Hello All (Please Reply and Comment on this Email)
Regarding Monday's game, I can't tell you how proud I was of them. At the beginning of the game there were many feelings expressed such as, "They are so big, they are going to kill us", "I know some of them and we are going to lose", "There is no way we are going to win now".
These are real negative feelings that fill the minds of our youth all the time in life, this time it happened to be on the soccer field. I have been coaching youth sports for 18 years and have shared time and time again with my high school athletes, "Control what you can control". Therefore, you may have noticed that I began our game unconventionally for 4th grade with a 2-3-1 formation. Two forwards and three defense.
I did this for three reasons:
To teach our team that defense can win games as well as offense.
To teach our team to rely more on each other while creating teamwork.
To allow our team to build confidence in their defense of play.
The first goal by the other team was us being unprepared. But the next eight shots on goal were perfect examples of your athletes "Getting It" when it came to working together and defense. This was a "Coaches" moment, because no matter how much "I" preach it, they never get it until "THEY" play it. I don't know if you had the same sense but they played defense beyond any previous efforts the first half.
The other part of this was strategy was I wanted the other team to have to rethink how they played the game when suddenly there were three defenders instead of two. Sports is about problem solving skills, the team that solves the most problems is usually the one that wins or in our game ties (which was just as good as a win to me)
When we game back for half time, every one of our teams negative feelings were gone as they realized, we were not getting "Killed", they were not that "Big" and with a 0-1 score, we could tie and even win. It was a half time chat that will be remembered as we discussed how we could score a goal and as you may have heard us yell, "Finish Strong" which we did. You may have noticed that we controlled the pace of the game as well. This was also a choice to give our athletes time to think and plan how they would play the game each time, the ball went out of bounds.
Thank you as always for your support, have a great night off and see you on Saturday for our game. Also, if you could review with your athlete the following terms, our games will be much more productive.
On Defense............
"Stay Home" Stay in your position and protect the net
"Danger" Kick the ball away as far as possible
"Wall" Form a wall of players in front of the net
On Offense............
"Play Up" on Offense and push the ball to the goal
"Triangle" on Offense for passing to each other
"Cannonball" on Offense to Rush the net
PLEASE DRESS WARM.......See you at the game.
Sat. Oct. 3rd @ 10:30am (Game- White Jersey-Field M2) Orono Middle School (Look for Flag) Treats - Twiford
Mon. Oct. 5th @ 5:30pm (Game- Red Jersey-Field M4) Orono Middle School (Look for Flag)