The Little Team, and What They Can Teach Us

By Ash Read on September 21, 2011

What Can we Learn From l’equip petit?

The film isn’t just a great story, I feel it provides valuable learning opportunities for everyone involved in football coaching and development. Now I’m not a football coach myself (truth be told, my coaching badges are something I would like to do soon), but here are three things I think we could learn from ‘The Little Team’.

It’s Not All About Winning

When you’re a young footballer it isn’t all about winning, it’s about fun. Speaking about his team’s lack of goals one of the young Margatania players says: “We don’t care, we’ll score when we grow old.” This shows that his team play because they love to and they enjoy it, not because they want to win – this is what youth football should be about.

In the UK I feel we focus too much on winning from a young age. We should allow players to enjoy themselves and play the way they want to play, rather than focussing on results and leagues.

The Joy of Passing

“But, we don’t miss many passes,” says one of the Margatania FC players when talking about their lack of goals. Passing is an essential part of football, we all know that. However, as a young player, I always wanted to score goals. Ironic for a defender I know, but goals win games, and that was always the focus for me and my team.

When working with young players maybe we should take the focus away from goals, praise passing and not keep scores until players reach a certain age. Again, I’m no coach, if anyone has any ideas on how this could be done please let me know in the comments below.

Stay Positive

No matter what the result Margatania’s players keep their heads held high, come off the pitch smiling and look forward to the next game. There’s no shame in losing a youth football match, we should do all we can to keep young players heads up and focus on positives and ways to improve, rather than results and league tables.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on the film and what you feel we can all learn from l’equip petit (The Litte Team)? Please join the discussion in the comments below.

↵ Back to blog