4/6 Crossing and Finishing and Scrimmage vs U15 White

Today something happened that hasn't happened since October.  We had everyone at training!  It was a momentous occasion.  As soon as I saw that everyone was at the field, I felt a huge energy boost and I was excited to get going.

Everyone had arrived at training 15-20 minutes early so I told the girls of their new challenge for the next 3 weeks.  Back in the fall we challenged the girls to be able to juggle the ball 50 times in a row with just their feet.  The new challenge from now up until our first game of State Cup will be to juggle the ball 30 times in a row with their opposite foot.

I went back and forth on the number knowing that 30 would be too easy for some of the girls and I almost set it at 50.  But for some of the girls they still really struggle juggling for their weaker foot and I want to be able to say that everyone on the team can get to a certain level.  For the girls who 30 was too easy I challenged them to see who could be the first person to get to 100, 250, and 500.

About half the girls achieved the 30 juggle mark and LK is the current high juggler with 98.

I. Technical Work: Crossing and Finishing

I divided the girls into 3 groups of 6 and sent each group to a goal.  1/2 the girls were crossers and 1/2 were finishers.  The crossers took one touch and worked on driving the ball to the pk spot or far post.  The finishers worked on timing their runs and finishing through a header or volley.

We started on the right side and switched to the left and worked on attacking the end line to cross the ball and attacking the end line but cutting the ball back early and delivering a cross in the air.  For the cut back we worked on the runners into the box adjusting their runs by backing up when the crosser cuts the ball back.  We call it "pulling off the defender."

II. 2v1 Wide Play to 2v1 Finishing

I have been wanting to do this exercise for a couple of weeks now but we never had the right numbers to make it work.  We ended up spending more time than I had planned on the crossing and finishing so we only had about 10 minutes for this.  Not enough time to really get into the drill, but I wanted to intro it for the girls so we will be able to really get into it at our next 1/2 field training.

Set Up

• 2 Blue crossers begin staggered in the wide channel
• 2 Blue finishers begin near the center circle with a ball
• 2 Red defenders begin at the disk 10 yards away
• Same set up on opposite side of the field

 Procedure

• Blue finisher plays the ball out to the Blue attacker who is in the advanced position
• 1 Red defender goes out to the wide channel where the 2 Blue crossers go 2v1 against her 
• 1 Red defender stays in the middle to defend the 2 Blue finishers who begin to make their runs wide into the box

• The crossers go 2v1 until they are able to play the ball into the 2 finishers
• As soon as the cross is played in the other side begins

There are lots of different ways to approach the 2v1: Give and Go, Overlap, Dribble, Lay It Back For An Early Cross

We talked about the visual cue that if the defender is sitting back from the ball carrier she can play an early cross in behind the defender in the middle

We only introduced this today, but we will be working a lot on the different ways to get the ball into the box and the runs the finishers can make.  I hope to build it so we will have a recovery defender out wide to put more pressure on the crossers and I want to build towards having 2 or 3 defenders in the middle that the finishers have to beat to the ball.

III. Scrimmage vs U15 White

Earlier in the day Singer had called me asking if the 13's would be interested in scrimmaging the 15's for the last 1/2 of training.  I was all for it so Singer called Yong and asked if we could do it and he said that because he would have a lot of players tonight he wanted to make sure that we played for at least 45 minutes so he could get all the girls enough playing time.  Fine by me.  

I asked him again if he thought it would be beneficial for his girls.  They are so much bigger, faster, and stronger than us, plus it is difficult for them to get excited to play a team that is 2 years younger than them at this age.  (15-13 is a lot different than 18-16) Yong said it would be good for them to get in some game experience before they begin MRL play so we were all set.

We were awesome in the scrimmage.  We continued where we left off from last weekend.  We moved the ball around really well.  We were dangerous in the attack.  A couple minutes in we sent a header on a corner kick just over the bar.  We are becoming very dangerous on corners.  

We played super well defensively and did a great job of forcing them one way and denying them switching the field, which is what they are very good at.  Our central defenders, Brownie and Lydia, did not let their forwards turn and attack us.  Brownie had one spectacular tackle when she was caught 1v1 with one of their players as the last defender.  She did a great job of jockeying and when the moment was right she got stuck in, won the ball, and sent the attacker flying.

The 15's scored off a corner when AJ hit the ball out into the danger area when she was caught deciding between catching the ball and punching it.  We blocked the first shot, but the second shot flew past us into the empty net.

The girls responded well and continued to play good defense and attack.  With 5 minutes left in the scrimmage we had the ball out on the right wing.  We played the ball to Kenzie (RM) who flicked it onto Blitz (fwd) who headed it onto Gaffer (fwd) who was running into space!  Gaffer accelerated and finished off the break away with a nice toe poke over the goalie.

I was super happy with how the girls played in the scrimmage today.  I don't know if we will be able to play the 15's this close again this year as I'm sure they will be motivated the next time we play them.  After the training Yong and I began to set up a scrimmage between the 2 teams for this Saturday so it will be another really good test for us.