Rising from the ashes

Sadly I have a confession to make. Losing my entire team hurt a lot more than it probably should have and I wasn't very sure about the whole coaching thing coming into it this season. Well after only a single practice we played our first game this morning and all I can say is WOW!! I can actually say with certainty that my new roster as a whole is considerably stronger than my previous group of girls. I'm honestly sad to see them all gone but I'm thankful to have the new team I've been given. I can't wait to see how this season pans out!!!

And then there was one.....

It's time again to return to the pitch with my girls and start the Spring season. Sadly none of my team returned for this season (other than my daughter of course) but a team that lost their coach completed my roster with only a single rookie player. Monday I ordered jerseys (wow that was expensive) and HOPEFULLY we will have them in time for our first game on the 24th. With Spring Break falling right in the way of our practice sessions we're only going to in two before the first game but I'm hoping with 5/6 returning players we can just brush up on the basics and then buckle down AFTER the game. Here's hoping for another fun season of football and all the thrills and spills it has to offer!!!

It's a kind of magic

The game Saturday was probably the most exciting outing we've had to date. Once again I saw progress from each girl in their own way and there was a lot of little things that amazed me along the way. Instead of the usual I/me/mine mentality there was a glimmer of teamwork with passing and strategy. The girls started to spread across the pitch instead of bunching up in a clump which made for some pretty spectacular moments sprinkled through the game. We've only got 2 more weeks together but I'm already looking forward to next season and all the ones after that!

And the light bulb goes on

Last night was AWESOME!!! Every time we get together I see little steps from each individual towards a better game. Last night I watched as one player chased the touch line, promptly made a hard left turn at the goal line (without going out of bounds), passed in front of the goal and jerked a hard right hand shot to score....all while being hounded by the opposition every step of that way!!! Another, who has been in the "capable but disinterested" camp made a polar switch to fully in control and pushing the limits and I honestly never expected to see that kind of fire out of her...AND SHE'S MY KID! WOW!!! Unfortunately we only have another two and a half weeks with 5 practices and 3 games before the end of the season. Not sure what I'm going to do with myself until spring......

Well crap....

So after having to cancel our Thursday night practice session due to high winds last week we ended up getting our game rained out on Saturday. Sheesh....

So after a week off we spent practice addressing defense, blocking, and tackling again. MY definition not FIFA's. We were missing a player last Monday but this one was even worse. Tonight I spent the first half hour with only two players, neither of whom were feeling cooperative. Then we had one more show up in exactly the same mood as the first two and well......you just can't make a 4 year old "want to".

Hopefully our makeup game on Wednesday will help turn things around....lord knows I could use the pick me up.

Hrmmmm 3 in one....

Well I didn't blog after last Thursday's practice because I was too pissed off to arrive at our practice space to discover a flag football team. When I approached the wife of the coach to explain that we'd been practicing for over a month she was extremely rude and disrespectful and I just didn't want to get caught up in that here. Hopefully they will show a little more respect this week and find another place or night to practice but we'll have to see.

Saturday was a massacre of gargantuan proportions. The coach of the opposing team was a collegiate level player himself and it really really showed in how his team performed. But as with everything we went away from the experience with new thoughts and new ideas on how we can improve our own team as well as an open offer from the opposing coach to scrimmage during the week and a few tips to boot! Nothing negates the embarrassment of having your ass handed to you on a spit, but if you can't learn from the experience and move forward then you're just not seeing the bigger picture. Just because I'm the "coach" doesn't mean I know anything nor that I have nothing to learn. In fact I see it as meaning that I have a responsibility to learn even more than my girls so that I can have something to teach them in the first place.

Monday night practice was a new and interesting experience. My rock star couldn't be there, and my assistant coach was stuck at work again, but thankfully my M-I-L kept my youngest allowing my wife to assist. Today though she's regretting it on so many levels I can't help but laugh at her. She says she's hurting in places she didn't know she had!!! She's never once thought that what Michael and I am doing "looks easy" but damned if having to get out there and do it yourself doesn't open a whole new perspective on things!! Ok so last night we started working on introducing the concept of tackling. Yes I know this soccer blog is called "football" and I also know that gridiron football uses the term tackle but in OUR world it's a very different concept. CHECK THIS OUT. Essentially what this means is that "tackling" is just the act of taking the ball away from the opposition. Any form of taking the ball away is a "tackle" but I've separated, for the girls, the concept of "stealing the ball" which is taking possession of the ball and moving toward your goal and "tackling the ball" which is essentially just kicking the ball out of the other player's control in effort to disrupt their progress.

In the big game, where you have 11 players on the field, MY definition of tackling is very likely to place the ball within range of one of your teammates who could then take possession and move towards your goal making it synonymous with my "stealing". At our level with only 3 girls on the field (who are more than likely bunched up around the ball with the 3 on the OTHER team) all you can hope to accomplish is to disrupt travel and hopefully get to the ball before the opposition regains control which is why I've decided to differentiate. Stealing is a controlled move, and tackling is a defensive action to disrupt the other team. Next thing to do is going to be convincing the girls to spread out a bit. That whole bunching up around the ball thing is a little bit counterproductive when you're stealing the ball from your own team.....

Sometimes it pays to go backwards

Productivity and something about "a chain is only as strong" comes to mind when I consider our practice last night. Here's the thing...6 different 4 year old girls are exactly the same as any other group of any other people. Each one learns differently at different rates and with different teaching methods, and not two of them are exactly alike. Some came to me with no skills at all and other came with various experiences from previous team sports or playing with friends or etc etc etc. When my assistant coach missed our Thursday practice I made the best of the situation and it ended up being a very good experience for me because it allowed me to work with each girl and see things I had been missing. Last night one of my players couldn't make it so I decided again to take advantage of the unbalanced situation to work on some things and I feel really good about the whole thing.

Since being one girl short left us with an odd number we warmed up and did some drills waiting for our last player until we decided she wasn't going to make it. Michael started to run a scrimmage with 4 of the girls working on blocking and defense and I took the opportunity to have some one on one time with an enthusiastic player who just seems to have a difficult time with the basics. I didn't even know we had spent an hour working on kicking and dribbling until my wife told me it was time to wrap it up! I feel like we made some progress and I hope things start to stick but I think the best thing for her is going to be repetition and focusing on the basics without overwhelming her.

Now on the other side of the world, the scrimmage was equally productive with the girls focusing on follow-through and defense. I'm only going on what I was told because honestly I don't think I so much as looked up during my hour, but they worked on blocking and defending by chasing down the attacking player and getting in between them and the goal as well as stealing possession and following through with it by driving the ball towards the goal after the steal. Most of our girls tend toward simply following the ball more than interacting with it so it's important to get them to actually get into the fray and make contact and then after making that contact seeing it through all the way to the end. A common thing we have been seeing, if we see any contact resembling a steal, is a single touch to the ball disrupting the attackers momentum followed by a dead stop watching the ball roll away while the other team pursues it. Something akin to what we're hoping to see but without the follow-through required for it to actually be useful. I think Michael must have found a way of explaining things that clicked for the girls that I haven't been able to. It's good to have another set of eyes that can think of alternate ways of teaching when I can't get results.