After almost every tournament, a parent sends an email that goes along these lines:
I was just looking at your web site and was looking up scores with my son who plays for the blah-blah team who won the championships at your tournament.
I was very disappointed to see that the team they played in the finals was listed as the winner instead of team blah-blah.
Could you please help me explain this error to my son so he feels good about his and his teammates fine accomplishments.
The obvious explanation is It was a human error and we’ll fix it. As your son has undoubtedly discovered at his tender young age, people make mistakes. We find it incredulous that as a parent, you can’t explain that fact of life to your child. Hope you had a wonderful time at our tournament and your team returns next year!
As soccer tournaments become more real-time and the scores are reported almost instantaneously from the fields, the tolerance for any mistake at all is becoming less and less. The job of keeping track of all these scores is not becoming any easier, however.
Our Advice: Don’t make mistakes! Make sure that everyone along the score-reporting chain, including the referees, the field marshals, the score-keeper checks and double checks the accuracy of the scores. You may even want to include a score-auditor whose sole job at the tournament is to double check the scores on the web site against every game card, especially the finals.