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.

Premier League Game #4 vs Wayzata

Wow.  Hot day.  The girls were wilting walking from the parking lot to the field.

Up against Wayzata for the third time is as many weeks.  This was our tie breaker with Wayzata beating us in PKs to take the NSC Cup Championship over Memorial Day Weekend up in Blaine and the Bangu girls winning 2-0 in Woodbury in our first meeting in the Premier League.  Today was sure to be a battle.

This game was a rescheduled match as we were supposed to meet the week of June 25 when we would either be in, or just coming back from Regionals in Iowa.  Wayzata was accommodating enough to the reschedule, but with both teams’ schedules relatively booked for the next month, we decided that today would work best.  The girls had ODP training at 5:30PM today and there was some hesitation from the parent group about scheduling a game in conflict with the ODP session.  However, the way I saw it was that as we were imposing on Wayzata to reschedule their home game we would work with whatever worked for them.  The game was going to be played at 7PM, but Wayzata was able to push it up to a 4PM start when I informed them about the ODP training.

The teams are fairly well matched, with us having the technical and, IMO, the tactical edge and Wayzata having the size and aggressiveness edge.

My goal for today was to have the girls focus on the aspects we had been covering in our last couple training sessions; keeping our twin strikers linked and working together with our midfielders looking to be unpredictable on their forward passes, sometimes looking over the top, sometimes looking for feet, always keyed into the 2^nd runner.  I mentioned to the girls prior to the game of these goals for today, encouraging them to try and forget about the end game result in favor of working on our overall team development.  Tough to do, I understand, but again, as I’ve mentioned before, if people focus on pure results, we set the girls up for possible failure when a win is not in the cards for the day.  If we can rather shift the focus on trying to succeed in other things that we can control, the girls are winners no matter what the scoreboard says after the match.  A bit cliché, but important for this age group.

During our warm up, I gave the girls a visual reminder about the possibilities going forward by illustrating the different passing options and movement with two forwards and four midfielders while the others watched.  I hoped this visual reminder would refresh the girls’ memories a bit about our last two training sessions.

The game started out well for us.  We came out and knocked the ball around a bit, were fairly solid in the back, and sprung our forwards for some good chances at goal.

Ripper (RF) was involved in our two best chances midway through the first half.  The first came when she chased down a ball played over the top of the Wayzata defense and headed to goal 1v1 against the keeper.  Wayzata’s fast defenders recovered enough to apply pressure and this, combined with an aggressive play off her line by the Wayzata GK helped see Ripper pull the shot just wide of the left post.

A few minutes later, another ball was played through to Ripper.  The Wayzata defender made the mistake of raising her hand and looking at the linesman appealing for offsides AND stopping playing in anticipation of the call.  The flag stayed down and Ripper was off again, this time to the right side of the goal.  This time, instead of going to goal she hesitated a bit then played a great little diagonal slot pass to Millie (LF) who was cutting to goal.  I heard the Wayzata coaches appeal for offsides but again the flag stayed down.  I couldn’t tell if Millie was on or off, but in the end it didn’t matter as her first time shot from about 6 yards out hit the GK square in her hands.

The half ended 0-0 with hot and tired girls on both sides of the field.

At halftime, I addressed a few key points.

1. If our forwards are not making a play at a ball coming at one of the Wayzata defenders, they need to believe that the defender will miss it and our forwards may be off to the races.  Too many times our forwards were caught standing as long balls were played forward, only to be surprised and too slow to react once the balls were missed or misplayed by the opposing defenders.  I want our forwards to work hard and challenge every loose ball as even though they have a very slight chance of getting to the ball first, their pressure, or threat of pressure on an opposing defender may be enough to result in a forced or rushed clearance.  Either one means an increased chance that the defender will not be able to get a clean foot or header on the ball or will not be as accurate as when clearing a ball with zero pressure.
2. We need to continue to work on being proactive on the flanks.  Many times our central mids would look to change fields and a dangerous ball to the corners would be on.  However, our wide mids tend to be reactive instead of proactive.  Proactive would mean that they anticipate the ball coming their way, realize that the central mids 1) are changing fields, and 2) have time and space to play a long ball, and move to make the pass.  I want the run to make the pass, as opposed to the mid playing the ball then our wide mids running after it.
3. We had a couple breakdowns in the back due to lack of communication.  This is something I need to address prior to Regionals.

We continued to play fairly well in the second half.  We created a few dangerous chances that we just couldn’t capitalize on due to a breakdown in the last pass (isn’t it always on the last pass!).

Ten minutes from time we lost the ball in midfield.  Macky (CM) was battling for it and tripped over the ball.  Sophie (LD) started giggling at Macky’s flailing attempts to right herself and wasn’t able to pressure the Wayzata midfielder enough.  Macky got up and Sophie arrived only to both be split by some nifty skill by the Wayzata midfielder.  She started up field, beat Hannah (CD) and headed to goal.  Scratch (CD) came over quick as lightning to deny the shot, giving up a corner on our right side.  The corner kick was whipped in and headed clear by Maddie (LM).  She followed her header up the field as a Wayzata defender rushed to keep the ball alive in the danger area.  The Wayzata defender crossed/shot the ball from about 30 yards out into the far post side netting. Stuart, Tony’s (Wayzata’s Head Coach) would later dub this as a “crot” when we were chatting at the end of the game.  Regardless, they all count when they go in and we were down 1-0.

I thought about it for a second, then made the decision to press for the equalizer.  I motioned to Ripper on the bench and told her that we were going to pull Becs (RD) and go to 3 in the back. Ripper was going to go in up top as a third forward.

As I was busy explaining to Ripper for the third time who she was going in for and what formation we were going to move towards, frustrated that we had already missed one opportunity to make the sub due to Ripper’s confusion, the girls on the field surged forward from the throw in and were awarded with a corner kick of their own on the right side.

I can’t remember who took the kick (Jilly I think), but it wasn’t a good one.  Instead of falling into the danger area, it swung out to the top of the box.  We managed to keep it alive and send it back into the danger area, but it was then half cleared back to the top of the box.  Becs was sitting at the 18 and hammered a volley into the far post.  It was a great goal.  Isn’t that just the way it goes.  If Ripper had understood my instructions on the first go round, Becs wouldn’t have even been in the game at that point.  This is a funny game.

Game ended 1-1 in a hard fought battle.  I was a little disappointed in the result as I feel we are a better team, but Wayzata is a classy team all the way around, coach, manager, and players (to the extent that I know the players) and we will likely have many battles down the road.

* * * * *

Up next we train Monday at Holy Angels, then see Woodbury on Tuesday it what will surly be another tough test.

Premier League Game #3 vs Wayzata

A rematch of the NSC Cup championship match up 3 days ago, I wasn't very confident we'd be able to get a favorable result tonight in Woodbury.  Not that I think Wayzata is better than us, but rather because we'd be without 3 players for most of the game as Blondie and Soph had a band concert in Woodbury and would be arriving sometime after halftime, and Brownie was out with a band concert of her own down in Lakeville.  The fields at Bielenberg are huge, and having a limited number of subs would not help us.

There was some major traffic delays on the roadways, so 20 minutes prior to game time I had 8 players on site.  Enough to play I guess... but it didn't do anything to help my confidence that we would provide Wayzata with a game.  Girls started to trickle in, though between girls showing up late and those girls (having been stuck in traffic for 60 minutes while hydrating) having to find restrooms, our warm-up intensity was well below our normal standard.  Could be a long night.

The game kicked off, and before I could get very settled in my chair with a mouthful of sunflower seeds we went up 1-0.  Wayzata cleared a ball out of their end and pushed their team up the field.  Hannah, about 10 yards inside our half, sent a long ball back at the Wayzata defenders that caught some of them by surprise.  The ball bounced through them and Macky (RF) ran onto it.  She peeked up prior to reaching the ball, saw the Wayzata GK at the top of her box in no-man's land, and proceeded to send an early, high, lofted shot sailing over the keeper's head into the net.  It was a great, head's up finish by Macky and an important lift to the team.

Around the 27 minute mark, we got our second.  Jilly (LM) tried to play a long ball to Ripper (LF) in the left corner.  The Wayzata defender, with Ripper pressuring, got to the ball first and tried to play a back pass to her GK.  The pass was hit too softly, so Ripper pounced on the ball, took a touch wide of the approaching GK and hit a low shot into the net.

We played well in the first half, creating maybe one or two additional "good" chances at goal.  Wayzata was really only dangerous on their attacking corner kicks as our defenders played tough.  The first half ended 2-0.

Blondie arrived at halftime with Soph close on her heels.  The fresh legs were exactly what we needed as our midfielders were tiring quickly. 

At halftime, we talked about our wide mids pinching in to help our central mids when we didn't have the ball.  Wayzata was able to knock the ball around at times in our defending third just outside of our box, and we needed to get more numbers in the middle of the field to try and distupt this. 

We also talked about making the Wayzata defenders more predictable by having our forwards bend their runs when applying pressure as to not allow Wayzata to change fields.  We want to change fields in order to find teammates with time and space in less populated areas of the field.  I explained to the girls that if we want to change fields in possession, doesn't it make sense that we want to stop our opponents from doing the same thing?  A few light bulbs went off at that statement.  A few...

The second half saw us continue to play well.  Both teams had some dangerous chances on goal but neither team could break through to score.  The game ended 2-0, good guys.

Looking at the standings below, this is why I'm so glad we were able to participate in this league.  It is almost impossible to predict who will win a game in this league as any team can beat any other team.  Last fall, people wrote off teams like Wayzata, Coon Rapids, yet both teams have proven that they belong in this league.  When Woodbury was added to the league this past winter, again people looked to write them off, claiming that they would struggle to maintain their Premier status.  I think all these teams have dug in their heels and have something to prove, and to this point, they have all done so.

It will be interesting to see how things shake out come mid-July, but I think all the U14G Premier coaches will agree with me that all our girls will benefit from this competitive experience.

Premier League Game #2 vs Coon Rapids

Nice night for a game.

Today we faced Coon Rapids in our second U14 Premier League game.  I did not know much about the team other than feedback from our U14 White team coach who had played against them last week.  He said that CR was fairly athletic, had a talented central forward, but played boot ball most of the time without much thought of creative build up.

Regardless, I knew we’d be in for a tough game.  Not only likely physically outmatched around most of the field, but also due to the fact that we were missing 3 girls; one (Bidi) in Washington, DC, for a school function (out until Sunday) and two others (Jilly and Macky) due to band concerts.  I talked with Andy Kaasa, our U12 coach, and asked Cutter to play up with us to help with numbers for the game.  She was excited to join us, knowing many girls on the team from the 94 ODP group, so we came into the game with 15 players.

I knew about CR’s talented forward as I had spoken with her and her family a few years back about joining our club.  I think they had been close to coming but she is also a big time hockey stud and I think the participation on two high level sports teams was a little daunting for them.  Just my guess here on their reasoning, but I think she would have thrived on our current U14 team.

We were also scheduled to play on a huge, 120x75 yard field at Bielenberg (Woodbury) and our girls would have to work hard against the bigger, faster, and stronger CR girls.

We started a bit slow and CR dictated a bit more of the play in the first 10 or 15 minutes.  Our girls settled in nicely though and soon began taking control of the game with good side to side field changes and more control of the center of the field.  We didn't create a ton of chances, but didn't give up many either.  I could tell though that a number of girls were off their game though, not as sharp as usual and tiring easily on the big field.

The half ended 0-0.

I talked to the girls at halftime about the communication and organization of our back four, challenging the girls to realize when some of them could push forward due to superior numbers in the back (many times we’d have our back 4 sitting back in our attack when only 1 CR forward was staying deep. I also talked about playing a bit more quickly in the middle of the field as the athletic CR players were closing down our central midfielders hard.

We talked about our training session yesterday regarding early crosses as Nash (RD) had been able to serve in a number of dangerous early balls from her right back position. I reminded the girls that they needed to stay tuned into the play and “read” Nash (and our other wide players) to better anticipate the early deliveries.

Lastly, we talked about not giving any of the CR defenders easy clearances.  Most of them could hoof the ball up the field 40 or 50 yards and I wanted the girls, the forwards especially, to do what they could to disrupt the CR defenders' concentration on the ball by applying pressure.  This was the same on aerial battles as many of our girls wouldn’t challenge a header they knew they couldn’t get to.  They needed to know that even if they had no chance of reaching the ball, and body to body challenge for the ball would not give the CR defenders, many of whom could head the ball very well, free headers.  Even a little contact could go a long way to forcing inaccurate distribution.

We came out and played much better in the second half.  Knocked the ball around better and looked more dangerous on the attack.

20 minutes in, I was still a bit frustrated about our back four defending positions when we had the ball in the attack, so I yelled out for Hannah (playing central defense) to push up as a stopper and have Becs (our other central defender) play sweeper, looking to sandwich the CR center forward while allowing Hannah to fill the gap between the defense and midfield.  Most of the game I had been looking to have either one of the central defenders push up to challenge the lone CR forward, and most of the game the girls were not able to grasp the concept.  My fault as I know we need to address this in training, not in the game.  I can’t expect them to just pick it up without more work.  I sometimes forget that I’m dealing with 12 year old girls.  Most of the time they do stuff that is more suited to players years older than they really are and it’s easy for me to expect some stuff that really shouldn’t be expected.

Sure enough, less than a minute later, we lost the ball at the top off the CR box and they booted the ball up to their forward.  Hannah was caught too far up, as were our wide defenders, and the CR forward went 1v1 on Becs.  Our three other defenders tried to recover, but no one was able to get into a decent cover position behind Becs.  The CR forward cut back and forth at the top of our box, split Hannah and Bec, and slid to push the ball past an onrushing Mudd (GK) from about 7 yards out.

Tough break, but my fault for not giving Hannah more explicit direction about pushing up but still focusing on defense.

To the Tsunami girls credit, we battled back.  After only a few minutes, Millie was sent on to goal on a breakaway due to a misplayed ball from one of the CR defenders.  Millie collected the ball about 50 yards from goal and was off to the races.  The only problem was that Millie’s 11 year old legs when dribbling aren’t much of a match for 13 year old legs without a ball, so one CR defender was able to catch her at the top of their box with two others close on her heels.

Millie wove back and forth, turning the CR defender inside out and then slipped a square ball to Ripper, who had made a 60 yard sprint from the right side of the field to get herself into a very dangerous position.  Ripper took a touch past one of the recovering CR defenders who tried to stab at the ball, then another touch to about 6 yards from goal.  She shot the ball right at the CR GK and it deflected up off the crossbar into the air.  Ripper adjusted her position and headed the ball into the net to tie the game.  Honestly, I couldn’t believe she hit the GK from that distance, but her ability to stay focused and finish the ball with her head was neat to see.  It was a great creative effort from both our forwards and a memorable goal, that’s for sure.

I looked down at my watch.  9 minutes left.  As I was thinking about what to do, how to play the girls for the last 9 minutes to try and push for the winner, I heard their coach ask his bench, “Didn’t that ball bounce off the top crossbar?”

Field #14 at Bielenberg has the goal posts that also double as football uprights.  Meaning, that there is another crossbar a few feet above the soccer crossbar, supported by three or four vertical uprights.  I don’t know how their coach, from 70 yards away, could possibly have known that the ball hit the top crossbar, but he talked himself into it.  He stepped onto the field and began yelling at the top of his lungs at the official that the ball hit the top crossbar and was out of play.  I didn’t think much of it as I saw, or thought I saw (from 50 yards away) the ball clearly hit the normal crossbar.  Moreover, the ref had signaled for a goal and was even beginning to make notes in his notebook as the girls ran back to midfield.  However, I glanced up to see the ref walking over to the AR, confer with her a bit, then point to the goal indicating a goal kick should be taken.  A goal kick.  What?!?!  Not even a corner kick, seeing as the ball deflected off the GK up into the crossbar.  I was stunned. 

Looking back at it now, maybe should have fought more on the girls behalf.  The only reason the ref even thought about the possibility that the ball was out of play was because an irate coach was making a scene.  As the CR coach was yelling, I could have also began yelling that the ball clearly did not the upper crossbar, but to be honest, the thought didn’t even cross my mind as I thought what just happened (the ball hitting the normal crossbar) was obvious.  But instead, the girls on the field looked at me in shock, asking me what the call was and complaining about the resulting call as they also knew where the ball hit.  Having been preaching the Controlling the SEA mentality (focusing the girls' energies on things under their direct control - the calls the refs make not being one of them), I told the team that the ref was not going to change his call and that we needed to continue to fight for the equalizer.  “But the ref did change his call!” they said.  I didn't know how to respond.

In the coming minutes, I got more and more frustrated that the other coach could have even fathomed taking issue with the apparent goal from his distance and from his angle at goal, and frustrated with myself for not contesting more the ref’s decision.  My frustration was compounded by the thought that my miscommunication with our defenders had a direct result on the goal that was scored.  This frustration was unfortunately passed onto the players as I found myself getting on girls for simple, 12 year old mistakes.  I know they were all giving their very best on the field, but in my state of mind it wasn’t good enough.

The game ended 1-0, I put a smile on my face that didn't touch my eyes I'm sure, and shook hands with the CR girls, their coaches, and the refs.  I asked the AR about the call and she said she couldn't tell exactly what happened, but it looked like the ball hit the normal crossbar.  So the ref changed the call on his own, in reaction to a coach's comments.  That's a bit depressing.

During our post game team talk, I still couldn’t get control of my frustration and found myself pointing fingers and calling players out on the mistakes that led to the goal on us.  I talked about looking at these mistakes from a development and learning perspective, though I know some of my words stemmed from my aggravation at the moment.  I also mentioned that it was a tough game for us today as a number of girls were not at their normal level and they needed to reevaluate what they did earlier that day (what they ate, participation in track, etc) and try to find out what they could do better to better prepare themselves for future game.  These aren't pros... why would I say that?!?!  I mentioned that they couldn't expect to always come out and have good games, but usually when 1 or 2 are sub-par, many others would be there to help pick up the slack.  Today, we just had too many girls not up to their usual standards.  It was not a very positive conversation and one that left me more frustrated later that night and is still bugging me this morning.

I’ve been to many regional and national events at which I’ve seen coaches of younger girls teams absolutely berating their players on the sidelines. Getting in their faces, pointing fingers, highlighting individual mistakes, etc. I vowed I would never be like that.  Though I don't think I'm near as bad as many coaches I've seen, I have found myself as of late with a shorter fuse, with less patience for mistakes and disruptive behavior at training and at games. 

I think I've begun to feel the pressure of coaching in a higher level club, a club whose top teams at each age group have an expectation of getting results.   I constantly preach against this train of thought, but I can't help getting caught up in it, even when coaching at the younger age levels.  I don't want to succumb to the pressure, mostly self-imposed pressure, of State Cup/Premier League performance, though admittedly this is difficult to avoid. 

Late last night and this morning, I took some time to read through some of my thoughts posted on this site as well as some of the other thoughts I've penned but have yet to post.  I helped remind myself that this is a game, a game for the girls.  These are 12 year old girls who are battling in the top U14 league here in Minnesota.  This is not about me, and all about the 17 girls in my charge.  I know these girls respect me as a coach, and this respect has allowed me to be able to get on them harder than I could if I didn't have this respect.  But they didn't deserve to bear the brunt of my frustration last night.  They all know that I'm helping them be the best players they can be, but I could see the negative effect my words had on some of them and was ashamed of the hurt looks I received from some of the girls after the post game talk.  At least I thought they were hurt looks... maybe I was projecting.  Is that even the right word to use here? 

I can't let any of this carry over into this weekend.  If I go into this final State Cup with any attitude save the "right" one, and if we get into tight situations, I run the very real risk of not being as positive and supportive as I can be... and this negativity will surly not help the girls perform better in needed situations.

I need to aplogize to the team tonight.  I need to make it a priority to get back to being ultra-positive on the sidelines at our games, and it will have to start tonight.  I need to see the girl for what they are, for how fast they've developed, and for how far many of them have come in 3 years.  I need to be content in the fact that I've selected the best possible players for this team and that I've prepared them for this weekend to the best of my ability.  I need to take my eyes off the prize, so to speak, and really appreciate how the long hours of work have elevated many of these girls' technical abilities far beyond those of the average U13 player here in Minnesota.  I need to make sure the girls enjoy this experience of a possible realization of a long-term goal.  I need to sit back, relax, and enjoy watching the girls play.

This writing is cathartic.

Premier League Game #1 vs Eden Prairie

Beautiful day to kick off the 2007 MYSA summer Premier League season yesterday.  It finally feels like summer!

As mentioned in previous posts, I knew that we had our hands full for our first league game against a talented Eden Prairie team.  They are one of the top 2 U14 teams here in MN, always playing our BTFC U14G Blue team tight. 

I've seen EP play a few times already this year.  They were a very good attacking team last year with 3 or 4 strong forwards, and added a few key defending players this year, namely a central defender, Ally, who we passed up at our Bangu tryouts last fall... bad decision on our part I think as she would have helped our Blue team.  EP is athletic and well coached, though I think this year we'll have an edge on overall technical ability thanks in large part to the continued focus on this technique over the years.

The 6:00PM game was scheduled to be played at Miller Park in Eden Prairie.  Nice complex.  Suffice it to say that at 5PM, the game was shaping up to be a bit of a disaster.  I had received 5 different phone calls about traffic issues and girls were definitely going to be late.  One of the phone calls cam from Bidi who was in a car with 4 or 5 of our players who lived in Woodbury.  There was an accident on I494 in Inver Grove Heights and the the minivan had been forced to take an alternate route.

As I was getting off the phone with Bidi, it occurred to me to make sure that Maddog (in the car from Woodbury) had the passes and game line up sheets with her.  Maddog's mom, Wendy, is our team manager extraordinaire who has volunteered her time to help me since the fall of 2004.  I called the car back and asked Maddog if she had the passes.  She said no, and my heart skipped a beat.  She informed me though that her mom was coming to the game straight from work in Minneapolis, and all was good again. 

On a hunch, I called Wendy to make sure she had the passes with her, and her heart must have skipped a beat.  As it turned out, with all the stuff going on this month with the West Des Moines event, travel with her U11 daughter Mackenzie to Ohio, and State Cup, she completely blanked about the game and the passes were still in Woodbury.  It was 5:15PM.

Wendy called her husband David and he was able to get on the road fairly quickly.  But he was in Woodbury, had to pick up his U11 daughter from training, then try and make the 30+ mile trek in I494 rush hour traffic.  We're dead.

According to Google Maps, the trip was about 38 miles.  This didn't account for the time it took to get ready to leave the house, swing by and grab Mackenzie from practice, then get back on the highway.

I had already known that Jilly and Blondie were going to be arriving just at game time due to track commitments.  Add in a few other girls and a carload of girls car pooling from Woodbury stuck in traffic, and we had a grand total of 5 girls there at our scheduled 5:15PM meeting time. 

At 5:30PM we finally had enough girls on site to play and started to make our way over to the sidelines.  I spoke with Hisham and Tina (EP coach and manager) letting them know about the pass situation.  Hisham assured me that he would speak to the ref and help sort things out so that we could possible play and get checked in at half time.  Nice gesture on his part that was greatly appreciated. 

5:40PM we eventually started warming up.  Hisham came over and said that he spoke with the one ref who was already on site and the ref said it would not be a problem to delay the game until the passes got there.

5:50 the head ref showed up.  Though we were still missing one AR, the head ref came over and warned me that he would only wait until 6:15PM.  He would not wait longer than that as he had another game to officiate that night.  If the passes were not on site by that time, we were to forfeit the game.

6:00PM came and went and we were informed that David was at I494 and Penn Ave.  We had no chance of him getting to the park in fifteen minutes.

6:10PM the ref called for captains, making ready to start the game (if our passes were there) or pack up his things and find some air conditioning.  I told the captains to walk to midfield very slowly and ask the ref a lot of questions about the rules of soccer. 

6:18PM, minivan tires were heard squealing in the parking lot.  I don't think the car came to a complete stop and Mackenzie hopped out (or maybe was pushed out) and ran over to the field with our passes.  Well done, SuperDave!

With all the pre-game chaos, we came out really flat.  EP dominated the first 15 minutes of the game though were unable to break through our defense to score.  We started to settle in a bit midway through the half and finally looked to create unpanicked attacks up the field. 

We played a 4-4-2, trying to build off the success that we saw against Wayzata in the second half of our first State Cup game using this formation, while also trying to contend with EP's midfield dominance that we've experienced in past meetings.

First half ended 0-0 though I could feel the match shifting to our favor.  At halftime we talked about a few key points; wanting to do a better job in the second half of keeping the field more compact, battling hard for every 50/50 ball, not allowing their players to play long ball or win air balls unchallenged, and trying to press our apparent advantage in the game of getting balls wide and looking to serve in crosses and/or win corner kicks. 

We discussed tracking central player when they made diagonal runs to the corners as EP tore us apart early on with this tactic.  Our central players either had to stick with their marks, or they had to communicate and pass on their marks to other players. 

Lastly, I reminded the girls that I wasn't focused on results in our Premier league play.  Our focus at the moment was State Cup.  I wanted the girls to be confident and composed on the ball, encouraging them to get into their Futsal mentality as the girls played some of their best soccer indoors in the Futsal environment this past winter.  Relaxed, confident, creative, and enthusiastic - playing for the love of the game. 

We came out on fire in the second half. 

Six minutes in we were awarded a free kick about 30 yards from goal.  I encouraged Nash to get a strike on goal, and she proceeded to lazer a shot off the underside of the crossbar.  The ball bounced straight down close to the goal line then up into the air about 20 feet.  Lily was in a good position but just didn't get enough on the header attempt and the EP GK was able to recover and smother the ball.  From the ensuing GK punt, EP countered up the field.  One of their forward dribbled around at the top of our box, beat our marking defender who was left without enough cover by supporting players, and hit a great shot past a diving Mudd (GK).  That's what I love about this game.  A great chance for us at one end turns into a goal at the other end within a matter of seconds.

To our girls credit, not many heads went down after this.  We took the kick off, knocked the ball back and around through midfield a bit, and found Scratch (right mid) on a long ball.  Scratch beat a player and served in an early diagonal cross that the EP right defender misplayed.  Mille (one of our forwards) had drifted to the far post area, settled the ball with a great touch, and side-footed a ball past the onrushing EP GK into the right side of the goal.  It was a great build up and a classy and composed finish by our little U11 player. 

I'd say EP had at least two or three other good chances to score in the second half.  One was sent wide and Mudd made terrific saves on the other two.  No lie, we probably created 7 or 8 quality chances - many off crosses and corner kicks, a few with decent build up and 1v1s and breakaways.  I don't think I was the only one watching who thought we deserved to win the game based on our second half performance.

Regardless, it was a fun, competitive game for both teams, and a very good start to the league play season for us. 

Game Notes

• We are settling in to the 4-4-2 formation very well.  Our forwards are dynamic and are better able to grasp the lateral movement that is needed when playing with 2 up front.  Our defending midfield play with the added 4th midfielder is much better than we saw with our 3-man system (as could be expected) and our ability to switch the ball through midfield is improved as we are now not asking our outside backs to understand the concept of releasing up field on the changes.
• We are slowly getting our outside mids used to getting up the field more to supply width in the attack, but need to do a better job of having our outside backs communicate and push the outside mids up.
• We need better communication from our central defending players and GK.
• We struggled to pick up central mids and attackers who made diagonal runs to the corners.  EP did this very well and threw us off balance in the first half.  We need work on this, but it was a good learning experience for us to see how effective this movement can be when used properly.
• With the 4-4-2, I need to work with the wide mids getting wide early when our wide backs have the ball.  If they are too slow getting wide and the ball is played, the wide mids receive the ball running towards the sidelines and can't see the field.  Also, no movement out wide blocks passing channels into our forwards.
• Our ball striking is really, really good overall.  This was clearly apparent in the game as we have 8 or 9 girls who can strike a long ball well.  EP may have had 2 or 3 players who could do this consistently.  This was a testament to the work many of these girls have done regarding ball striking in our small group sessions at Acceleration MN over the years, as well as to our constant focus on proper technique at the younger age groups.
• Due to good technique and more mature muscular development, our crosses are now going too far more times than not.  I need to work with the girls about measuring the distance better on these services.
• Our team's overall heading ability is very good, thanks in large part to technical development and the Full90 Headgear. 
• It's nice to interact with opposing coaches who see what this game is really about.  At no time at all did Hisham bring up the thought of a forfeit.  He and his staff were very accommodating and did what they could have to try and avoid the replay/forfeit.  No matter what clubs people are with, it's good to remember that this game is about the kids and about their enjoyment and interest in competition.

We saw EP last year twice.  Our first meeting last May in State Cup (we played up to the U13 age group as U12s) was a completely one sided affair.  We had a good chance to score in the first few minutes then hit the post on a half chance in the second half, but other than that we were never in the game.  They only ended up beating us 1-0 but the score was in no way indicative of the game flow.

Our second battle with them came in the U13 State Tournament final in early August.  We matched up much better against them in this game, managed to score a great goal and have one or two more solid chances, but ended up losing 2-1.  We were still outclassed a bit but gave a good accounting of ourselves to finish out the summer season.

I think we have continued to close the gap on teams like this.  This year, we are not so outmatched athletically, thanks to team personnel changes last fall as well as to the muscular development catching up.  I think we have closed any technical gap with EP, and may even have the edge now from an overall team perspective.  This is taking nothing away from EP as they are a solid team and have also improved since last year.  Our next game is sure to be a battle as well with either team capable of scoring 3 or 4 goals on the other.

Up Next in League Play

Coon Rapids - Thur, May 17