Suggestion For MVP Scoring System

Motivation

I came up with this system because a player's parent last night pointed out a couple facts that stuck with me:

1. It's easy for players to have a skewed perspective of the game by:
   • Being too results driven
     • Letting mistakes get to them (even small ones)
     • Only seeing the good in specific accomplishments instead of overall improvement. Accomplishments like:
       • Scoring goals
       • Assists
       • Steals
       • Saves
2. This makes it difficult for players to see their own progress
3. Which leads to
   • Being down and reduces player morale
   • Judging teammates
   • Less focus on self-improvement

I am a firm believer that no matter what, players are making improvements and progress. This needs to be fed back to them to nurture that improvement into even more improvement. The main crux here is that players can't see their progress. There's no way for all players to quantitatively analyze themselves to see what areas need work and also what areas have met their satisfaction.

Solution

I came up with an internal scoring system as well as some governance as to how to handle this.

Scoring

There are different tasks that can be scored (with points). It's designed such that just about everything done on a field can be scored. Some items earn no score at all, but they're still recorded (more about this later). Some items are negative points because this is behavior to be discouraged like poor sportsmanship.

Scoring gives us a chance to give feedback an unbiased, objective way. Your coach isn't showing favoritism because the numbers don't lie.

Description	Score (pts)
Goal	10
Save in the goal	10
Assist	5
Shot on Goal	5
Draw triple-team	5
Steal	5
Execution of Coordinated Play	5
Save in front of the goal	5
Save force out-of-bounds	2
Draw double-team	2
Cross	2
Pass	1
Special Skill*	1
Offsides trap	1
Callout	1
Practice 10 min early	1
In Game Encouragement*****	1
Game 10 min early	5
Save or recovery	0
Hesitation****	0
Player harassment**	-1
Foul	-1
Abandoning position/formation	-1
Pass in front of goal (defense)	-1
Pass to non-team-member	-1
Counter strategy maneuver***	-1
Offsides	-1
Late to practice	-1
Late to game	-5

Special Skill *Use of special skill learned in practice.

• Maradona
• Header/Shoulder
• Ronaldo twist
• Reverse/Cruyff
• Slide tackle
• et al

Player Harassment **Poor sportsmanship by verbally or physically abusing players of any team.

Counter Strategy Maneuver ***A catch all for when players do something that hurts the strategy of the current play. One example is moving behind a defender when trying to draw an offside trap. Another example is cutting off a teammates escape or blocking a teammates shot on goal.

Hesitation ****This is something that is a nitpick, but belongs because it's valuable feedback. It gets a 0 score because it happens so often, it's hardly reasonable to rate it.

Encouragement *****I realize this can be abused; however, I think it's a really good thing to do anyway. I think one way for a game to take a turn is when players lose confidence. The team should be holding each other up. They should carry each other. Players that do this should be praised. I think one form of encouragement is celebration. In some leagues, points are awarded to teams/players for celebration on goals or otherwise. I think club soccer shouldn't be different.

The scoring is designed such that anyone can easily earn points. A defender can earn as many points as a forward through saves, passes, and coordinated play execution. A midfielder can earn points through passes, coordinated play execution, assists, and goals. For example, if a forward scores off a coordinated play the scoring goes something like this:

Player	Score	Description
Nadia	12	Nadia makes a save in front of the goal and passes to Jasmine for coordinated play
Jean	14	Jean receives a pass from Jasmine, dribbles (drawing double-team) and crosses to Kelsey getting the assist
Jasmine	13	Receives a pass from Nadia, avoids a player, passes back to Nadia, Receives pass again and crosses to Jean.
Kelsey	15	Kelsey receives a pass and scores

Notice all the scores are relatively comparable. Jasmine was a cornerstone that connected two separate coordinated plays which granted her 10 pts (as much as a goal which reflects the importance of her role). Jean drew a double-team (did not go unnoticed) allowing Kelsey to be open for pass and shot on goal. Nadia also had a save in front of the goal allowing her to trade passes with Jasmine to maneuver the ball toward the midfield. This shows that as players work together, they will earn more points compared to players that do not. Even a keeper can earn huge points because a save in the goal is worth as much as a goal itself. If the keeper coordinates with a play on goal kick that will earn even more.

Nuances/Caveats

There are some problems and added benefits that also come from scoring.

Parents Should Handle Scoring

The reason I suggest parents should score is for 2 reasons:

1. Not compromise coach into favoritism. If the coach is calling it, one could say the coach is showing favoritism toward a player. Parents are always showing favoritism, so it makes sense that each parent should do this.
2. It's unreasonable for a coach to keep track of virtually every play. It would be too distracting and tedious.

I realize that it's an unreasonable expectation for some parents as it may be difficult to make it to games. As a team, there could be provision made for these players. I don't have a real solution here, but I think everyone who wants to participate should be allowed to and there can be a possible solution.

Attendance

Coaches should handle attendance.

Incentives and Accidental Incentives

Besides players being able to see their progress there are other incentives.

MVP

Improvement shouldn't just be encouraged. It should be celebrated. 5 Players at the end of the season with the highest points will be selected for vote. The team (coaches and players only) will vote on who they think is MVP from the 5 highest. MVP gets perks:

1. Season of bragging
   • Special band for next season showing they're the MVP of the previous season. Wear it during games or wherever you want people to know not to mess with you.
   • Special band is not a captain band
2. Trophy
3. MVP party

The top 5 means that players will have 50% to 30% chance of making it to the vote. These are pretty good odds. It means that a player that works hard and improves, they can be MVP. It also means that anyone can be MVP and emphasizes that all players contribute and are valuable.

There is a secondary benefit here which is better sportsmanship. Players will be incentivized to have better sportsmanship because points will only get you in the top 5. You still need to get the votes from your team which means you need to be someone your coaches and teammates love and respect.

Personally, I am excited about the MVP concept. I realize it can be abused and I would like to open the option to have this title taken away. I really like it though because celebration of your team MVP is something I don't see very much. I like the idea of two teams taking the pitch and one of them has an MVP. I can just imagine how demoralizing that would be for the opposing team and possibly make the player more intimidating to that team.

Players come to practices and games on time (maybe even early)

Every point counts!!! Hopefully, parents will be incentivized to make sure players get those points.

Better Plays and Play Organization (Gamification)

To ensure maximum points, players may coordinate (off-the-field) to discover/create plays rated by points for the most points and chance of success. For example, players may discover that a simple reverse pass to a cross as a coordinated play can earn as many as 7 points for each player involved. The player that can connect 2 of them may earn 14. Once players realize this that actual plays may have their own point values, they will start to create plays to maximize the amount of points (lowest risk for highest reward) which will make them think about their plays and make them better players.

Better Coaching Feedback

It's hard for a coach or even 3 coaches to see everything going on in the game. Even if there are 3 coaches, they have 3 separate perspectives that need to be compiled and rarely are. This kind of system allows the coach to see just about everything that happens in a game and understand where players are weak as well as where they are strong.

Process

1. Someone watches player and tracks plays and what happens in the game.
2. Notes on what happens in the game are given to the coach.
3. Coach compiles score for each player.
4. Coach hands out results.

Privacy

Scores are kept private unless parents/players want to share that information. These scores are intended for personal development.

Participation

Participation is optional. Players can decide if they want to do this. It can be a burden to some and not feel worth it. This is meant to be a tool for people that want to grow and improve in the sport and would benefit from this kind of motivation.