Tournaments

While its fans have been celebrating its exciting 1-0 win over Algeria in South Africa, the U.S. men's soccer team has had to stay focused on its upcoming game against Ghana in the round of sixteen on Saturday.  One of the hardest parts of having multiple competitions in a single day, or within a week, is the challenge of staying mentally and physically sharp and focused. Here are five tips to help your child stay focused the next time he has multiple games or races on his schedule.

The calories burned during a soccer game, much less a two-day tournament, require soccer players to literally be eating all the time, so parents need to feed youth soccer players a high calorie diet for peak performance.

Ever wonder how it was that all the coaches' sons or daughters are so much more "talented" than the other kids that they get to continue playing all summer, sharpening their skills, getting the advantage of playing three, four, even five times a week under the lights or in the hot summer sun, while other kids, eager to play, stand on the outside looking in, already stigmatized by having been deemed "not good enough" to play.

To say that politics and favoritism are often involved in the selection of all-star teams in youth sports would be an understatement, but making the selection process fairer is easier said than done.