit smaller. Turkey sandwiches, fresh fruit, and crackers with cheese are great post-game foods to let your team chow on.
The sooner, the better: The sooner your team digs into its post-game food, the better. Plenty of research out there indicates that foods packed with carbohydrates that are consumed within 30 minutes of a game or practice provide the most benefits for youngsters.
The importance of fluids
The importance of children consuming lots of fluids — and the right kinds — simply can’t be stated enough. When kids are running up and down the field chasing the soccer ball and exerting energy, their body temperature rises. The younger the children, the less they sweat, because their sweat glands aren’t completely developed at this stage in their life. This development is one of the reasons why their bodies soak up more heat when games are played in high temperatures and humidity. Children who don’t consume adequate amounts of water during games, especially those contested in hot and humid conditions, are at increased risk of becoming dehydrated and suffering muscle cramps; heat exhaustion; or, even worse, heat stroke.
So how much water should kids be consuming? Well, this amount varies, because game conditions dictate whether they need increased water consumption to remain sufficiently hydrated. Also, with so many different body types, kids sweat at different rates and need different levels of fluids.
Generally speaking, you want kids consuming water whenever possible. This rule means drinking a glass of water with their pre-game meal, consuming water during the pre-game warm-ups, and taking sips of water whenever they come out of the game. When it comes to fluids, here are some additional tips to quench your knowledge:
Be specific: With younger children, even though they hear you telling them to drink water, they probably aren’t consuming enough. During a break in practice or during a timeout during a game, tell the players to take 10 sips of water, for example. This specific instruction helps ensure that the kids get enough fluids into their bodies.
Help internal organs: After exerting themselves, kids need to consume lots of fluids to help replenish what they lose throughout the game. Giving the body water after a game helps the liver and kidneys push out all the waste, which is a key element in recovery.
Don’t worry about too much water: You don’t need to worry about kids drinking too much water. Most kids drink based on need. It’s a voluntary habit, and thirst is the mechanism that tells them to drink,
so with plenty of water breaks, you don’t have to worry about them sitting on the sidelines chugging too much water and not being able to perform on the field.
Encourage drinking even if they aren’t thirsty: Kids are often so immersed in the game that they don’t even think about drinking any water. You have to encourage them to drink. During timeouts and at halftime of games, when you’re providing encouragement and discussing game strategy, make sure you stress drinking water, too. Kids should be sipping water from their water bottles while you talk to them.
Encourage parents: A great way to help ensure that kids are properly hydrated is to work with parents. On the car ride over to the game, the parents can have their children drink some water. Spreading the water intake out helps ensure that the body remains hydrated, and kids don’t become bloated by trying to drink too much in one sitting.
Bring extra water: Always have extra water on hand to refill any child’s water bottle. Designate a couple of different parents each week to be responsible for bringing extra water; it’s simply something you should never have a shortage of at any practice or game.
Say no to caffeine: Beverages with caffeine in them act as a diuretic, which is exactly the opposite of what you’re trying to accomplish in keeping the kids hydrated. Also, keep kids away from carbonated drinks, because carbonation discourages drinking.
Chapter 19
Dealing with Common Coaching Challenges
In This Chapter
Communicating with problem parents
Sharing the sidelines with a disagreeable coach
Taming team troublemakers
Participating in organized soccer provides children a lifetime of memorable moments — though unfortunately, some of those memories may not turn out to be happy ones. Although every child who laces up a pair of soccer cleats and straps on a pair of shin guards should be able to look back on her participation with fondness, inappropriate behavior by parents in the stands and opposing coaches on the sidelines can quickly quash the fun and ruin the entire experience for everyone.
