State Cup Game #2 vs Coon Rapids 4/26

Today was one of the days where I wished we were still inside in the domes.  Rainy and cold with the rain occasionally reaching monsoon levels.  Before the game we stressed how important finishing our chances was going to be as we did not capitalize on all of the chances we created yesterday.

I was unable to take any notes during the game due to the rain and I have put off writing about this game for far to long and my memory is a little bit fuzzy on everything that happened.

We opened the game on fire.  We moved the ball really well and Jordy almost scored 2 minutes into the game but her shot hit off the outside of the post.  She would have 2 more chances inside the 6 yard box during the game but would send one over on a header and another would go wide.  

We peppered them with shots and crosses and 10 minutes in Gaffer, I think, was able to get us our first goal.  

Kari had a great game on the right wing and she was beating their outside mid and defenders every time she touched the ball, winning corners and delivering dangerous crosses into the middle.

20 minutes in, girls a little help here, brought the ball down the left side of the field cut inside and played the ball all the way across to Jazzy (RD) who hit a one touch shot that skipped just in front of the goalie and went in from about 35 yards.  We were lucky the ball got by the keeper, but by this point in the game we had already hit the post 3 times and the AR in front of our bench commented that it was about time we got a good bounce of the ball.

2-0 at half-time.  We talked about the need to finish our chances.  We had left too many on the board again and we should have been up by a couple of more goals at this point.  I challenged the girls to continue to play good defense and not allow Coon Rapids anything in the second half.  The last point we talked about was the need to get to the 3rd goal and end the game early.

We got our 3rd goal a couple of minutes into the 2nd half.  I can't remember who scored it, I think it was Bella.  

We scored our 4th goal of the game 20 minutes into the second half, again I can't remember but think it was either Kari or Sizzle.

We scored our 5th goal a couple minutes from time when we played the ball up to Brownie, who had stepped up from her central defender position to play forward.  She turned and played Carly through and she finished first time.

The final was 5-0.  The girls did a great job of pressing Coon Rapids when they had the ball which meant that Coon Rapids had the ball under control in our half less than 5 times the entire game.

Our next game is versus Edina on the 9th of May.

Crossing and Finishing 3 Teams Training 5/3

I.  Header and Volley Technique

II. 3 Team 4v4 To Goal Crossing and Finishing

III. 3v3 and 4v4 to Puggs

IV. 7v7 to 2 Puggs

5v3 Movement To Goal: Training 5/3

I was in Rockford this weekend with the 16's for their last weekend of MRL games.  The 16's have made some major improvements since last year and it looks like they will finish 3rd in the MRL Premier League.    Last year they finished 7th.  The 16's game on Sunday as at 10:00am versus Lexington FC.  After beating them 2-1 we jumped in the car and drove straight back to Holy Angels to drop the players off.  Then Eric and I rushed over to the airport to return the rental van.    

It is a great idea to rent vans when you are going somewhere within driving distance.  It doesn't cost much and you save the wear and tear on your vehicles.  

I made it to McMurray about 15 minutes before the 6pm training session.

I.  Running Juggling

II.  Finishing Repition

The girls were in 2 lines up on top of the 18 and ran into the box 1 at a time while Evan and I served the balls in a variety of ways to them.  We kept harping on the girls to be sharp with the finishes, make solid contact, and shoot low.  I gave them 1 point for a shot on net, 2 points for a goal in the top half of the net, 3 points for a goal in the bottom half. 

III. 5v3 To Goal: Forward and Midfield Movement

Set Up

• 5 Blue Attackers (2 Fwds, 3 Mids)
• 3 Red Defenders (2 Def, 1 Mid)

Procedure

• The Blue CM begins dribbling diagonally towards the forwards
• The Red mid cuts off the passing lane to one of the forwards

• Each attacking player has lots of choices on where to make her run

A) Forward Receiving The Ball

• A¹ Check to and lay the ball off
• A² If the defender is tight, spin off and the ball will be played over the top for a break away

B) Ball Side Outside Mid 

• B¹ Stay where you are to receive the ball at your feet
• B² Curve your run outside and receive the ball at your feet while going forward
• B³ Run hard to the corner and call for the forward to dummy the ball and let it go through to you

C) Forward Who Does Not Receive The Ball

• C¹ Dart inside for a flick on from the other forward or call for the dummy
• C² Pull wide and get ready to run in for the cross.  If you pull really wide the weak side outside mid can run inside and you can make the far run

D) Weak Side Outside Mid

• D¹ Curve your run wide and get in for the cross
• D² Sprint inside for the cross and have the weak side forward take the far post run

 Make It Competitive

• +1 for a good cross
• +1 for a shot on goal
• +3 for a goal
• +5 for a one touch finish
• Defending team +2 for a successful clear

We didn't get through all the runs today because my focus was for the girls to get the set up of the exercise and see how they could be creative on their own.  We struggled a little bit on recognizing when to pass the ball into space and when to play the ball into feet.  It wasn't bad, but incorrect decisions would cost us 1-2 seconds or put us in a less dangerous area had we made the correct choice.  I'm asking the girls to get to the next level with their thinking and it is going to take time.

IV. Scrimmage

Finishing, Forward and Midfield Movement: Training 4/30

Today's training was thrown a bit out of whack when Eric called me to say that he had an emergency at work and was not going to be able to attend the 16's training.  Originally he was just going to let the girls run it, but I said that we were doing a lot of finishing and different activities that are fun and I could have the 13's demonstrate the activity and the 16's could go and run it on their own.

It turned out I overestimated the 16's focus level and maturity.  Their was no leadership and they were perfectly happy to do everything at half speed and sloppily.  After 35 minutes I told them to go do whatever they wanted because it was a waste of time to explain the exercises to both groups and try to watch them since they were not putting in any effort.  

If the 13's ever show this type of attitude there will be major consequences and changes to who is on the team.

Here is what we did:

I. Off Foot Juggling & Driving The Ball With 1 Touch Back

All but 4 players can get to the 30 juggles with their opposite foot now and the 4 are really close to getting to 30.  The one touch back went better than expected last time.  

II. Finishing Technical Work

Lots of repetition.  We had 2 players serving balls from their hands on each side.  Every couple of minutes we switched up the type of ball being played in.  We concentrated on quick, sharp swings.  Finishing low.  And Headers.

• Line drives from throw
• Bouncing balls from throws
• Lofted balls from throws

III. Crossing and Finishing
Same set up we used on Tuesday to see if the technical work helped us out on our finishes. 

IV. Scrimmage vs the U16's
Some of the 16's had mentioned before training that they'd like to scrimmage the 13's.  I had said no before because there was a lot of things I wanted to work on and we were not going to have time.  But the 13's really wanted to play and they had been pretty focussed during training so for the last 40 minutes we scrimmaged.

The small training field at McMurray (100x55) would play to our advantage because the 16's wouldn't be able to out run us.  We played really well and created a handful of really good scoring chances.  As usual the girls battled extremely hard and didn't back down from the challenge.  The 16's hit the post but besides that the work rate of the 13's kept the ball away from our 18.  There was a controversial offside call by the 16's that pulled a goal back that the 13's had scored.  The game ended 0-0 and I left amazed at how the girls absolutely never back down.

Crossing and Finishing: Training 4/28

I didn't have time to do this one in depth.  But we continued on with the crossing and finishing aspect of our training.

0-15 Off Foot Juggling & Driven Balls With 1 Touch Back

15-30 Lay off crossing and finishing technique Teams of 4

30-60 5v3 Forward Movement to Goal

60-90 7v7 

Points:

• +1 for a goal
• +2 for 2 touch
• +3 for a one touch