Juventus Tourney!!!

Well, we didn't have the excitement of motels and pools and dinners together like in Redding, and a fair number of kids had to miss games for school commitments, but the Juventus tourney grew into a super-exciting weekend, with an extra-time penalty shootout in the final game Sunday afternoon. The work we put into penalty technique in Redding really paid off. Our only loss was to a Class 1 team (the Earthquakes, from the East Bay), and we might have given them a tougher game if all our team had been able to attend. Nevertheless, we learned a lot from that one loss - the Earthquakes were not faster than us, nor stronger than us, they were just more technical, positioning themselves better without coach help. They were inspiring and a model for what we should become with another year of training together.

Player Tracking Explained

Some parents have asked about the Player Tracking boards that are occasionally done on the sidelines. Rather than yelling at kids, it helps to show them their actual performance statistically. Player tracking is a nice way to do this, and for those who do the tracking, it's also a good learning experience. Most games, we track a coupla players. How they did in any one game is not important - it's just a way over time to draw their attention to their possession-turnover ratio.

On the board we put a "P" for a pass, an "L" for a loss of possession, a "D" for a successful dribble around an opponent, and an "X" for a defensive steal or interception. When a player gets subbed out, we can show them how often they turned over the ball.

Rather than show you one of our kids', the above graphic is the Player Track that Kiran filled out when watching Stanford's star striker, Adam Jahn, during the first 30 minutes of the game against St Mary's. It was interesting that most of Adam's L's came at a certain spot on the field.

Don't Overrun the Hole

this video explains the concept of "not overrunning the hole" - staying put to stay open, rather than running forward into the defense, eliminating the pass opportunity.

Italian Style Defending Line

This video describes the defensive tactic we had to implement in Redding because we were playing older teams. Rather than pressing full-field, we dropped back and began defending at the top of the center-circle. This crowded our opponents, forced them to pass, and when they booted it ahead it usually went to us, to start counter-attacks.

Redding Tournament of Champions

What an incredible weekend for the kids, and what a treat for us watching.

The kids had to play U11, up a year, but made it into the finals and lost by a goal.

We succeeded in letting every kid start half the games and get equal playing time.

The kids keep saying they want a rematch against Kaos Rage, since we actually dominated possession in the second half of the final.