Baptism by Fire

A whole 4 days after the 0809 team is formed, we're off to the Chicago area for what will likely be this year's most competitive soccer tournament for us.  Moreover, we're going to play 11v11 soccer, something that only 2 of these girls have had any real experience with.  

We'll be missing Gia, Barbie, and Anna this weekend.  Kait is guesting with us from our White team and Chels is guesting with us from Mahtomedi giving us a 16 girl roster this weekend.  I think we're going to struggle with some fitness issues for sure, even with 5 subs, but many teams there will be in the same boat.

We scrambled two training sessions together this week to try and hammer out as best we could team shape and formations, set pieces, and some other large field tactical ideas.  Two sessions (one cut in half due to weather) when we need 20. 

As I said though, I believe most other teams in this event will be in similar situations, either just getting to the larger field or not even there yet and still playing 8v8 in their respective states and coming to the event for the 11v11 experience.  If they're just getting to the large field though, most will have had tryouts well in advance of ours and have been training for the 11v11 game for longer than we have. 

Am I making excuses?  I don't think so.  Just trying to be a bit realistic about what we're going to be up against.  I'd be making excuses if I was bringing the team there with the focus of winning the whole thing.  We're not traveling to lose, but getting wins will not be the focus.  Rather, this event will be an invaluable experience for all of us (parents, coaches, and players) as we will witness firsthand how we currently stack up against some of the nation's most competitive clubs at this age group. 

Our schedule is as follows:

• Friday, 12:00PM vs Dallas Sting (TX)
• Saturday, 10:30AM vs CIS Knockouts II (IL)
• Saturday, 4:30PM vs Novi Jaguars (MI)
• Sunday, TBA

There are a number of other teams that I'd like to see (come up against) this weekend - PDA (NJ), Michigan Hawks (MI), Eclipse Select (IL), Carmel (IN), Ohio Elite (OH), and St Louis Scott Gallagher (MO).  Hang on a sec, that's every other team in the event.  I was thinking that hopefully we'll do well enough in pool play to advance as a high seed and guarantee us a tough consolation or semifinal match up, but all fourth matches will be tough ones. 

To be honest, I think we have a decent chance to advance as the #1 or #2 seed in our group.  I'm sure the Sting team will be tough, and we open against them.  CIS we saw in the finals of the West Des Moines Premier Games in April.  We beat them 7-3 on the smaller field though I told my girls that weekend that CIS played better soccer than we did.  We scored some lucky-ish high shots from distance and the game was tighter than the score indicated.  I don't know anything about the Novi team, just that they're from the same city as Michigan Hawks who are pretty highly touted at this age level.

Group B is the group of death in my mind with PDA, Carmel, Michigan Hawks, and Eclipse.  Group C features SLSG, Ohio Elite, Eclipse, and a TBD team.  

If we were to advance we'd play the Group B winner, unless the wild card team came from Group C. 

I'm really looking forward to watching the girls play this weekend!