Unbalanced Opposition
So, I am running into a problem I've never had in my short coaching career (U12 boys).
We we had a very inconsistent season last year and finished 3rd from the bottom. So, we were dropped down a division. In the offseason we picked up a bunch of new players who are astonishingly skilled. A number of my existing players have developed a lot as well. I was worried that we would run into this problem and it seems I was right.
We are 2 games into our season. We won our first match 9-5, with the opponent's goals coming mostly after we started being silly with who played keeper. Last night we won 18-0 and I feel awful. Winning is not my primary goal. This score is bad for everyone involved.
I was slow to respond to the problem and my interventions didn't really make a huge difference. I instructed to only shoot outside the box and told them they needed to work the ball around more. They can only do that so much. By the last quarter I had pulled players so we were down 2. We were still completely dominating play and scoring.
Any ideas on what to do? I don't want to ruin the sport for opposing players, I don't want to humiliate opposition with my attempts to balance the game, and I don't want to take the fun out of it for my boys.
Edit: Thanks for all of the ideas. To address a few points:
- The season is active and there is no opportunity to modify our schedule. I will look for tournaments and scrimmages to get my team exposure to more suitable opposition.
- We rotate positions regardless. No amount of rotation was fixing what happened last match.
- I am planning on introducing restrictions proactively next match with the hopes that they take hold a bit better. I want to target build out and play up the wings.
- A lot of great constraints like only score with headers, must play through GK, must switch fields, minimum pass criteria, etc. Thanks!!!