A Weekend in Virginia - Day 2

We had an 8AM game scheduled against the Hockessin Hotspur, the top team at their age group in Delaware.  I arrived at the fields with the sun at around 6:45AM.  I was actually the first car in the parking lot and there were still no field signs up to let me know which field was Field #4.  Tournament officials arrived just before 7:00AM and let me know that Field #4 was on the south side of the parking lot, the one that I had noted last night was off by itself.  I walked over there to check it out and was thoroughly bummed out.  The field had a pretty good crown to it and was 10 yards shorter than the other fields on the north side.  It was still 68 yards wide, but with the short, hard ground and with the crown, the effective width was cut by a fair amount.  Any ball played down the line was sure to roll off the field.

I think big fields suit us.  We are a direct team that relies on big, strong, forwards to win balls over the top.  This field was short, narrow, and hard.  Not a good combination for us. 

I couldn't let my disappointment be seen by the girls.  I've harped on them this winter about only dwelling on things that they can control, namely their effort, attitude, and classiness/sportsmanship.  Things like how our opponents play, the field conditions, and the referee are out of our control and are not worth expending our energies on. 

The girls commented about the field the second they arrived on site.  However, between my reminding them that the field is the same for both teams and their excitement to be outside playing on weeds... I mean on grass, field issues were quickly forgotten about. 

I desperately wanted to start the tournament out on a good note, but we came out and played the worst 35 minutes of soccer that I've ever seen this team play in a long time.  We had a very good chance to go up early in the game as a high through ball sent Millie in on goal 1v1 with the goal keeper.  The goal keeper came WAY out to make a play on the ball at the top of her box, and Millie's smart volley over the charging keeper's head went just wide. 

Hockessin had a huge horse of a center forward who caused us some trouble in the first part of the game.  She was deceptively fast with the ball and caught our two center backs Blondie and Becs, two of the fastest girls on the team, off guard in the first 15 minutes to force Mudd (our GK) into a fantastic reflex as she parried the shot from the breakaway over the crossbar.  That's exactly what I thought we needed this weekend, some big plays by certain girls at certain times to keep us in games or to give us scoring opportunities.  However, the ensuing inswinger cornerkick bounced thee times, Bidi at the near post came off the post, let the ball past her because of a "Keeper!" call, and the ball bounced off Mudd's hands, into the near post, back off Mudd's hands, and into the goal.  Crap.  Not a good start. 

Within another 10 minutes, things got worse as Scratch tired to clear a ball at the top of our box, only to have the ball rebound off a Hockessin forward's right shin as she reached to block it and then absolutely rocket into the bottom corner of our net.  To Mudd's credit, she made another great reflex attempt at the ball, in no way anticipating a shot that hard at that precise time, but she could not get down fast enough to get a hand to it.  2-0 on two of the strangest goals ever scored on this team.

We had a number of chances at goal in the first half.  The Hockessin goal keeper was SUPER aggressive off her line and was able to smother a number of our forward's breakaways as our forwards, not used to this kind of aggression, would take too big of touches as they dribbled in on goal.  The goal keeper would wait, bide her time, and pounce on any and all poor touches.  This fact, coupled with the very hard field conditions did not make for much success for us. 

The Nike ball we played had an very soft cover to it and bounced like a superball on concrete.  Moreover, all the Bangu girls looked to have mistakenly slipped on anvils instead of soccer cleats that morning, struggled to get the ball under control, and looked completely uncomfortable on the ball at all times.  Even our "skill" players looked like newbies to the game. 

The girls were pissed off at half time.  I told them they needed to keep their heads up and that we would for sure score goals.  We had been very successful on attacking corners in the first half, so we talked about having our wide players be aggressive when taking on their wide defenders 1v1.  We talked about sandwiching their big target forward with one center back playing in front of her and cutting off balls into her feet, with the other central defender providing deep cover.  We also talked to our wide backs about pinching in to help cover the middle area of the field when our center backs looked to be under pressure.  Lastly, I prepped them for a formation change if/when needed later in the half if we needed to push forward for goals.

The girls came out and played much better in the second half.  I started with what I thought was our strongest 11 players, and Maddog scored a great goal about 10 minutes into the game off a corner kick.  The long corner was served in from the right by Jilly, we had a couple girls miss attacking headers, and the ball was cleared back out to Maddog (playing left back).  She took a touch and sent in a long, high shot that dropped in over the keeper into the far side of the net. 

The goal energized the team but we could not find another.  Though we ended up holding Hockessin to a total of 3 shots (the breakaway, the cornerkick, and the ricochet goal), we fell 2-1.  Not an ideal way to kick off the event as I knew the games would only get harder.

After the game I praised the girls effort and their spirit in the second half.  We all knew that they could play much better and I challenged them to come out this afternoon and prove it.  We would be facing our toughest competition that afternoon and I knew that the girls needed to raise their level of play by about 10 notches in order to be competitive against the Charlotte team. 

The girls headed out for lunch and I made my way over to the other side of the complex.  I wanted to see some of the games from Group C, a group that featured 3 top-10 nationally ranked teams - Chantilly Burn (VA), Mt Laurel United Power (NJ), and Carolina Elite (SC).  Chantilly (the current #10 seed in the nation) was playing Mt Laurel (currently ranked #7 in the nation) at 9:30AM.  It was a really good game and a hard fought contest.  Chantilly looked clearly the better team with a number of very athletic and skilled players around the field.  The game ended 1-1 and I was very impressed with the level of play.  I thought we might be able to handle Mt Laurel, but Chantilly would be a real challenge for our girls. 

After the Group C game, I headed back to beautiful Field #4 to watch Hockessin take on the other team in our group, Charlotte SC 93 Blue (NC).  Charlotte was currently ranked #12 in the nation and likely one of the toughest teams we'd see this weekend.  Ideally for us, the game ended something like 2-1, 3-2, or something like that.  The tournament was set up to award 3 points for a win, 1 for a tie, and 0 for a loss.  First tie breaker was head to head, then it went to goal differential with a 5 goal max differential per game.  Most events that I've seen have a 3 goal max differential, but maybe 5 was a standard on the east coast.  Regardless, we were in the best position to advance as the top seed in our group with a slim margin of victory in a Charlotte win.

The game wasn't even close.  Charlotte was no doubt the stronger team and Hockessin's super aggressive GK was caught off her line a number of times, resulting in Charlotte goals.  I left the game to grab some lunch when it was 4-0 for Charlotte.  The game ended 5-1. 

Though we didn't stand much of a chance of advancing as the top seed (we would need to beat Charlotte by 5 goals to do so), I did think we stood a good chance of competing well against Charlotte.  They were a solid team, but I thought we were better.  We'll see what the afternoon brings.

By the way, the main reason for wanting to advance as the top seed was so that we would come up against another top team this weekend.  I would love to see FC Pennsylvania girls, tournament favorites and current #3 team in the nation. 

The girls arrived at 1:15PM for a 2:00PM kickoff.  The girls new this was the tough team in our group and knew that Charlotte had won earlier against Hockessin 5-1.  Like I hoped and expected, the girls raised their level of play to meet the challenge.  However, we were not the better team on the field that afternoon and Charlotte had the better of the play for a good majority of the game.  We were missing Lily who sat this entire game with a tail bone injury from the morning, and Becs came out midway through the first half with a sore hip flexor.  Though on our heels for many stretches of the game, we defended well and managed to create a few chances of our own.  All in all gave a very good account of Minnesota soccer and I think the 3 Charlotte coaches, who were undoubtedly thinking this afternoon's game would be easy, had many positive comments to say about the Bangu girls after the game. 

I think the girls were happy to walk away from this game with a tie, but they were bummed to finish last in our group. After the game, I praised the girls for their effort on the field, reminding them that their effort was the one important thing that they had control of this weekend on the field.  I know that if they give full effort, the results will come.

The girls headed off and I gave instructions to the two captains, Bidi and Lily, to help sort out a place for a team dinner.  The plan would be to meet in the lobby at 6:00PM and then head out to a restaurant together.

I stayed at the complex to watch the Mt Laurel vs Carolina Elite game at 3:30PM.  It was another very good contest in Group C, with Carolina carrying most of the game but unable to score.  The game ended 0-0. 

Tough day on the field, leaving the complex 0-1-1 and bottom of our group.  More disappointing for me was the fact that I didn't think we played to our potential level in either game.  We looked slow and clunky, struggled to complete simple passes, didn't play with much confidence, and panicked under pressure.  I didn't get what I thought I'd get from many key players today and really left the field dazed myself as to what was "wrong" with the team.  I had to remind myself that that we have not seen this level of competition on a consistent basis since last fall (coming off the 2006 summer season and the Eclipse event in Libertyville, Illinois, in August).  Though I know the field was the same for both teams and we could have just as easily lost both games today on a better field, I know the field conditions also played a big part in our unpolished play.  For a tournament that touted its field conditions, it was a huge disappointment to play on the surface we did. 

The team headed to BW3s for dinner and the girls and parents had a good time hanging out. 

I then met with the girls at the hotel for a team meeting.  I ran them through a team bonding activity that I picked up at the PACT training seminar earlier this month.  Here is how it was set up.

• Each player was handed a blank sheet of 8.5" x 11" paper
• The players were told to close their eyes and to listen and not talk
• I then gave them the following set of instructions:

1. Fold your paper in half
2. Tear of a piece of the upper right corner
3. Fold your paper in half again
4. Tear off a piece of the top left corner
5. Fold your paper in half again
6. Tear off a piece of the top right corner
7. Open your eyes and unfold your paper

I told the girls that if they were listening, their paper should now look exactly like mine (as I was following my own directions with my own sheet of paper as I led the players through the exercise).  Obviously, none of the players' papers looked exactly the same.  Many looked very different.  I then asked the girls "What can you learn from this?".  We moved on to discuss the following.  Some of these are a stretch, I know, but all good to discuss and all points stemmed from this exercise.

• Visual communication would have helped the girls if I had wanted them to form the exact final shape that I myself did, but verbal communication is also very important
• The girls need to concentrate on listening instead of just hearing me
• All players are creative and bring their own ideas to the team, and it's OK to be different
• If I wanted the girls to do exactly as I was doing, I needed to be more specific with my instruction/communication
• The girls also needed to ask questions to clarify what I was saying - talking about the importance of two-way communication
• We all interpret what we hear in different ways

I should have done this with all my parent group as it is a great illustration of the importance of communication.  This will be one of the first exercises that I do each fall with future new teams.

I gave the girls a 9:30PM curfew tonight, and I'm hoping we can finish the tournament on a good note tomorrow.

A Weekend in Virginia - Day 1

This weekend is not starting out on the best foot.  I arrived to the Minneapolis International Airport about an hour early for my 10:40AM departure to Washington Dulles.  Luckily, the volume of weekend travelers was light, so I was able to check in quickly using Northwest's e-Ticket machines.  I had requested a needed window seat (see below) but found out that they had booked me in an aisle.  I tried to change this at the machine, but the flight was completely packed.  Moreover, as I looked at my boarding pass I noticed that 10:40AM had somehow magically changed to 10:12AM.  Holy crap! 

I hustled over to the security checkpoint only to discover a huge back up.  OK, I thought, at least the "A" gates should be the close ones.  Wrong.  Not only were the "A" on the other side of the terminal from the NWA check in, but they were at the far end of an expansive, seemingly endless corridor. I swear gate A13 was located in Mendota Heights. 

Suffice it to say that I made it to the gate just before they started boarding.  Full flight?!?!?  There were like 20 people in the tiny staging area.  Where's my window seat?!?!

Now I absolutely LOVE flying, but I don't much like planes.  Weird statement, I know, but very applicable to me.  I think it's the loss of control feeling when I'm strapped into the plane seat.  That, or maybe the constant feeling that there is no way something this big could possibly stay airborne for a prolonged period of time.  Every little bump of ever so miniscule turbulence and I'm sure we're getting ready to plummet to earth.  Logic would then dictate that I would prefer smaller planes to larger planes from a sheer weight aspect, but in general smaller planes = more turbulence = more unease on my part.

With this said, I wasn't much thrilled to hear the first words from the gate attendant on the loud speaker, "Welcome to NWA flight number whatever it was to Washington Dulles.  Now boarding all rows.  What?!?!?!  No first class cabin?  No "We would like to start boarding from the back of the plane with rows blah blah blah to blah blah blah.  Just "Now boarding all rows."  Crap.  No wonder there weren't very many people around. 

At least the plane was a jet, not a prop-death-trap.  I boarded in the last group of people and found my seat, 1C.  I was thinking that I was in a bulkhead aisle right behind first class.  Instead, I'm right at the front of the plane staring into the cockpit.  My row mate beside me was about 250 lbs.  Now before you get the picture in your head about some grossly overweight, sloppy dressed, bad smelling, German dude with a crew cut, let me jut tell you that he didn't have a crew cut.  Great.  This should be a fun ride.

The plane taxied down the runway, made the turn onto the take off strip and clawed its way airborne.  The sole flight attendant, Marty, was sitting about 3 feet in front of me... facing me.  I kept searching his face for some innate flight-attendant sixth sense that something was dreadfully wrong with some hydraulic system or hyper drive, but luckily his face betrayed no signs of trouble. 

I brought my book out and, with elbows tucked in near by belly button, squished in by Dolf's massive left forearm dwarfing the arm rest separating our two seats, began reading to try and pass the time/get my mind off the soon to be overheated flux capacitor and loose wing.

I landed at Dulles at around 1:30PM, took the shuttle to the Alamo rental agency, and jumped in my rental car to head to Richmond.  The tournament people at the Jefferson Cup had told me that Richmond was about a 90 mile drive, all freeway.  The neglected to mention that gazillion people that would be on I95 on a Friday.  I have never seen so many cars packed in for such a prolonged period of time and over such a prolonged distance.  It was bumper to bumper from Dulles to Fredericksburg (about 40 miles south of DC).  It took about 3 hours to make the 50 some miles to Fredericksburg, then traffic loosened up and I was able to hit 40 mph for the rest of the way.

The field complex that the U13 Championship flight was scheduled on was in Hanover, about 15 miles NE of the hotel.  I like to see the fields when I get in town, so I decided to stop at the complex prior to making the drive all the way to the hotel.  I found the 7 field complex no problem.  There were 3 (out of four) fields set up on the south side of the parking lot, and another 3 set up on the north side.  I went to the north side with the three field as they all had Richmond Kickers (the host club) corner flags set up.  No field signs though to indicate which field was which. 

The north fields were not bad.  Big (120 x 68) and relatively flat.  The grass was short and there were a few clumps of taller grass/weeds. Not great, but not bad.  I was just happy to finally be on grass!  I also think that the work that we've done on the turf will help us better be accustomed to the speed we would likely see on these fields.  I walked over to the two south side fields and they were not in as good of shape.  The third south side field was off on its own across a little gully, and I didn't make the trek over to see it.  I hope Field #4 (where we are scheduled to play on for both games tomorrow) is on the north side!

I made the drive down to the Holiday Inn, got checked in, and then prepared for the team jog and stretch at 7PM.  I like to get the team together when we travel to events like this to do some light jogging and stretching the night of arrival.  It helps the girls shake off some of the travel legs, allows me to talk about the weekend rules, expectations, and goals, and reminds the girls that we are still the same team, just in a different environment. 

However, we only had 6 girls checked in by 7PM.  5 or 6 were coming in late that night, another 5 or 6 were stuck in the I95 gridlock.  This kind of defeated the purpose of the team jog and stretch, but the 6 girls there got together, played a little 5v2 in the Holiday Inn courtyard, and then settled in for the remainder of the evening.

A lot of things didn't go as planned today.  Hopefully the rest of the weekend will be better.

PACT - Parent and Player Coach Evaluations

In the PACT training booklets that were passed out to us in mid March, there were Coach Evaluation forms that both players and parents could fill out.  I made copies of these and passed them out last week with instructions to the girls and their parents to fill them out and submit back to me on Sunday (March20).  I wanted to get some feedback about players' and parents' perceptions about me and what I was doing with the group.

PACT - Athlete Coach Survey

PACT - Parent Coach Survey

I got 16 Athlete Coach Evaluations and 15 Parent Coach Evaluations turned back in.  I went through and averaged the scores that players and their parents recorded to get the following results. 

Athletes

Care Scale 41.25 / 45

Choice Scale 18.8 / 25

Competence Scale 24.5 / 25

Enjoyment Scale 24.04 / 25

Parents

Care Scale 40.61 / 45

Choice Scale 18.73 / 25

Competence Scale 23.69 / 25

Enjoyment Scale 23.53 / 25

I take these ratings for what they are worth.  Simply an indication of how I am viewed by the people I'm working with.  I think that most of the players and parents believe that I care for these girls (which I do), that I am competent at what I do (which I am), and that the girls enjoy their time playing on this team.  I would have guessed that the Choice Scale would be lowest as though I do not run a dictatorship here, the parents do look to me to make many of the soccer decisions. 

The one item that really caught my eye in the 30+ sheets was a parent who marked a "3" or had neutral feelings on question #19 - I feel my child's coach is a good coach.  That kinda hurt.

Jefferson Cup Handouts

Here are the handouts that I gave to the girls in prep for this coming weekend.

Jefferson Cup What to Bring Checklist

Jefferson Cup Playing Positions - positions the girls could expect to play this weekend

Team Formations 1

Team Formations 2

Team Formations Attack - in the event we needed to push forward in search of a goal

Team Formations Defend - How we would likely set up if trying to keep a lead late in a game

Free Kick Attack

Free Kick Defense

Corner Kick Attack 1

Corner Kick Attack 2

Training - Tuesday, March 20

7:15PM - 9:00PM Field Training

Our final training session prior to heading to Virginia this weekend.  Like usual, I tried to pack WAY too much stuff into a final session before heading out of town.  It didn't help that I had not read the master dome schedule correctly, so instead of having 1/2 the dome to ourselves we had to split the time with our U13 Green team.  It also didn't help that I didn't find this out until just a few minutes before we took the field.  My fault.  Umut (the Green team coach) was gracious enough to be accommodating, knowing that we had the tournament this weekend.  So we ended up with about 35 yards at one end of the dome. 

I got to the dome around 6:30PM to do some work with Blondie.  I make myself available to do work with interested girls one on one prior to any of our training sessions, and a number of girls have taken advantage of this opportunity.  The girls starting arriving around 7PM for the 7:15PM session.  We usually do some individual skills work for the first half hour, but today I wanted to sit and talk with the girls about the coming weekend. 

I passed out a handout about our attacking free kicks and we discussed it as a group.  I then talked to the girls about their Individual Goals for the weekend.  I came up with three or four goals for each player that I wanted them to try and reach this weekend.  Most goals had to do with technical or tactical challenges, some dealt with team bonding issues.  For example, I wanted Macky to try and get a header on goal from a set piece, Soph to not get beat on a fast break 1v1, Millie to play a double give and go with a teammate, etc.  As for the team bonding issues, I wanted Grace to not sit by Brownie (her best friend) at our Saturday team meal, Ripper to invite a new girl to hang out at the hotel, etc.  This is the first time that I'm trying these Individual Goals, but I think that it could be a good idea. 

When we took the field I spent the first 20 minutes on some functional positional training.  The forwards and mids worked on attackers rolling defenders in the box, and the defenders worked together on jockeying and delaying attackers on fast break 1v1s. 

For the remainder of training, we worked on defending corner kicks and setting up defensive walls around our box. 

The girls worked hard during the session, but I think I gave them too much info in too little of a time.  At least the core group of the girls who have been with me for a while have a decent idea about what is going on, but some of the new girls to the team I'm sure felt a little swamped with all the info. 

At the end of practice, I noticed Scratch was bummed out.  I asked her what was wrong as we were leaving and she said she was fine.  I got caught talking to someone for a few minutes at the dome exit, and as I was getting ready to go, I overheard Scratch telling Macky that they should both come and talk to me.  I encouraged them to tell me what was on their minds and all three of us walked a little bit apart from the others. 

Both girls felt that I was getting on them too much about not paying attention in training when I seemed to let other girls get away without reprimand for similar misbehavior.  They both said other girls on the team felt the same way (that I got on Macky and Scratch more than others).  Both girls were pretty upset, though I do feel the two of them deserve it when I do get on them for distracting behavior during training.  I talked to them about what I was seeing from them at training and listened to their issues.  They agreed to try and be more considerate when I was leading training and I told them that I would try to be more aware of "picking" on them only.