About Onside Soccer
What is Onside Soccer?
Onside Soccer is a collection of people who want to play soccer in a fun, respectful, and supportive way while getting a good work out. Many adult leagues end up focusing on standings and fixtures, often resulting in overly competitive games, unsporting behaviour, and a higher risk of injury. We want to be different than those leagues. At Onside, we've created an environment where players can get a good workout, improve their game, and play good and fun soccer with like-minded people.
Our Values
- Respect: This league is about getting a good workout, playing good soccer, and building a good community. We'll focus on lifting each other up, not on putting each other down. Our language and actions should focus on welcoming and supporting other players. We welcome players of all races, ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, and backgrounds.
- Safety: We want to create a safe environment on and off the pitch. On the pitch, we'll work to avoid injuries by getting a good warm up, preventing dangerous tackles, and focusing on development instead of wins. Off the pitch, we want to create a community - not a series of opposing teams.
- Improvement: Even adults who have been playing soccer for a long time can still learn or can all improve aspects of their game. Onside is geared towards players who are, or are striving to become intermediate level. Onside is focused on individual and collective improvement; by the end of a season, we should all feel like we're playing better soccer.
- Quality & Equality: We focus on playing good soccer and getting a good workout in what we call a "friendly-competitive" attitude. You push yourself, your teammates, and your opponents to play the best soccer you can. That means we'll ask players to run hard and work hard. It also means we'll talk about tactics, positions, structure, and strategy. However, we won't sacrifice equality - everyone gets equal playing time.
- Gender Neutrality: This league is gender neutral; any player can be on the field at any time regardless of biological sex.
Who are we for?
We're a good fit for adult players who:
- Want to improve their game
- Want to play good soccer
- Don't care if they win or lose, but want to play a challenging game
- Want a good, intense workout
- Want to play in a fun environment
- Have played soccer before
Who aren't we for?
We're not a good fit for players who:
- Are highly competitive
- Get carried away on the field
- Currently play at a high level
- Have never played soccer
- Like to showboat or show off
- Like to manage other players
- Aren't interested in developing