> Winning is important. It's why I go to the field. It is what gives sport value. Without the opportunity to prove I'm the best, I might as well go for a quiet

> Winning is important. It's why I go to the field. It is what gives sport value. Without the opportunity to prove I'm the best, I might as well go for a quiet walk. Winning is important to you. But not to others. many of us find other reasons to train, to suffer, to strive, and to enjoy a unique camaraderie with our fellow players. > The winning team did it by calling 'cheap' fouls. In what sense did they "win?" Why stop at cheap calls, why not trash your opponent's sleeping bags so they can't sleep the night before the finals? How about trash talking them so that they're too upset to play their best? Maybe 'accidentally' stomp a downed player's throwing hand? All of these things value the score above proving you are the best at anything except being able to limbo lower and lower under the minimum bar of civility. Such actions cheat everyone, including the people who 'won.' Now they'll never enjoy what you say you value, proving they are the best. Maybe they were the best, maybe they weren't. They'll never know. Back to youth soccer. In this particular case, we aren't even really talking about winning, we're talking about a rule that you aren't to win by more than five goals and a team choosing to score on their own net to "win." Honestly, if I took the field and someone did that, I would join you on a quiet walk and leave them to enjoy their "win" alone. That is neither winning nor losing soccer, it's something from a parallel universe where all that matters are some little black marks on a white piece of paper that gets tacked up on a bulletin board somewhere.