I played up into college (intramural, I was far from good), and I coached both my daughters for years. Between the two I coached 17 seasons. Not 17 years, there was a lot of overlap where I coached two teams at the same time. I really love the sport.
But I get what you are saying about the flopping. It's not how the game should be played, and I certainly never coached it. Quite the opposite. You should have seen my players get after it. Other than the regular passing, dribbling, etc, I had one drill I called "death match". I would line the kids up in two lines facing each other and place a ball down between them and say "go", and the kids at the front of the line had to charge the ball and win it. Loser had to getit and bring it to me and then they went to the back of the line. We won ALL the 50-50 balls in games. Taught them shoulder barges, heck, I would have taught slide tackles but they were illegal. We also worked hard on things like spacing, but we ran death match every practice.
Did I mention that I started this in the 6-7 year old group? It's something to watch kids that age get after it hardcore. I had opposing parents complain to the league that we were cheating, but the league watched the games and would tell them, no, that's just how soccer is actually played. Ah, good times.
