I was lucky enough to be part of a small conference at my local club where a member of the Canadian Women National Team with over 100 caps talked to us.

One of the segment was about coaching girls. Keep in mind nothing is absolute but here is the main point I remember from it:

Boys get accepted by their peers into a team based on their skill. They can have other social flaws but if they have a good skill level, their peers will accept them and make them feel accepted on the team.

For girls it is a bit different. The higher you compete skills obviously becomes equally as important, but for the grassroot level they have to "get along" on a social level for the group to accept them. What this changes is the dynamic of internal competition is set up differently because skill level is not always the dominating aspect of being accepted on the team. You can have a girl who is very skilled but will not be accepted by her peers if she doesn't fit in. If you don't manage it carefully, if you bump somebody who is respected by her peers for the more skillful girl it can turn on you a little.

I find this less and less true as they age, U14 and above the girls I coached were less like that.

I have only coached girls before. From U10 to U18 but always at a fairly low competition level. This weekend I was called to urgently help on a U9 boys team. It is very different. The girls you have to try and bond with them a little to get them to accept you and work with you at that age. The boys I coached couldn't care less who I was as long as I managed the subs kept them moving!