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Tuesday
Jan162007

Back at Bielenberg

I must say it was a bit strange walking into the Bielenberg Sports Center in Woodbury for Thursday's 6:00PM training session.  I couldn't helping thinking that all the coaches and parents of the Woodbury players training in the dome were thinking, "There's the enemy!" when we walked in.  I'm sure things were far worse in my mind than what really happened in reality, but it reminded me of those old E.F. Hutton commercials... you know the ones I'm talking about.  The commercial opens with the camera panning a crowded restaurant scene, focuses on a table with two guys talking about investments, almost straining to hear each other over the unrealistically loud background noise.  The first guy shouts something like, "My broker told me blah-blah-blah about so-and-so stock, etc, etc.".  Then the second guy pipes up by saying, "Well, my broker is E.F. Hutton, and E.F. Hutton says...".  All of a sudden a deathly and immediate hush falls over the crowd and all you hear are the crickets.  That's what my mind perceived immediately after I pushed through the revolving air-lock doors at Bielenberg.  Chirp, chrip, chirp...

What was interesting is that some of the Woodbury girls on the team also made similar comments, more to the tune an unwelcome feeling surrounding our walk to our side of the field.  Oh well, WAA may not like our organization blossoming in "their" city, but they don't own the dome (though they think they do sometimes). 

Not on the field until 6:30PM, I ran the girls through some individual skills work on the track area surrounding the field.  When we got on the field, I took them through a long range shooting progression with the goal of continuing to build their confidence in their ability to strike quality shots from distance.  We finished with some 6v6 small sided play.

On my way out, I tried not to make eye contact with the numerous WAA board members in the dome with their kids.  Sometimes I wonder why I feel apprehensive in dealing with some of these people.  Maybe it's because I know they work against what I stand for with Bangu and don't want to even pretend to be cordial.  Heck, for all I know though, they're all avoiding looking at me as well :)

Tuesday
Jan162007

A Weekend in Nebraska - Day 3

logo_arsenal.gifWe finished our weekend on Sunday morning against the Toro Bravo (NE).  The Bravo had beaten us 2-0 here in MN in 2005 at the All American Girls Tournament (Blaine, MN).  That game was on a small sided field and I fully expected a different result today.

The Bravo were fairly athletic and direct in their play and didn't create much against us.  They scored two goals in the second half though.  Their first came on a free kick after one of our defenders cleared the ball into the low ceiling.  The ensuing indirect kick was shot directly at our goal and went in off Mudd's hands as she tried to block the high shot.  Bravo's second goal came off a whiffed clearance by one of our central defenders that sent a Bravo forward in on goal. 

We really controlled the game but could not find a way to score.  Many of the other coaches watching exclaimed after the game that that was the most lopsided game with the weirdest end result that they had ever seen.  Tough for the ego to not come away with a "W", but good for me to see that we really have begun to play well. 

Monday
Jan152007

A Weekend in Nebraska - Day 2

logo_arsenal.gifWe opened the weekend against Toro Booyah (NE).  This was Toro's U12 team that was one of the top teams at this age group in the nation.  I found out yesterday that the Blue Valley Stars Ratpack could not make the trip up due to a sheet of ice over the Kansas area.  I obviously understood the situation but was bummed that we wouldn't get a chance to come up against them this weekend.  As it turned out, the Booyah were supposed to head to Kansas City this weekend to play in an event.  They couldn't make the trip for the same weather reason, so they filled in for the Ratpack in the Omaha event.

The Booyah played well, but they couldn't compete with us.  The game was played in the Booyah half for 90% of the time.  We created a ton of chances but only put one goal away.  This was a good indication to me that we needed to work on ways to penetrate packed in defenses as we would likely see similar situations at State Cup. 

We then came up against the Omaha Gladiators later that afternoon.  The Bangu girls played very well, again created a ton of chances, but had better luck finishing 4 or 5 of them this afternoon. 

Friday
Jan122007

A Weekend in Nebraska - Day 1

logo_arsenal.gifWe left for Omaha today at 3PM.  Four other Bangu girls teams were also making the trip down and I was looking forward to a good weekend of soccer.

My goal for the weekend was for us to come out of it as a tighter-knit group.  I was excited about the games for sure, but more interested in the team bonding aspect of the trip.  The girls were going to stay in rooms together, 3 or 4 girls per room.  From our parent group, we asked for volunteer chaperones who would stay in near by rooms at the hotel.  I knew some parents may have been a little hesitant to send their 12 or 13 year old girl off on her own on a soccer trip, but if anyone had any complaints, they kept silent.  Sending the girls on a bus without their parents for a weekend to Omaha was one of the points of contention last year with the core group of the Renegades, so I was sensitive to the issue.  One non-chaperoning parent elected to drive down separately, though I think this was more from a soccer-junky perspective and having a free weekend to watch his daughter, rather than from a protective standpoint.

Our team shared one 56-passenger bus with the U13 White team, and the U15 Blue team.  The two U14 teams (Blue and White) shared the other bus.  I knew that I wanted to do some team bonding activities on the bus ride down, so I asked my girls to try and show up a bit early and secure seats for all our team in the back of the bus.  Some of the U15 parents had gone out to purchase Subway sandwiches for the girls, bagged sliced apples, water/Gatorade, and Granola Bars, and the plan was to drive straight through, hoping to arrive in Omaha in around 6 hours.

omahabus.jpg

Since it got dark around 5PM and I needed light for our team binding activity, as soon as we got out of the metro area and onto the open road, I got the girls together to do some work.  Amos Magee, my longtime friend and teammate, current co-worker in the MN Thunder front office, and current head coach of the team, ran a similar activity with our office staff a few weeks back.  I was impressed with the results and wanted to try and do something similar with the girls.  I purchased four different colors (yellow, blue, pink, and orange) of colored paper and cut the sheets into fourths.  I brought a number of Sharpie markers and masking tape and brought these along as well.  To the very back window of the bus I taped an index card labeled "Hate it/Doesn't work".  About halfway up the bus on the same window side I taped up a card labeled "Love it/Works well".  The idea was for the girls to write down on their colored paper different items or aspects pertaining to certain categories, and then tape these pieces of paper up somewhere in the Hate it/Doesn't Work - Love it/Works well spectrum.  The different colors of paper represented different categories.  Yellow was Team/Teammates, Blue was Training/Games, pink was Parents, and Orange was Anything Else.  So, on the yellow paper, a girl could write anything down pertaining to the team as a whole or her teammates, then stick it to the window indicating how she felt about the item she wrote down.  For example, if a girl thought that other girls on the team were "clickie" or unfriendly, the player might write "team chemistry" and tape it somewhere on the Hate It/Doesn't work end of the bus window.  If another girl loved to travel to events, she might write "out of state events" on a piece of Blue paper and tape it towards the Love It/Works well end.

omahabus_team_building.jpg

This was a good activity for me as a coach to try and discover what the girls really like and don't like about what we are doing.  Though each girl had her own take on things, there were some comments that appeared in the same general areas multiple times.

Love It/Works Well

  • Carpools from Woodbury (from the Woodbury based contingent)
  • Fun practices
  • Out of state events
  • Playing up an age group
  • Player commitment
  • Funny coach
  • Our uniforms
  • Challenge in training
  • Our warm ups
  • My parents' support and the time they take to drive me to practice
  • My teammates
  • Our old pink shirts
  •  My parents always tell me to do my best

Hate It/Doesn't Work

  • Parents yelling at games
  • Not enough practices
  • My parents could try better to make it to more of my games
  • Some people hang out with the same people too much
  • Mark has to say "Listen" way too much
  • Sometimes we don't work hard enough in practice
  • Some players are negative towards others
  • My dad drives too slow to practice and everyone passes us
  • Too many players, not enough playing time
  • When my parents tell me that I did something great when I didn't
  •  Don't know some of my teammates that well
  • Our gray training shirts
  • Parents can be negative on the sidelines and can be too loud
  • Mark always has to get our team's attention when trying to say something
Friday
Jan122007

Set Pieces - Corner Kick Attack and Defense

Our final session prior to the Omaha friendlies.  I covered attacking and defending cornerkicks.  Nothing fancy here, just repetition and practice with 20 or 30 cornerkicks.