Benefit of Street Soccer for Individual Who Wants to Join.

By analyzing street soccer yourself, you will conclude that its strength is that it is played daily in a competitive form, with a preference for the match on all sorts of 'street playing fields', usually in small groups. Rarely in street soccer do you see youths busy practicing isolated technical and tactical drills. No, it is always the competitive form, where youth players learn from their mistakes, unconscious of the technical, tactical, mental and physical qualities they are developing through the scrimmages being played.

Playing soccer every day ensures this development. It is a process where it is not necessary for adults to be present. You also learn the team tactical principles without effort through playing the game. Your teammate, higher in the street soccer hierarchy, forces you to comply...

In African and South American countries, where the conditions for street soccer are favorable, you can immediately notice that youth players have a head start. They go through a more varied technical and tactical development within their own experiences. Therefore, the "feeling" for the game is also better. They find their motivation on the street to play the games over and over again, no matter how simple they are. Even if there is only a wall at their disposal... 6

There is an argument that street soccer today is no longer possible. "Automobiles now drive where games were once played. The playgrounds are used as hangouts for older youth with other interests. Open grass fields are now dog parks. The conditions for street soccer in many countries are less than ideal." 6 Add bicycle unfriendly suburbs, the need for permits to use public fields, the managed schedules that most children have today and spontaneous play of any kind, let alone street soccer is hard to imagine.

In spite of all of these obstacles, which are solvable, there's another reason why street soccer doesn't enjoy the same popularity as pick up basketball. In his book, How Soccer Explains The World, Franklin Foer observes:

But for all the talk of freedom, the sixties parenting style had a far less laissez-faire side too. Like the 1960's consumer movement which brought American car seatbelts and airbags, the soccer movement felt like it could create a set of rules and regulations that would protect both the child's body and mind from damage. Leagues like the one I played in handed out "participation" trophies to every player, no matter how few games his (or her) team won... Where most of the world accepts the practice of heading a ball as an essential element of the game, American soccer parents have fretted over the potential for injury to the brain. An entire industry sprouted to manufacture protective headgear... Even though very little medical evidence supports this fear, some youth leagues have prohibited headers altogether.

This reveals a more fundamental difference between American youth soccer and the game as practiced in the rest of the world. In every other part of the world, soccer's sociology varies little: it is the province of the working class... Here, aside from the Latino immigrants, the professional classes follow the game most avidly and the working class couldn't give a toss about it. Surveys, done by sporting goods manufacturers, consistently show that children of middle class and affluent families play the game disproportionately... That is, they come from the solid middle class and above.

Observing youth soccer in America it is very difficult to argue with Foer's assessment that it is solidly a middle class sport. And the middle class brings it's values into the picture. Middle class values don't see street soccer as a legitimate educational method. It is recess as opposed to physical education. Children need to be taught and teaching should be done by experts. Few would argue that over the last 30 years children are being "taught" almost everything at increasingly younger ages. Soccer instruction now begins with four year olds, so that the children will have an advantage as six year olds. This need to get ahead brings with it the fear of falling behind and the need for accountability that only expert instruction can prevent and provide. This type of instruction leaves no room for the trial and error system of street soccer. Middle class values are in conflict with the basic