A Weekend in Iowa - Day 3

We had a 9AM game against Homer.  It looked to be shaping up into another beautiful day weather-wise and I was looking forward to the competition the girls would face today.

Game #3 vs Homer Hawks (2-1)

Homer had lost to KC Heat yesterday 2-1, and beat Windy City 2-0.  Not only did this give me confidence that we stood a very good chance of competing well this morning against what I initially thought was going to be the toughest game of the group, but it also meant that unless we lost the game 3 or 4 to zero, we were already in the finals.

Once again we started out strong, when in the 4th minute, Soph (left back) sent in a hard far post cross that the GK couldn't handle.  Scratch (right forward) pounced on the loose ball to give us a 1-0 lead.  We held the lead for about 3 seconds, until the center ref noticed the linesman's flag frantically waving around, and the goal was called back for offsides.

14th minute, Lily (holding mid) played in a long diagonal through ball to Mille (point) who went 1v1 with the GK and slid the ball home for the 1-0 lead.  No flag waving linesman this time.

47th minute, Maddog (left forward) played in a low, hard cross that one of the Homer defenders knocked into their own net to put us up 2-0. 

The game wasn't that close as we carried the great majority of play.  Two minutes from time, Homer was awarded a corner kick and we got caught napping.  They sent two girls out to the corner to play a short one, and not one of our players reacted to the movement.  Homer sent a dangerous ball into our box from the short corner, we half cleared it, and the resulting pressure in our area saw a Homer forward finish to bring them back to 2-1.  Though we ended up winning the game, I was disappointed that we tuned out on the set piece that started this whole sequence.  I talked to the girls after the game about the importance of staying tuned in the entire 60 minutes, and this was a good learning experience for us as a whole.

3-0 in group play, scoring 12 goals and allowing 2... we were rolling.

Championship Game vs Chicago Magic (2-4)

We've played this team twice in the last two years, losing 1-0 and tying 0-0.  I know we're the better team and was looking forward to proving it today.  The girls had played very well all tournament long and I didn't expect much to change in the final.

We came out on fire, again, and carried much of the play for the first part of the half.  Midway through, at least I think it was midway through as I was too engrossed in the game to take exact notes, the Magic went up 1-0 on what I call a typical goal at this age group.  A high, not too powerful lob/shot at goal that goes over the keeper's outstretched arms. 

About 2 minutes from time, the Magic go up 2-0 as their one stud player dribbled through four of our girls, all of whom could have put a tackle in but none of whom did, ripped a shot the was blocked by one of our defenders.  The ball ricocheted to a wide open Magic player on our right side and she put the ball away with a nice finish. 

To our girls credit, they took the kick off, stormed down the right side of the field and Sting (right forward) sent in a low cross to Bidi (point).  After a little scramble, Bidi got a good shot off that whistled by the Magic GK to pull us back to 2-1.  My watch said 31 minutes, their coach was livid at the extra time added on.  Not sure what it was added on for as there were no injuries, nor tear-your-shirt-off-and-airplane-run-and-karate-chop-the-corner-flag-and-take-up-2-minutes-on-the-clock post goal celebrations by either team.  My only thought was that for the first time in the event, the sideline ref on our side of the field would hold all the girls at midfield until the players coming off the field were truly off the field, prior to letting the subs enter.  This took time every time and is the only reason I can think of for the added time at the end of the half.  We'll take it...

It was a huge goal for us just before half and the girls were excited.  I knew we'd come back to tie it in the second half and told the girls so.  We switched to a more attacking formation to what I call a 3-2-2-3 by asking one of our center backs to push forward up into midfield as we looked to press for the equalizer.  We got it less than 10 minutes later as Soph (left back) played a pretty give and go with Sting (left forward) down our left flank.  Soph hit in a low, hard, one-time cross into the box from Sting's return pass to Bidi (point).  Bidi beat her marking defender and blasted a shot past the on rushing Magic GK.  It was a great goal!

Maybe at this point I should have gone back to our 4-1-2-3 base formation.  However, I felt we had the momentum and wanted to go for the knock out punch.  We carried the run of play, but ended up conceding a goal to the Magic's one stud player with about 10 minutes left to play.  We pushed forward into the attack again, and gave up another goal a few minutes after that.