A Storm of Lightning Strikes to finish out the season

The picture above is what would seem to be a goal celebration, but that’s our team’s goalie right behind them.  It wasn’t a goal scoring celebration, it was a goal saving celebration.  It highlights Lightning Storm and Lightning Strike’s growth this season as a group. 

The U10 Select girls’ goals for the season were communication and role responsibilities.  Certainly, we pushed them hard on learning new deceptive skills and began working on high touch ball movement work between players to level up their offensive and defensive awareness, but every drill in training we asked them to talk to one another, before each game we asked them to not only warm up their bodies, but their voices as well and in every game opportunity we pushed them to move up and down and back and forth across the field to stay with the direction of play and assume specific responsibilities when they were off the ball.

I am happy to say they nailed it.

The photo above captures how these girls have gone from watching the game, and thinking someone else will take care of a problem for them, to anticipating what’s going to happen and taking care of what they are owners of on the field.  In this particular instance, a quick counter attack by the opposing team resulted in one defender moving to the corner to intercept the play while the other defender shifted to center along with the goalie who moved toward the post nearest the play.  

The initial defender was beat so the second defender moved in to intercept, which left the middle open for a second attacker who moved into the space.  It was a clear easy goal opportunity, which the attacker with the ball took and moved the ball to center to surprise the goalie who had her back to the play.  The shot came off and you could hear the goal cheers starting, but out of nowhere the second defender had quickly turned and flew in to punch the ball right off the top of the goal line to the far side of the field and out of bounds.  Cheers quickly switched from one side to the other.

This ownership of the space and awareness of the game is a critical leap for girls who last spring (4 ½ months ago) were content with the game primarily being just them and the ball for as long as they could have it and then once it was gone, well, it was up to the next person to have their chance.

We saw this ownership and awareness blossom all season long as players on both Storm and Strike began intuitively swapping space as play shifted allowing a back player, who had the ball moving toward them, to make quick counter attacks while the top player moved past them settled into a defensive role.  It was noticed by quite a few opposing coaches because it was always as if we had an available defender on any change of possession.

This past weekend during our final season tournament Storm and Strike put it all on display and Coach David and I couldn't have been prouder of the results of the Lightning group and each player.  It showcased to teams in upper divisions and in other clubs, who had not heard of us, what the future holds.  When we return in the spring, we’ll enjoy the knowledge that when we show up in our colors, stake down our tent…and take up most of the sidelines with our cadre of supporters…those other teams and clubs will have already been talking about us.

Capping off the season

The fall season is coming to a screeching halt this weekend with the teams I have coached or worked with having their final training sessions and games and it is always pleasing to see the looks of disappointment on their faces when you tell them.

I can say for certain, every player I have worked with is a better player in some form over the last three months we have been together.  As we have said in the past, at the club, for these young players, their development changes by leaps and bounds in the matter of a small period, which for adults seems like the blink of an eye and sometimes we don’t always see the changes as they happen.  I recap after each game with parents calling out so many little things I see, which are different week to week for each player and parents consistently ask, “How do you see all of that?”  Simple answer is, I am watching.

I believe Coach Pat highlighted it all in good manner again with his statement about his U9 group,

“…our Girl Power squad is now one hundred and eight months old.  This means that the last three months of soccer represent more than 1% of her total life experience.  In most contexts 1% of anything doesn't seem like a significant amount but think of how long three months is if you've only been alive for one hundred and five months.  Think of how many things you would be doing in those three months that would be completely new to you, how many new experiences you'd be having and how much you'd be learning.  When you're eight or nine years old one soccer season is a long time.”

NKLegends SC Blog - Perspective

For the U8 group under Coach Brad and me, it has been eye opening for them to be the two teams who were just turning 6 and played in the lowest division of recreational play last spring (D4).  They were annihilated continuously and this season, only a few months after spring, they are going around their peers with Maradonas, Stop Hops, and carryover dribbling, as if they standing still.

For the U9 Academy and U10 Jrs, it was all about lots of new faces and watching them all erase, then embrace confident and deceptive ball skills.  Their enjoyment of the game increased and more times than not, for the U10 Jrs, they were asking me at the end what the score was and if they won.  They had no idea because they were enjoying themselves too much.

For the U12 Jrs, there were also a bunch of new faces, but many old ones.  The old ones had the skill background, but had to come to grips with whole new teams and work to understand one another while continuing to master individual skills and spatial awareness.  Their biggest realization was they were now old enough to understand they could learn and apply new concepts about the latter at the same time.

Each of these groups will have some time off, but I can’t to see what they have in store for next season.

U12 Getting it Together

It's been a rocky season so far if you look at the end game point total for Coach Pat's and my U12 team.  However, speaking for myself, I am very impressed with with how much this group has come together over the last 3-4 games.  There has been so much effort to learn, individual skill and collaboration in these few games it has been fun to watch.

Certainly, I bark a lot at them on the sideline to help them see the things I do, but at the end of the day, I love watching them play and have those explosions of working together and realizations of individual confidence.

Coach Mark was able to get some video from this past Saturday's match and he and Coach Pat shared it with the players yesterday.  While there were teaching moments, it was a great review and really highlighted how much more skill they have compared to their peers.  If you have a chance to watch it, remember it is the first half when I as a coach felt a little like we were on our heels until we took over and dominated in the second half...but the video shows how much better we actually were. https://youtu.be/-0D-wEHf12g

Similarly tonight, we poured on some serious skill versus an ISC team who probably has been flirting with select play for some time.  Why would I say that?  Because of the things I overheard the coach and team say like yelling at their teammates to stop playing kickball (sound familiar) or their coach commenting to his players on how well we were able to individually beat their players in every 1v1 situation (good teams and coaches appreciate their opponents).  The only reason they had the drop on us a couple times was because we either collapsed on ourselves with too many players in the same space, vacated space and all moved to the ball versus having patient discipline to maintain our positions, and lastly understanding the need to move with the play as it begins to change direction rather than try and catch up.

Individually, I was really proud of how well Camryn and Morgan our youngest (from time with Legends) played tonight.  Camryn showed so much confidence with the ball at her feet tonight and such presence of mind to slow herself down and beat her opposing defenders, I had little butterflies in my stomach watching her.  Morgan has become so much more aware of where she is on the field and how she can get the ball to stay at her feet without feeling she needs to give it up immediately.  It was apparent how far she has come this season when she showed up to my U10 Jrs training and I could tell was a little disappointed with their work ethic and the ability to challenge her even though she is under a year older than most of them.

I'd also like to recognize how much Mary has begun feeling her groove on this team.  Early on she was having trouble understanding her role on a team who's skill matches her own and now is becoming fluid with every play and back to her aggressive self, which I have come to know over the past few years.

Our communication was a bit soft tonight, but like his dad, I can always count on Kaleb to bark out where he is, if he can effectively help his team, and where his teammates should move to on the field.  Kudos too on his two great grabs to bring opposing high flying keeper punts out of the air and right to his feet; it even got the bench excited.

So many other goods things from this evening happened, Maddie B pushing through the middle toward the goal, crashing the net (and goalie) continuously and ultimately being in place to pop one in...Madison M manhandling players and causing havoc with her graceful footskill...Isabella always being right where she needs to capture the ball and begin a counter attack...Abby's relentless ability to fear no player regardless of size and bump them off of the ball...Drew's crazy unpredictable skilled nutmeg...Owen's cool confidence, analysis of his opponent and desire to not only beat them, but try to make them hang their heads once he's done...and lastly Nick, the silent Ninja, who's size is dwarfed by his soft touch and newly found desire to want to score every time he has the ball now.

I know we don't recap much, but again I wanted to let you know how pleased I am with the progression of this team this season and how much we need to pay attention to and appreciate the small steps which occur in such a short period of time for these young players.