Schedule a Mix of Competition Levels
How many games is correct? This is an interesting philosophical question that you will find much argument about. While everyone is entitled to their opinion, I'd like to present some empirical evidence. I've coached for over 30 years and my teams have always played a lot of games - about 60. And I have never had a kid complain. In fact, they love it. The more the better. The only people who complain are some adults, who tell me "your teams play too many games". I think this is interesting - the kids love the games and never complain. Adults complain about too many games. Now lets think about this - whose opinion do you think matters more?
It is very important to play a mix of different competition levels. For example, my Bantam "A" team may play 10 games at the "B" level, 30 at the "A" level, and 20 at the "AA" level. Kids tend to play at the level of their competition. When we play very strong teams we tend to play better. We may lose, but we learn a great deal. However a steady diet of "AA" for an "A" team will get discouraging, so we mix it up.
When playing at the lower levels (an "A" team playing "B"), the kids tend to try some fancy moves. Also, the weaker kids on the team can gain a great deal of confidence, and more playing time, in these games.
Since we play teams at vastly different talent levels, we may win some games 10-0 and lose others 10-0. Losing a game 10-0 provides an opportunity to teach different lessons that when winning 10-0. However, the mix of both is great. A steady diet of winning all the games or losing all the games tends to make kids think they are either "really good" or "really bad". A mix teaches a more important lesson - that the final score doesn't always indicate how you played.
I have also discovered that losing a few games 10-0 has helped make the kids treat the other team better when we win 10-0. The kids have been on both sides.
There is a huge educational issue here for your parents. Almost all parents think the kids "played well and looked good" when we win 7-0, and they all think the kids "played bad and didn't hustle" when we lose 7-0. However, if we beat a bad "B" team 7-0 and lost to a great "AA" team 3-2, we may have actually played much better in the loss.