3/21 Scrimmage vs U12 West Boys

Phew!  Full field tonight.  

Before the game I addressed the roles of our outside players in our formation.  Many of the girls feel that being an outside defender is a position that is meant for unskilled players.  The girls have the idea stuck in their head that the only role of the outside defenders are to stay back and not let the other team score. 

This is very frustrating for me as a coach because that is about as far away from how I see the position as possible . . . and that is my fault.  

I want our outside defenders to be switching positions constantly with our outside mids.  I want our outside defenders to get in front of our outside mids when the ball is on their side of the field and try to score goals.  When the ball is not on their side, I want them to stay back so we are solid defensively, but I also want them to stay back so they will have plenty of room for us to switch the field and find their feet so they can attack at speed.

This brings me to our new position called a "Winger"

I explained to the girls that we have 2 wingers on each side of the field.  One will start in front of the other, but every time the ball is played to the winger who is further up the field, the other winger must overlap her and they will trade positions.  

I told the girls that if they are not switching positions on the wing at least once every 5-10 minutes something is wrong.

I wasn't sure how the overlapping would go and I was a little afraid that if we lost the ball while we were overlapping the boys would be able to exploit the open space.  But I decided that it was more important for me to get through to the girls that the "Defensive Winger" is an attacking position and they should be switching with the "Attacking Winger" on a regular basis than it was to worry about our defensive shape.

The girls came out and we played really well.  I don't have any notes from this game because I was coaching on the field tonight.  I've found that it really helps to be on the field during these scrimmages because you can give the players more personalized instructions without having to sub them off the field to ensure they understand.  A huge benefit of this is that the player can put into practice what you are showing them immediately and you can get them into the correct position so they truly understand the concept.  Like when you want players to understand how to play on the wing:)

 We were missing Lydia tonight and so I put Brownie and LK together in the center of defense and they played awesome.  

The girls on the wing did a great job of recognizing when and how to overlap and I was super happy with how well we moved the ball all game.  

With about 15 minutes left in the game we had a good movement down the left side of the field that produced a cross to the far post.  Taz was crashing in from the wing and she out jumped their goalie and defender and put the ball into the back of the net.  There was a bit of contact as Taz was running in and we discounted the goal for this game, but I think the goal would stand in a normal game.

We are a lot bigger and stronger than the 12 West boys and had a couple of hard tackles/fouls in a row after the goal.  The parents were really loud with each foul call we made screaming that they were not fouls. We stopped the game for a minute to bring all the players in from both teams and reminded them that we are all from the same club and if you can see someone's number, then you should not be trying to tackle the ball.  

I was not happy that our parents would be vocal about refereeing decisions . . . I was especially unhappy because their coach and I were reffing the game.  Of course we were going to call the game tight and protect the players on the field because the 13's were so much bigger than the 12's.  I want the 12's to enjoy playing us because they are very skilled and a good match for us technically.  So if it means calling an occasional hard tackle as a foul due to the difference in size I am ok with that.  

I am nervous about what is going to happen on the sideline in 2 weeks when we go down to Des Moines.

The West ended up scoring with about 3 minutes left when we had a clearance deflect off of one of our defenders and go straight to one of their players.  It was a very unfortunate goal to give up because it came out of nothing.  

After the game I told the girls I was very happy with how well they played.  We possessed the ball very well.  Our Wingers did a great job switching positions and overlapping each other.  We were very solid defensively.  Our center backs did a great job of finding passes and they were very calm on the ball.  

I can't wait to play the 12 South tomorrow and see how much we have improved since November.

3/21 8v8 Scrimmage vs U13 Boys White

Back in January I bought 12 hours of full field dome time at Holy Angels that had become available when I found out that we were not going to be able to go to Vegas.  We needed to get in some games before heading to Des Moines and this was going to be a great way for us to do that.

Luckily for us our games against the boys teams in our club were beneficial to them, as well as us, so we set up scrimmages with all 4 teams: U13 White Boys, U12 West Boys, U12 South Boys, and U13 Girls Blue.

The extra dome time that was available I used to set up scrimmages for our Academy teams.  The first hour of time today was supposed to feature 2 U9 games on one half of the field and a U10 game on the other half.  When I arrived at the dome Edina baseball was using half of the dome.  I figured that they must have bought the dome time before us and were going to finish by 8am because we have had the full dome starting at 8am every single Saturday since November.

As we approached 8am and the batting cage nets were still up in the middle of the field I went over and asked some of the baseball people when they would be finishing.  They told me 12pm.

I told them they must be wrong because we always have the full dome starting at 8am.  A lady pulled out her permit and they were listed as having the time.  I made a phone call to Cook to see what was up.  To my surprise he actually answered.  After checking over our permit, it turned out that Edina did have 1/2 the dome and no one had caught it.

I wasn't upset that we hadn't caught this, but I was pissed at Holy Angels.  How can they sell one random Saturday to an outside organization.  We spend hundreds of thousands of dollars at that dome and we shouldn't be bumped from our time for someone who spends one weekend there.

This time was originally supposed to be used for MRL games.  That would have been a nightmare.

I gathered all of our coaches and we devised how we would go about the first hour with having 3 games.  We split our 1/2 into 1/4's and left space for two 3v3 fields with pugg goals.  The U9's split their time between playing 6v6 on a 1/4 field and having two games of 3v3 on the smaller fields.  The next two hours were ok because we only had two games for the 9am hour and one game for the 10am hour.

I was still upset when it was our turn to play because now we would have to play 8v8 rather than 11v11.  The thing that upset me the most was that the kids would play less because both us and the U13 Boys had pretty full rosters.

We got on with the scrimmage and it was decent.  With the small field the boys put us under a ton of pressure defensively with their speed so it was really good for us.  Our goal was to see how often we could put together 4, 5, or 6 passes in a row while looking to go forward.

Both teams had multiple chances but it took until the 16th minute when we turned the ball over in the back and the boys capitalized to take the lead.  1 minute after that the boys scored again, and then put in another one from beyond half field inside of another minute.  Wow.  From 0-0 to 0-3 in 3 minutes.  That was not good.

Half time came and we regrouped.  I did not care about the score of the game, but I stressed to the girls the importance of leadership when things are not going our way.  We really needed someone on the field to take charge after the boys scored and make sure that we continued to play well. 

The boys scored twice more in the second half but I was happy with the way we played.  I thought we played well the first 15 minutes of the game and the second half.  We just had 10 minutes at the end of the first half that really hurt us.

After the game the boys were very complimentary of the girls and their skill which was very nice of them.

I wish we would have been able to play 11v11 but I'm sure that trying to stay composed on the ball with the pressure we were under in this game will prepare us for our next two games.

Nomads Tournament Game #3 vs THUSC Sodium

Some how after 2 ties in our first game we were still alive and could qualify for the semi finals with a win.  This was made possible because this tournament operated on a 2 point system.  I’ve never seen a 2 point system used in a tournament before.  This system encourages defensive play because it does not reward winning enough.  Three point systems reward winning because 1 win is the equivalent of 3 ties so it is late in the game and you are tied it makes more sense to push for the win than to sit back and be ok with a tie.  

My favorite team Arsenal would love it if the EPL was using a 2 point system.  They have not lost a game in the league since early November.  But because they have tied so many games they are 17 points out of first place.  The only time you see 2 points for a win are in leagues where the powers that be want to keep as many teams alive for the championship or post season as possible.  Ala the NHL and the Minnesota Wild.

So the 2 point system is a joke, but because of it we are tied with 3 other teams for the final playoff spot going into our game today: Nomads, THUSC Sodium, our White team, and us.

Nomads and our White team were tied with us and the played at 9:30.  Evan and I made our way out to the fields to take in their game.  (It was really nice that I was able to watch all 3 of the White team’s games.  Each week they are improving more and more and played some really good soccer this weekend.)  If the White team won this game they would most likely advance to the playoffs based on tie breakers.  (Goals against was the first tie breaker and they had only given up 1 goal in their first 2 games.) 

If the combined age of a typical 3 man reffing crew was 150 years old it wouldn’t be that bad.  However when that is the combined age of the only 2 officials that you have for the game, you are in for a long game from the beginning.  

The game started off brightly for the Whites when 14 minutes in Mac hammered home a  goal to take the lead.  The White team controlled the first half and created a couple of other good chances. 

The referee added some entertainment and confusion every time the ball went out of bounds because his signal for which way the throw in should go was putting both arms up and signaling both directions.  We were not sure if this was to keep his balance or if he really had no clue on every single ball.

With 5 minutes left in the half the referee struck again when the Nomads took a hard shot that got through Erika’s hands.  She reached back and grabbed the ball as it neared the goal line.  The ref was nicely out of position 35 yards away from the end line, and with no linesman to help him out the ref blew his whistle and signaled for a goal.  Tough break for the Whites.

The second half was controlled by the Nomads, the Whites had a couple of corner kicks but could not score, and Erika made one unbelievable save to keep the score tied at 1-1. 

This result meant that if we won our game against Sodium we would advance to the Semi Finals.

Before the game we stressed how important it was not to concede a goal at the start of the game and just after at half time.

We started off the game brightly and Sizzle got a shot off from a corner just 2 minutes into the game.  Then 6 minutes into the game our bad refereeing struck again as Lydia challenged one of their players shoulder to shoulder for the ball.  The ref blew her whistle from 30 yards away and then proceeded to ask out loud “Was that inside the box or outside?  I couldn’t tell from where I was at.”

What?!  I looked to the linesman for some help saying that there was not even a foul on the play.  Put it outside the box.  However, the linesman said that it was inside and they had a penalty kick.

AJ was not worried though and she pushed her teammates out of the box saying “I’ve got this.  Let them have the penalty shot.”

The Sodium girl stepped up and hit a very solid penalty to the left side of the net, AJ’s right.  AJ read it like a book, dove and made the save by the post.  She jumped up with the ball and on the game went.  I told the ref that she now owed us a penalty kick.

Shortly after AJ’s penalty save Sodium had a break away and AJ came up huge again.  Every time we cleared the ball from our end, our mids and forwards would sprint up the field after the ball, but our defenders were walking/jogging and Sodium’s forwards kept sitting in the huge gap.  Once we fixed that issue, we settled in and started to create chances and appeals for penalty kicks.

5 minutes after the penalty kick one of the Sodium players had a hand ball in their box that went un-called.  This would be one of 3 in the game.

15 minutes in Kenzie shot just wide.  3 minutes later Sophie was fouled as she was shooting and her shot went just wide as again there was penalty called for us.

At the 27th minute mark we had a quick build up that saw Gaffer flick on a ball for Sophie.  The Sodium goalie charged out, but Sophie arrived at the ball first and headed the ball past the goalie.  As the ball was going towards the back of the net a Sodium girl raced in and just cleared the ball off the line.  We couldn’t believe the ball didn’t go in.  It was the entire weekend in the nutshell.  We just could not get things to go our way.

At half time I went up to the ref and reminded her that she had given the other team a penalty kick on a questionable call without knowing whether or not the ball was in the box and she had denied 2 clear penalty kick calls for us.  

I then returned to the girls and we talked about the second half.  Both teams had created chances in the first half.  Sodium had created theirs when our defenders did not push up the field.  Once we started pushing up quicker, their chances became very limited.  We were getting chances by going on the outside and crossing the ball, as well as playing the ball to our forwards.  In the second half I wanted us to keep the ball on the ground for the first 15-20 minutes and use more skill to create our chances.  

We also talked about how in the last ten minutes if we still needed to score that it was super important every time it looked like we were going to be able to put the ball in the box, we needed 2, 3, 4, or 5 runners into the box looking to score.  Don’t sit back.  Attack the goal.

The second half started and it was exciting so our note taking ceased to exist.  It was an exciting second half that saw both teams have chances to win the game.

We kept firing in crosses and 5 minutes into the half we put in a cross that saw a Sodium player put both arms over her head and strike down with her hands.  I screamed out “Hand Ball Again!  Penalty!”  

The ref shook her head and said it was unintentional.  How could it be unintentional when her hands were above her head?!

Shortly after that Sophie turned her defender down by the goal line and as she was shooting she was pushed out of bounds.  Due to her strength she still was able to put the ball across the goal as she flew out of bounds in the air.  The ball went off the keepers hands and just missed two of our girls and bounced out.  I yelled for a penalty again reminding her that it was the 4th chance she had to make up for her first call.

After this Sodium went down the field and had a goal mouth scramble that saw the ball hit off the cross bar.  Things were exciting as Sodium kept us in our end for the next portion of the game.

We were eventually able to clear our half and we put Gaffer through on a break away.  As she neared the goal 2 sodium players converged on her and took her down before she could shoot.  Penalty!  It had to be a penalty!  Again nothing was called.  

We took a couple of shots that saw the keeper bat them down into the danger area and create a couple of goal mouth scrambles but nothing went in.

Sodium went back down the field and had a goal mouth scramble of their own that saw AJ make the first save followed by 2 saves from our defenders throwing themselves in front of the ball as shots were taken.

We rushed back down the field and played a through ball.  As their defender arrived in her box with our forwards bearing down on her she went to clear the ball and she kicked it up into her own hand.  Hand Ball Again!  Nothing.

The ensuing throw in saw Jordy flip the ball into the box and the goalie batted the ball into the front of the goal.  The ball bounced up high and Kenzie rushed in and put her head on the ball just before the keeper crashed into her and the whistle blew.  We were finally going to get our penalty!  Then the ref issued a yellow card to Kenzie.  It was infuriating.  

In the final minutes we had a corner that we pushed everyone up on including AJ.  Our last chance came on a cross that saw Gaffer get a great header onto, but the shot went just high.

The final whistle blew and our tournament was over.  The girls were very upset and had lots of fire and were devastated to not be moving on.  I was glad to see that it meant so much to them.

After the game we talked about the tournament.  We acknowledged that we didn’t have any breaks go our way and this last game was no different.  But when things are not going your way it is super important to stay sharp defensively and not concede goals.  We finished in the position we did because we gave up an early goal in the first game and another early goal at the start of the 2nd half of the 2nd game.  We were also in this position because we failed to convert on all of the chances we created.  Had we scored just 1 more goal in the tournament we would have advanced.  The first game really hurt us.

I told the girls that I loved how hard they battled and how they created tons of chances at the end of each game.  Now it will just come down to finishing the chances.  

This game was not one sided like our other games had been, but we still had created enough chances to win and if 1 of our 7 claims for a penalty had been answered we would be playing later in the day.  It was just our luck the entire weekend.

As I received the passes from the field marshal he mentioned that the center ref had wanted to write me up.  I told him that I was yelling during the game, but she opened herself up to it when she called that first penalty and didn’t know where the play had happened.  The field marshal then told me that his response to her was that if anyone should get written up it was her.  He then apologized to me and said he can’t believe how these people who never play the game get to become officials because they read a book.  He was the same field marshal that we had at our first game and he couldn’t believe that we were not going through to the semis.  He apologized again for the refereeing and we said good bye.

Nomads Game 2 vs Nomads

Evan and I arrived at the field early to watch the White team play THUSC, the Oregon State Cup Champs.  The Whites had one really good chance and a couple of other chances but they were not able to score.  THUSC received a mysterious foul called and scored on the ensuing free kick.  THUSC had some other really good chances but could not finish and the game finished at 0-1 in favor of THUSC.  I thought the Whites played well and THUSC was a pretty good team.  I was looking forward to our game with them.

After that game Evan grabbed us some Chipolte and we relaxed.  I was extremely frustrated that we couldn't score more goals in the first game, but the 3 soft shell barbecoa tacos and lemonade put me in a good state of being.

As the girls arrived at the field they noticed the huge canyon behind one of the goals.  Common sense says that if there is a canyon behind a goal there should be a fence.  There was none.  What was in front of the canyon were warning signs saying to watch out for rattle snakes.  Te girls either thought it was cool, or they expressed their fear of snakes. 

We made our way to the far side of the field to put our stuff down so we could warm up at the goal that did not involve the rattle snakes and 250 foot canyon.  The Nomads coach had obviously seen the canyon on the one side of the field and they positioned themselves to take the same side of the field as us.  The chess match was on.

Since we were early, the girls were hanging out waiting to start the warm up when we kept hearing a sea gull behind us.  It kept chirping on and on and I finally turned around to find Bella walking a ways back behind us making the noises.  She started laughing and said that she was calling for help as if she had been bitten by a rattle snake.  Everyone broke out in laughter asking her if that was really her call for help.  Bella then proceeded to say it was her call to hunt rattle snakes.  I love how funny these kids are.

Evan set up the warm up for the girls and as we were part way through it, the whistle blew to end the game before ours and the Nomads team immediately sprinted out to the non canyon half.  Touche to them.  I guess we will not be doing any shooting in our warm up.

We started off quickly with our chances again as Sophie received a cross from Gaffer but the shot was saved.  Nomads had a dangerous forward in #13 who got a shot a minute later off a turn but AJ saved it.

Nomads played with a very deep sweeper.  Deep as in out of the play deep.  I have always told our forwards that if another team is playing with a sweeper that they should go as far as the sweeper would let them go.  Doing this created a problem for us as we became very spread out.  Looking back on this I should have told the forwards to play normal and we would just play 10 versus 9 with their sweeper being out of the play.  I am really upset with myself for not seeing this during the game.

Ten minutes in Kenzie showed some sweet skills and dribbled 2 defenders and played Gaffer in but her shot was blocked at the last second.  The ensuing corner saw the ball fall to Kenzie but she shot it just wide.

After that chance I looked over and saw Evan laying down on the ground.  I said "Hey Evan, it's ok we'll get one."  He then informed me that he wasn't reacting to the missed chance, but that he had a major bloody nose.  Evan was out for at least 30 minutes without being able to stop the bleeding.  

Without Evan, and no bench to sit on, my note taking went out the window.  I really need to be sitting to take notes.

We continued to press Nomads into their end but we couldn't get anything in.

At the 26th minute we were able to take our first lead of the tournament when Lydia hit a corner into the mixer.  The ball hit off their goalie and LK started screaming that it crossed the line.  No call was made from the ref, but as LK was screaming that it was a goal, she was also crashing in on the goal and buried the ball into the back of the net for good measure and the refs signaled that we had finally scored.

Half time came and all the girls asked what happened to Evan.  He said that LK hit him in the nose when he said something she didn't like.  The girls all asked LK if that was true and she played it off perfectly saying that Evan deserved it.

At half time we addressed the fact that with their sweeper hanging back so far and their midfield dropping off super far as well we had a ton of space to get the ball to our outside backs.  I really wanted us to find our center mids and then have them find our outside backs.  We had played well and needed to keep it going.

We had the kick at the second half and Britt played the ball down to the left corner.  Our forwards and mids sprinted up the field, but Nomads won the ball and popped it back up the field to the space that the mids had left as they were pressing up field.  Our defenders were asleep and hadn't moved at all so there was a 30 yard gap between our mids and defenders.  Their forward was in that gap and received the ball.  Since the field was 100 yards long it meant that she was within shooting distance.  Nobody stepped to her and she finished a nice shot to the corner.  

I screamed inside my head about how we could allow that to happen.  Then, a couple minutes later, things got worse.  Bella was dribbling up the field and beat a girl with a scissors move 10 yards before half.  As she was dribbling away from the girl the ref called a foul on Bella.  It was another shocking call by the ref as it was Nomads 15th free kick of the game to our 2.  The final foul count was even more lopsided, with us incurring foul calls whether we were dribbling or defending.  We couldn't do anything right in the eyes of the ref.

From the ensuing free kick the ball bounced in the box and found one of their players on top of the box who had a nice volley into the net.  Down a goal again in a game we were dominating.

The girls responded brilliantly and we began to play really well again.  We continued to create chances and at the 45 minute mark Gaffer was able to tie the game.

After that goal I decided to have us go for the win and we pressed up into a 3-4-3 since Nomads were not threatening us with any chances.  When we did this we began to create even more chances and with 8 minutes left we crossed the ball into the box, it bounced once and Bella and Gaffer crashed in and put home the ball.  The ref blew his whistle and disallowed the goal.  I never received an explanation of why it was disallowed.

We spent the rest of the half in and around their box and had a couple of near misses but we failed to score a goal that counted.  

It was another frustrating draw that we deserved to have won.  After the game we talked about the fact that the players that start the game and second half need to be tuned in and ready to go.  The 2 early goals in each game cost us valuable points.  Especially when things are not going our way we need to be focussed on defense and not concede goals.

I told the girls I was happy with how hard they battle to get back into the game and how hard they pushed for the win.  It was a tough day for us putting the ball in the back of the net, but we were doing the right things offensively and just needed to keep plugging away.

Nomads Game 1 vs SC Del Sol (AZ)

We played at an elementary school for this game and this was the only field.  The dimensions were very small.  The sidelines were 5 yards away from the 18 yard box and the field was maybe . . . maybe 100 yards long.  It was a perfect field for 9v9.  11v11 not so much.  And it was really bumpy and there was a baseball infield that took over one of the corners.

The girls were excited for the game and we had lots of energy in the warm up.  The whistle blew to start the game and Del Sol played the ball back to their mids and they booted it upfield.  The ball went to one of our central defenders who miss hit the clear and it went right to their forward.  Both our central defenders backed off her and she took a shot from 25 yards out that AJ dove for, maybe could have held onto, and their forward continued her run and hammered in the rebound.  

24 seconds in we were down 0-1. Uh Oh?  Nope.

After that SC Del Sol did not get another shot and we opened up the flood gate of chances . . . The only issue was that none of our chances were going in.  Here are our notes from the game:

1 min: Del Sol Goal off of missed clear and rebound
3 min: Kenzie cross to Carly, header just over bar
4 min: Carly cross just misses
12 min: Gaffer shot from Sophie cross
14 min: Sophie catches the goalie out of position on a counter, but it hits the outside of the post and goes wide
16 min: Gaffer cross bounces around in front of goal
19 min: Gaffer misses open goal
19 min: Gaffer to poke, great save for corner
20 min: Sophie header from corner saved
24 min: Sizzle shot saved
26 min: Sizzle gets open off of flip throw saved
26 min: Kenzie break away saved

Half time 

At half time all we could say was keep doing what you are doing.  We were getting 3-4 runners in the box every time a cross came in.  We were super dangerous.  Just be composed in front of goal.

31 min: Corner bounces around in front of the goal
33 min: Gaffer gets a break away and hits the post.  The ball rebounds back off her face and into the net for a goal!  Finally!
35 min: Becks shot off of flip throw
37 min: Sophie gets played through on a counter attack for a break away and hits the post
41 min (3 chances): Taz hits the cross bar followed by Kenzie hitting the cross bar and the 3rd shot went wide
43 min: Becks free kick saved
50 min: Taz shot from Lydia pass
51 min: Gaffer volley just over
54 min: Jordy shot
59 min (2 chances): Gaffer break away saved, Kenzie misses near post on open net rebound. 

Game over.

We had 24 high quality scoring chances and scored 1 goal.  They had 1 shot and had 1 goal.  Soccer is not fair.  I know another couple of our shots hit the post but we were not able to keep up with all the chances.  Did the nets have plexie glass in front of them?  We were almost averaging a high quality scoring chance once every two minutes.  That is incredible.  The girls did everything right but the ball just would not go in.

If we score a usual percentage of the high quality chances we created we should have won 5-1 easily.  If we played on a good field we would have beat this team 7-0, but that darn ball just would not go in the net for us today.  

Hopefully the ball will go in for us in our next game vs Nomads.