1/11 11v11 Scrimmage vs U12 South

Look, I realize that there are more important things in life than football.  But when I played, nothing was more important to me.  If a big game was coming up, nothing- not my father, who I love, not my family, not curing cancer, not world peace- meant more to me than the game.  I'm sorry.
-Bernie Kosar

We were able to pick up two full field scrimmage dates for the upcoming season and today was our first one.  I was very excited to see how we would play since we had not played an 11v11 game in a couple of months.  We were going to be missing 8 of our girls so we had 4 of our U11's step in and help us.

• Why would I do a scrimmage when we would be missing almost half of our team?  Because the 9 players who would be at the scrimmage will benefit from it.  It does not matter what it is; training, scrimmage, tournament, if we can have some of our girls benefit I want to do it.

The first 10 minutes were a little shaky with the South group pushing forward and creating a couple of chances.  After that we settled into our new formation and style and we began to create chances and play well defensively.

We were able to use our wingers very well all game and Carly, Sprout, Mad Dog, and Britt were all able to use their 1v1 skills to create chances.  The center mid trio of Gaffer, Blitz and Jordy did very well and really started to figure out how the midfield triangle worked.  Our back line with Mack, Ricky, Hannah, Lydia, and Peyton with AJ and goal got a good grasp of how to play in this formation.

I asked Hannah to try out playing in the center of defense for us today.  A position she had not played for us in the fall.  Things seemed to click for her there and she did a great job of getting everyone to mark up on the right person all game and her and Lydia did fantastic in the middle of the field with one of them stepping to the ball and the other dropping.  This is something that is very difficult to understand in a flat back four and it was great to see it come so quickly to her.

22 minutes into the game Blitz won the ball off a throw in and switched the ball to Toxic up front.  Toxic turned and played Britt the ball on the far side of the box.  She took a nice set up touch and hammered home the shot. 

At half time we talked about how our defenders should mark up and allow our mids to push further up the field.  The other point we made was when we are attacking and getting into their box, one of our two defensive mids needs to hold 15-20yds outside the box so we can use them as an outlet if we are in trouble, she can stop counter attacks, and so she can look to shoot any half clearances or balls that come out of the box.

The first 20 minutes of the second half we played very well and created lots of chances.  We won every single goal kick and our defenders did a great job of stepping up early so we kept the ball in their half almost the entire time.  To the credit of the South team's defensive play in their box and their goalie, they were able to keep us from scoring in the opening 20 minutes and they were able to create some chances of their own at the end of the game.  It was great to see them weather the storm and finish very strong.

The game ended 1-0.  I always enjoy seeing the South and the East play because it is really good soccer and the games are always very close.  We will look to do more of these games to get ready for the Spring tournaments.

Today's MVP's were Sprout for her dribbling and good runs and Gaffer for dominating the center mid by winning tackles, air balls, and creating shots.