Premier League Game #5 vs Woodbury

A lot of personal history with the Woodbury team.  I had a chance to work with many of the girls on that team back in the fall of 2004 in the inaugural and only season of the new-then-old Woodbury Soccer Academy program.  After that fall, some of the girls had chosen to remain with the Woodbury Soccer Club while others (the better players) had moved with us to begin the Bangu Tsunami Soccer Academy on the Renegades team.

The Renegades had won the fall State Championship that season and went on to have a successful summer season in 2005, emerging as the U12 summer State Champions as well.  The core group (all but one actually – Flash who opted to play with our top U13 Blue team) of the Renegades then decided to leave Bangu the following fall after the tryouts in August and stay together as a team for the 2005/2006 season, now playing under the Sibley Sting club – a club that had agreed to take the team intact as a U13 team so that the girls could remain together.  This past fall (2006), the group decided to return to Woodbury and play as a U14 Classic I team.  With one of their players leaving to Bangu after the fall of 2005, another three coming to join our club in the fall of 2006, and two other Renegades leaving and now playing with Wayzata’s U14 Premier team, the current Woodbury team is a shell of the team I knew a few years back.

Woodbury’s other disadvantage (on top of not having 7 talented players who had once been with the group) was that the team did not know that they would be playing in the U14 Premier League until early in 2007.  They were not able to hold tryouts and advertise “come play on a Premier team” last fall and thus missed the opportunity to potentially attract more talent.

With that said, most people had written this team off this year as the one team who would struggle to maintain their Premier status at the end of the season.  As expected, this sentiment has only served to strengthen the resolve of the Woodbury parents, and theu the players, and they have, IMO, exceeded expectations thus far this year.  Their girls play with a lot of heart and I know we would likely see them give their best effort tonight.

I’ve know their coach, OJ, for a long time. He’s a great guy and has had a lot of experience with top level older girls teams through St Croix and the Blackhawks.  He has his work cut out for him this year but has been doing well as far as I hear and can tell from recent results.

My thought for tonight was that Woodbury’s threat to us would come from 1) the center midfield play of Buggy, or 2) from the individual attacking play of Gracey (skilled) or Kage (speed).  We have worked enough on addressing the long balls over the top so my main concern was controlling the center of midfield.

I’ve known Buggy for almost 6 years now.  She was a U9 play up on my first U10 (Inferno) team in Woodbury in 2001.  She is quick, athletic, and has a good sense for the game.  Our U14 White team coaches thought she was the best midfield on the field when the teams met a few weeks ago and we needed to be aware of the danger she posed.

So, to address what I thought would be the major concerns from the Woodbury group, we came out in our 4-1-2-3 formation.  Not only did I hope the 3 midfielders, concentrated in the center of the field, would help defensively against the Woodbury threat up the middle of the field, but I didn’t think the Woodbury defense could match up and contain our three forwards.  I told the Bangu girls the same thing in our warm up, believing that if we could deny goals against us, Woodbury would not be able to keep us of the score sheet.  If they did manage to do this, more power to them.

We came out a little shaky, but settled into the match fairly quickly.  We weren’t as sharp as in some of the past games, but still found ways to be dangerous and created a handful of great chances at net.  We failed to capitalize on 3 or 4 excellent chances and what I thought at the time were sure (as sure as any at this age group) goals, and the girls were a little bummed at halftime to still be deadlocked at 0-0.

We addressed a few important points at halftime, mainly focusing on the positives in the first half and talking about trying to be a bit more composed in front of goal.  We were for sure more technical as a group than the Woodbury team and, unlike in some other U14 Premier League games, we were probably a bit more athletic overall as well.

Our breakthrough came 10 minutes into the second half.  I had just made a substitution and was talking to Macky on the sidelines, giving her some additional thoughts about finding space and creating better scoring opportunities in the box, so I missed what I would find out later to be some great build up to our goal.  As I was talking to Macky, facing away from the field, I saw the girls on the bench get up and look excited.  I turned in time to see Maddie (LF) play a fantastic low cross into the box that Jilly (CF) one timed into the net.  Apparently, Sophie (LD) had controlled an air ball well and found Nash (CM).  Nash played one touch back to Hannah (CD) who then played one touch over the top to spring Maddie down the left flank.  Maddie sprinted to the ball and drove a one touch cross on the ground that Jilly got on the end of.  Sounded like a great build up.

We continued to press the attack after that for the next 15 minutes, then I changed formation to a 4-4-2 to try and shore up the midfield defensively.  I think this shift took some of the rythem out of our play and instead of being more solid defensively, we started to lose control of the game.  This was also due in part to Woodbury’s renewed efforts to press the attack, looking for the equalizing goal.

In the last 5 or 6 minutes, I made two substitutions.  The first, which I thought would be the last, was to change girls as I normally would look to do, while asking one the forwards to drop back into the center mid, effectively changing to a 4-5-1 to end the game.  I then realized that I had pulled Becs out after only being on the field for a few minutes, so I subbed her back on a minute later.

One of the Woodbury players complained to the ref about watching for time wasting, and I stopped for a second and realized this is exactly what it looked like.  Fairly observant comment from the Woodbury player, but nothing I had thought about until that point.  I hate it when coaches at this age group do it, though I understand the tactic.  It was not in my mind here.

The game finished 1-0 good guys.  I’m sure some of the Woodbury girls were disappointed in the score, and I could feel a couple of the girls put some extra energy into very firm handslaps with me in the post-game hand shake line.  I know some of the parents in this group have hard feelings towards me, for reasons of their own, and I know some of this gets translated to the girls.  It’s hurtful to see some of the Woodbury players look at me with what I can only guess is disgust; players who I had worked with for years in the past in our Academy program.  Soccer coaching is a fickle business at best, with parents/players loving you one minute then hating you the next when your plans differ from theirs.

It was good to see Em play well for Woodbury.  She had been with my group for 2 years until choosing to return to Woodbury last fall when she was notified that she was a bubble player at tryouts.  She was one of the most athletic girls on the field yesterday and caused our forwards a lot of trouble with her speed and aggressiveness.  I think she will continue to be a force on the field in the years to come.

Anyway, a good result for us after a scrappy and gutsy performance by the girls.  As I’ve said before, any team can beat any other team on any given day in this league.  We come up against these girls again right after Regionals.  The second match up is sure to be a battle as well.