NSR Gold Cup - Friday, Aug 31

Another holiday weekend full of soccer.

I’ve taken teams to this Illinois tournament for a number of years.  Great fields and competition make it a very enjoyable and challenging event for our teams.

This year we have 4 teams involved.  The U11G Blue and White pool teams (still not finalized Blue and White teams) from the East Academy, along with the U12G Blue from the East and the U12 Blue from the South.  Andy and I are the only coaches here this weekend covering the 4 teams, so things will be busy for us.

The tournament games are spread between two different field complexes in Naperville, but the schedule looks good in terms of minimal commuting between the two on each day.

I’m excited to seen how the teams compete.  It will be tough for the U12 South team as this marks their first games on the 11v11 field (the U12 bracket down here is 11v11).  Though it also marks the first real competition for the U12 East team on this sized field, we’ve done a good job of getting them a number of scrimmages already on the regulation sized field in the last two weeks.  Moreover, the East team is stronger than the South team at this point, with more athletic and skilled players in the East group.  Regardless, it will be a good early season experience for both teams, albeit a baptism by fire of sorts.

At this point, I feel the U11G Blue team in the East is stronger overall than my current U14s (the team we are modeling this age group after) were back in the fall of 2004 as U11s.  There are also many players on the U11 White team who I feel would have fought for roster spots on my U11 team back in 2004, so that team, even as a second team in our club, will be no easy meat for opponents either.

As recent as 4 or 5 years ago, U11 teams from MN would have been happy to score a goal in an event like this, let along win a game.  Though the level of MN soccer is still lagging behind what is generally found in the Chicago area and the level in the Chicago area has also continued to rise over the last few years, I believe what we’ve been doing in MN has allow our game to be raised faster.  There is still a gap, but the gap has narrowed.

As the my main new group, I’m looking forward to seeing how the U11s match up to some of the Chicago area teams, and looking forward to our individual and team weaknesses to be highlighted in this event.

This weekend will also be an educational one for the 28 sets of parents involved as they will get a chance to see some very strong regional teams in action.  Early tournaments like this will help to bind the parents and players into our training philosophy this next year as they will realize that there is a lot of good soccer out there and the only way to keep our players on the same playing field as those on some of the other teams in the region is through hard work, dedication, and commitment.  This is what we are about, especially with our Blue teams.  Regional competition, pushing our younger players through challenging game environments to be the best players they can be.  Is this too much too early?  I don’t think so, as long as the girls LOVE what they are doing.  My job is to help the girls foster this passion in the game so that they are around in later years to truly realize their potential.

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I met with about 30 of the U11 and U12 girls on Friday night at 7PM in the hotel lobby to go find a match of grass to do a light jog and stretch and some fun team bonding games. 

We talked about the upcoming weekend, reminding the girls about curfew, proper hydration, pool restrictions, and hotel/soccer field behavior.  All of them were obviously excited about the tournament and the hotel stay, and we all settled in for the night looking forward to what the weekend would bring.