Expectations

This past weekend was the first weekend of fall soccer and like many parents, coaches, and players, I had certain expectations for what I thought I should expect from the teams and players.  What I should know by now, but seemingly fail to keep in place, is my only expectation should be no expectations.

When I throw away any thought of expectations, I am able to be at my best for my players.

I unknowingly was spot on for our U10 Girls Jr Legends for the first match of the day.  This was a brand new group made from a few players who have been in the program a season or two and the remainder are brand new and going through a lot of retooling being new to Legends.

The grass needed to be cut and the ball was tacky.  I had a brief warm up and gave them some basic pregame instructions, then let them play.  They did all I asked of them, keeping the ball close, listening, and implementing my one challenge move for the day; a self-nutmeg, which led them past their own dribble bringing defenders with them while they themselves quickly turned back to the ball to dribble on.

The next match of the day was our U12 Mixed Jr Legends and boy did I come in with expectations for them.  Both U12 teams had been looking sharp in training working hard, picking up things quickly and both had a good amount of returning talent.  The fields were just like the earlier game; long grass and a real tacky ball…but this match ended up being brutally lethargic for our players with them tripping over the ball as it got stuck to their feet and then running into each other at every corner of the field.
  
What I forgot in my jubilance, over where I expected them to be, is that they were also a new group of players running together for their first time trying to figure out their roles and how best to support one another.  It was clear how quickly they were able to adapt in one game as with about ten minutes to go, they began truly dominating possession and putting the other team on their heels.

Fortunately, I had the evening and the next morning to reflect before going into the third game of the weekend with our U10 Girls Select group.  There are two teams in the group who have trained and played together for a couple seasons and are by far the group I have the most time vested in so one would expect I would be looking for a lot of them.  Thankfully, the U12 experience brought me back to reality to realize there were a multitude of new things happening here, the least of which was their first foray into select play.  I set aside my expectations for the group and committed to working for them and with only a few minutes into the match, I could tell my coaching partner was there too.

In the end, it was a match where I had to go back and review to remember what the actual result was and while this is a necessary evil now with select play, it was good to enjoy the girls’ performance rather than for them to fulfill an expectation of mine.