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ROWDIES...It's just a state of mind
A Central Delaware Soccer Association Under-12 Boys Competitive Soccer Team.
Monday, October 22
Top 10 Reasons to Coach Youth Soccer...
10. To get the chance to fend off a volenteer AR, who is not only a rules expert, but, a former UFC champion. 9. To spend Sunday night designing training sessions while cleaning the 4 major fast food groups out of your SUV. 8. To master the concept of the offside law. 7. To explain the concept of the offside law to officials 6. To drive to new parts of the country, meet new and interesting people...and get screwed by them. 5. To explain to parents that they have several years to wait until little Ricky is Ronaldinho. 4. The love, respect and adulation of your fellow coaches. 3. To watch the players you've spent countless hours training, totally ignore everything you've ever said. 2. To watch a team up 5 goals lose their minds @ being called 10yds offside...And the #1 Reason to coach youth soccer....THE MONEY. A little tongue in cheek, the truth is: what would you do without it? golf, fish ...both just as frustrating and alot more expensive. The lessons learned on that pitch are invalueable, we learned we are as good as anyone in our division...and consequently as bad. We have met the enemy and he is us. The only team we've played this year that we need to be scared of....IS US. Teams don't score on 4 corners in a season much less a half....good thing we covered that in our pre-match work. We are going to be as good as we will let ourselves be, the physical mistakes we can cope with, it's the same mental mistakes that kill, over and over. Oh well, live to fight another day, there's got to be something left we haven't seen.
Sunday, October 14
When A Loss Beats A Tie..
You never know how to feel after a defeat, the result speaks volumes...or does it ? We came up on the short end of the score sheet, but, you would be hard pressed to find anyone on either sideline who didn't know the result. The Rowdies outplayed an upper table team for 60 minutes, exactly 60 minutes and not a second more. They will go back home with the 3 points, but, we gained something more important, the belief that we are truely the better team. The phantom free kick was their loan shot of the second half, that added together with the offside goal early set the scoreline. This was a satisfying loss...no kidding, we played hustling, smart soccer, much better than the previous days match, even with the better result. Yesterday was a loss, today a win, neither will show it in the standings, but, from a standpoint of improvement, no comparison. The battles for playing time will make training more intense, that's the environment we need to get better, push each other. We keep making strides in the right direction.
Tuesday, October 2
Drought Conditions Washed Away...
The farmers are suffering, crops are wilting in the fields, lawns are turning brown and the soccer pitch is rock hard. Never fear moisture is near, all the tears that hit the pitch last Saturday should have been enough to soften up the hardest ground. The last couple weeks were spent listening to more crying than Hillary giving back Norman Hsu's money. We have a responsibility to coach, accept when we've been outplayed or outofficialed and move on, the best man dosen't always win. Reality is you can't win every match, the players need to understand that, you can't control the result, even if you get every match on your own field w/ your own refs. You can control your preparation and your effort, after that, the result serves as a lesson , positive or negative. We'll win our share and lose almost as many, that's the type of competitive balance we need to teach the lessons. The players need to learn to compete, they don't need to learn how to make excuses, how many Rowdies are over 80lbs ? Not more than two or three, probably twice as many under 60, yeah... scary group of kids , I'd be wetting my pants too....bright side is that helps the drought relief also.
Tuesday, September 11
The Long and Winding Road....
It was a day of FIRSTs, FIRST Delco match...and points and win. FIRST pk in just about forever. FIRST time MommaFlo was first, leading the whole crew into the hidden "park". FIRST match we've played on a square, or maybe a circle, since a corner was impossible. Some kids got a dose of reality, that was the real world and by the grace of god and the sweat of their parents labor, they get to leave after the match. The whole scenario was surreal, almost foreign and we played like it. We need to adapt to conditions ( hopefully not those again ) and impose our game from the tap. Not an awful debut, lucky to open with a relatively weak opponent, points will be difficult to come by if that's our best effort. That being said, of greater importance on this day :God Bless America...our difference is our strength.
MISSION STATEMENT....Who we are, and why are we here?
The primary goal of the team is to prepare the players to compete @ the STATE CUP in the Spring of the U12 season. The longer term objective is to build fundamentally strong players who will be able to have a positive impact, on and off the field @ the high school level. The emphasis is on technical and tactical training to enable the boys to make good soccer as well as non soccer decisions. Just as importantly, to create an environment to foster life long friendships. To accomplish these goals, we as coaches must allow the players to develop physically and psychologically @ thier own pace..... WHAT TO EXPECT...The boys need to have fun or we can never reach our potential,discipline and consequences must be clear and purposeful,without removing the fun from the game. This is a competitive soccer team...we intend to be competitive, winning and losing are not the barometer to measure our success. Winning is the residue of hard work and quality training...The Rowdies will compete and enjoy the struggle regardless of the score.
Wednesday, September 5
Ain't no justice in Jersey... habits make players II
7 goals for, 1 against....210 quality minutes of soccer, 30 unacceptable ones. They followed up the brutal effort with a half hour of sustained pressure and conviction. Almost saved the match ( more than almost ) with the admirable effort. The hole was dug just a bit too deep to overcome a decent team and a less than stellar effort in the middle. We dug our own hole...the concern is that we played way to direct when behind, the training went out the door and we took the shortest route...over the top, way to predictible, way to easy to defend, way to eastern european....The Bulgarian Bumrush. As nasty as it was to watch, it sure was better than the previous half hour. We need to be more consistant to compete week in and week out for 13 matches in DELCO. We can compete in this league...we have a tremendous group of hard nosed little ----s. Some are more athletic than others, some are smarter than others, some more mature, more physical...in their differences lies their strength. We have a super group a supportive parents, some more punctual than others, some not as quiet, some not as organized, maybe even the maturity issue could be applied here...you get my point. Not all the same, but, on the same page. We have chosen to be in this together, to support the Rowdies, even when they don't act or do what we would like to see. These kids hate to lose, some want to take on the world by themselves, that's fine...give me 11 kids that hate to lose over 11 kids that like to win, we can modify the the actions without affecting the desire. This is a long process, they'll continue to develop, look how far they've come, 3-0 this year...0-1 last, 4-0 this year...0-0 last. They get enough negative imput from the technical area, they need positive from the "other sideline" support the differences, add to their strength. Enjoy the inner beauty of the Bulgarian Bumrush every now and then.
Monday, May 7
Whining isn't everything...it's the only thing !
Vince Lombardi, apparently got it all wrong. Winning @ U11 isn't everything either, competing is the only thing. The bottom line is: if you win more balls, you can give some away and still keep more than your share. Competing for every loose ball and creating a high pressure environment will allow us to overcome our technical shortcomings for the time being. We will need to spend some time this summer developing better feet, good feet with our desire and athleticism gives us a chance to compete @ a high level. Good news is that you can't fix what you refuse to recognize. We got through the temporary loss of heart we suffered last weekend and again made life difficult by creating immediate pressure in the midfield and attacking third. We still need a greater sense of urgency in our third, drawing the line of confrontation @ the top of our box. You can cry foul for hours on end, but , the truth is sometimes you just get flat out, out hearted. We've gotten technically out classed and tactically out coached in the past,that's on us as a group, very rarely do we get out worked, when we do, we fix it. We play with courage, tackle from the front and never blame our shortcomings on our opponents. That's something to be proud of, not ashamed of.
Monday, October 16
Players Make Habits and Habits Make Players...
Well, you could see Thursday night @ training that the Rowdies felt pretty good a/b themselves and didn't take seriously the weekends opponents. After all, countless consecutive wins going back to U9, including last weekend @ their own tournament. No worries, it would take a confluence of events to change the outcome. Welcome to youth soccer, the opponents played as well and as hard as always, some questionable decisions went their way, but, most disturbing, none of this would have determined the result had the boys played. Lazy play, late off balance challenges and an overall lack of the usual aggression. They read their own press clippings and were quite impressed, bad habits that must be broken before they're bad players. We had no real sense of urgency going forward, or when recovering to defend, for that matter. Time to go back to basics, first class : Tackling 101, then perhaps a remedial course, Pressure, Cover, Balance. The boys offered up a gift that was readily accepted, hopefully hearing the post match celebration will leave a little bad taste in their mouths and reinvigorate us all. Nothing like winning your own tournament, this was probably a close second.
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