The Pick Up Soccer Game

The Pick Up Game
This is an opportunity for a club to return players to the pick-up game
(free play) environment where players learn how to play the game
from each other. This is the opportunity to mix age groups; for the 8-
to 15-year-olds no more than a two-year span in ages. For the players
16-years-old and older a three-year span is fine. Indeed this SSG
environment is a chance to also mix genders as the boys and girls
have different positive playing traits.

Past generations learned to play the game on their own with other kids
in the neighborhood or at school in these kid-organized games. Today
youth sports are overly adult controlled and influenced. It’s difficult
today for youngsters to have a pick-up game since the streets have too
many cars, the sandlot now has a mini-mall on it and parents are
reluctant, with good cause, to let their child go blocks away from
home on Saturday to play in a game on his or her own.
Pick-up soccer is a way for soccer clubs to give the game back to the
players in the community. Once a week, or whatever frequency fits
the circumstances the best, a club can have organized spontaneity.
The club will provide the fields and supervision. Adults will be on
site for safety and general supervision, but otherwise it is all up to the
players to organize the games.
The adults should NOT coach, cheer, criticize, referee or in any other
way involve themselves in the game. The best bet for parents is to
drop off their child, go run some errands, and then come back to pick
up your child an hour or two latter.
The coaches are on site NOT to coach, but to supervise, be on hand
for any serious injuries and any severe discipline problems.
Additionally the coaches are there to provide the game equipment and
to let the players know when each game segment starts and stops.
It can be used to assist with player development, player identification
and player selection. Mostly it is a chance for players to play the
game for the FUN of the game. Street soccer brings together children,
parents, coaches and volunteers to a soccer celebration, regardless of
ethnic or cultural backgrounds. Soccer is the common language and
the soccer ground is an arena for social inclusion.
Referees are not needed, since these rules are meant to teach self-
responsibility and fair play, with the implied agenda of improving the
player’s competences in non-violent communication and conflict
resolution.
Here are some pick-up game or free play event organizational tips:
• All participants play at the same time
• The use of goalkeepers is optional
• Each player has different teammates for five separate matches
• Matches are ten minutes long, using small goals
• Kick-off from the kick-off spot
• After a goal has been scored the player may dribble or pass the
ball from the back line
• Free-kicks are always indirect, the distance from the opponent
to the ball must be at least three yards
• Instead of throw-ins the ball is kicked in from the side line and
is indirect
• No off-side
• One can score from any position on the field
• Players have to decide their positions among themselves
• Players keep track of the score themselves
• There are no referees
• Players control the rules themselves
• Five small fields on an official field
• Cones/flags as a goal 2-3 yards wide
• The number of participants varies between sixteen and fifty; if
there are more than fifty participants then a second soccer field
has to be used
• At each field there are pinnies/bibs/vests
• Teams can be 4-a-side up to 6-a-side
• Players make their own substitutions if there are extra players at
a field

The beauty of setting up SSG practices and games is that numerous
fields can be set up within a regular adult-sized field. There is no
need to purchase expensive small sized goals or take the time to line
numerous small fields. It is the amount of time spent playing the
game that matters the most, not the aesthetics of painted lines or goals
with nets. Corner flags or bicycle flags can be used as goal and corner
markers. Cones or discs can be used to mark sidelines and end lines.
A minimum number of vests/pinnies/bibs can make it easy to change
teams from field to field. Have the players leave one set of bibs of
different colors on each half of the field when they are done playing
for the next group of players to use in the next game. Be sure to have
appropriate size soccer balls available. The players are responsible
for getting a ball to each game and for collecting the ball when it goes
out of play.

“Play has become spectacle, with few protagonists and many spectators, soccer for watching. And that spectacle has become one of the most profitable businesses in the world, organized not for play but rather to impede it. The technocracy of professional sport has managed to impose soccer of lightning speed and brute strength, a soccer that negates joy, kills fantasy and outlaws daring. Luckily, on the field you can still see, even if only once in a long while, some insolent rascal who sets aside the script and commits the blunder of dribbling past the entire opposing side, the referee and the crowds in the
stands, all for the carnal delight of embracing the forbidden adventure of freedom.”
Eduardo Galeano