answer:It happens more often than we’d like to see. About 14 years ago I was the commissioner of a youth soccer league in Michigan with about 1200 kids (at the time; it has probably grown since then). But since it was a “rec” league and not one of the leagues of “select” teams we had pretty strict rules about playing all kids equally, and all over the field. (In other words, don’t just stick the big kid in goal because he’s big and can’t run fast.) So our rules pretty much mandated that coaches were bound to put in all players as much as practical (because rules of substitution apply, too) throughout the game, and not run up the score and then put in the scrubs. Parents knew that, and kids did, too. We didn’t have much of those problems. In two years of “being the commish” the worst dispute that I heard about was when two coaches in the Under-16 league got into a shouting match during one game. Even if the kids aren’t all the best players, the coaches can get competitive as hell and push the rules. One of the coaches accused the other of cheating, and it went on from there. I called them both to a Saturday morning breakfast meeting to discuss the incident (since I hadn’t seen it) and adjudicate, somehow. I can hardly recall the details. The coaches left the meeting still unhappy with each other, but at least I was able to settle the “cheating” question: it was just aggressive coaching that might have violated some of the “spirit of the league”, but didn’t rise to a level of cheating. Case closed; no resignations, no dismissals. I think I let them pay for breakfast. EDIT: I nearly lost track of my point. I can understand the passion of wanting your child to play and be able to do well, and I can understand that as kids (and their coaches, who are more often than not parents of some of the kids on the teams) get older and become more able, everyone wants to improve the level of play. But kids at the 5–7 bracket? They should just be out there (as many as can fit on the field at a time!) just bouncing off each other and having a ball.