It seems simple enough: Let kids be kids and one day the best will rise to the top and go on to compete in the FIFA Women’s World Cup.

It’s not that easy: screaming parents, intense coaching session and brutal competition take the fun out of the game — any game — long before the kids become teenagers. And many get turned off.

The idea of coaching-free play, however, is an idea gaining traction with the support of a lot of high profile names, including John Herdman, coach of the Canada Women’s World Cup team, who has been evangelizing “parent-free training nights” where kids can just revel in kicking a ball around in having fun as if they were on a playground.

It’s a problem more noticeable in affluent countries, where play is overly structured than in less wealthy countries, where play is by necessity spontaneous. It’s leading to a dearth of talent at the highest levels in Canada, Herdman told activeforlife.com in an interview.

Better adults volunteer as “play angels,” Herdman said, and supervise but not direct, free form play.

It’s all music to Orangeville coach Steve Payne’s ears. He’s been telling anyone who will listen that good coaching means stepping back and letting the kids play.

Payne is technical director with the Huronia District Soccer Association and trains other coaches at the Ontario Soccer Association; he is one of only a handful of Canadians with a UEFA (Europe’s soccer governing body) Pro License.

His thoughts are capsulated in his book Streetwise Soccer, inspired by his experiences coaching and working in Brazil and watching kids play on the streets. It creates what Herdman, Payne and many others call a “culture of play,” something we’ve lost in an era of helicopter parenting.

“We’ve pretty well lost the streets here,” says Payne, who also did a stint as the Tasmanian Football Federation’s technical director, as manager of the Ottawa Fury and was a youth prospect with Charlton Athletic, a prominent London football club. “But there’s no reason we can’t recreate it in the field.”

Having fun and learning on the fly without pressure, is the key to falling in love with any sport, Payne says, and if you love the sport, regardless of whether you’ve got the ability or attitude to turn pro, it’s something you’ll more likely pursue for life. That in return bestows countless physical and mental health benefits — not to mention it’s something you can share and pass on to your own kids.

When explored David Livingston went to Africa, “he had no map, he adjusted his decisions as he went along,” Payne said. “Who are we as adults to deny kids the opportunity to discover their journey?”

The FIFA Women’s World Cup is taking place across Canada until July 5.

Let kids be ‘free’

“Kids shouldn’t be burdened with long technical drills or isolated fitness training,” Payne said. “Drills are for the army and construction workers, not kids. As a Dutch coach once said to me: ‘What happens when the cones move?’

In street soccer — or free play — younger kids learn first-hand from the older kids who act as role models and mentors. It’s in that arena of play where kids learn to make decisions on a free-flowing basis, which is critical to soccer success, rather than the playbook-imposed structure of top-down coaching.

Payne and Herdman aren’t alone. Premier League’s Arsenal manager Arsene Wenger has bemoaned the lack of creativity among younger players who have come from a cloistered, structured environment. Manchester United and England start Wayne Rooney proudly calls himself a “street soccer player,” saying kicking a ball about in his hometown Liverpool was where he learned to play.

“Kids today have short attention spans,” Payne said. “If they get turned off or lose interest they just switch the channel. It’s how they grew up with the Internet. As parents we can’t prescribe every minute of every day for them.”

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Some parents might be better off just dropping their kids off at practice and then returning to pick them up, rather than yell conflicting advice from the sidelines, Payne said.

“I see kids with their parents screaming at them and every time they get the ball or make a move they’re looking to the sideline to see if they’re doing it right or for direction,” he says. “I can’t tell you how wrong that is. Kids need to learn for themselves and grow their confidence with their own decision making. Something magical happens when kids are left to the playground and to play soccer without supervision. They just play and have fun and they learn.”

A coach’s job in the formative years is to create the safe environment where that magic can organically happen, Payne insists.

“Clubs like Barcelona FC and Ajax in Holland are doing 95 per cent of their work with the ball with their own kids now,” he said. “The strategy of shifting formation and tactics comes later when they are well into their teens.”