A big concern among many coaches involved in this country is that our kids play too many games and don't train enough. I invite all of those people to come up to Minnesota for a winter to help balance out their training to game ratio. In the last 3 months we have had 34 trainings and 3 scrimmages. a little over 11 trainings per game. If I could chose my schedule for this time of year it would be to play 1 game every 2 weeks and have 2-3 weekends of mini tournament play.
I love the winter months because these are the months where I see the most improvement in our players because they don't have to worry about the outside pressure that games put on players. In training players get to experiment and try things over and over with no worries. The kids are free to express themselves and take time to grow and expand their game instead of worrying about battling to win a game.
Every person I have met tries more things in training and low pressure environments that they don't try in competitive games. Using myself as an example I play in a league on Tuesday nights at Beilenberg that I would describe as a purely recreational league and I mess around with the ball and try things all the time because I know that if I mess up the league is just for fun. This weekend I am down playing in a very competitive tournament in Madison. Our team came down here just to have fun and get some good games in. But once the whistle blew for our first game it was all business and we tried our hardest to win. I didn't do half the things that I do in the Beielenberg league here because the game was so competitive and one mistake could have cost us the game. (Side note we beat the team who has been a finalist each of the past 2 years and is one of the top teams in the tournament so a good start for us.)
Long story short, when the competitive juices get flowing, creativity and experimentation dip because the desire to do well usually overrides the desire to be creative.
On to the game vs the 14's.
The two things I was looking for today were improvement in our high pressure defense and being comfortable on the ball after we win the ball.
The 14's are really good at swinging the ball from side to side so I was very interested to see how we would do with keeping the ball on one side of the field and not allow their center mids to find their outside backs.
In the first half our center mids were too cautious in stepping to their center mids in the middle of the field and in our attacking half because they were worried about either getting beat or covering the other players who were open. I was on the field with the girls and I kept telling them to go for it, don't hesitate. If you get there quickly and get their head down we can win the ball early and not worry about the switch.
It is a tough concept for players to understand that you can leave someone wide open if the player on the ball cannot get the ball to them because of the pressure she is under. You'll get the screams from the sideline "Someone cover her! She is all alone!"
It is also a tough concept to grasp because if they hesitate and then step, the other team will find the far side player who is wide open and we will be in trouble. Or if they are too far away to step and go it creates the same issue. The girls have to be constantly reading the game and adjusting.
10 minutes in the 14's had a throw in and we tuned out for a split second and they found their danger forward, Jenna, and she turned up field with time and space to run at one of our center defenders. Jenna is fantastic 1v1 player and she has speed to burn so I knew we were in a lot of trouble. As Jenna skipped by our 1st center defender our other center defender stepped to her. as she was stepping Jenna slotted a pass to their other forward and she finished the shot 1st time.
On this goal our outside right back was caught too far up field and could not provide cover for our 2nd center back as she stepped. Looking back at the goal, we had lots of issues that factored into this goal and it was a good thing that the 14's scored on the play so we can point back at this moment and work on them.
A couple minutes later our center back tried to dribble one of the 14's forwards on top of our box with no cover. She lost the ball and the 14's scored again. I have no issue with my players experimenting in games with what they can do and what they can't. The 14's stealing the ball and scoring is good feedback for that particular center back that she either needs to do a better move in that area of the field or look to pass out of pressure in that situation.
After that 10 minute spell we started to play better and we began to do a much better job of pressing as a team. Our weakside forwards (Carly, Jordy, Kenzie, and Babo) also started to find the outlet space on the far side of the field. Even though we did not get the ball to them all the time, our mids and defenders kept looking at them so I could tell that they were seeing the pass. Something little like this made the scrimmage worthwhile to me. We didn't even execute the pass all that often, but the girls understood the idea.
We had one really good movement that started with a combination with our outside left back and center mid that led to finding our right defender, Sizzle, over lapping our right forward to the corner. It was a great run by Sizzle and the type of team movement we are looking for.
At half time we talked about the goals, our high pressure with our mids, our weak side forward floating out wide, and how we were staying calm under pressure.
The second half was a good half for us. We denied the 14's switching the ball and we had much better balance as we went to high pressure. Jenna still caused us problems with her speed, but besides that we played really well defensively. On offense we were very composed on the ball.
We didn't create that many chances in the game today but the chances will come as we continue to memorize the visual cues we are working on and the girls start to think less and just play because the ideas are becoming more natural.
*It was great to see how well the 14's were playing. This was probably the most dangerous I have seen them in a while. I was very impressed with them tonight.