Before: Tonight is Matthew’s first TNT game; he and the boys take on….the Okemos U10 team! Not my U10 team, the other one. So, this should be interesting to watch…. Talent-wise, I guess ‘we’ should be better, but I haven’t seen how any of these kids play in games. Matthew, for example, is a much better game player than he is in practices.
But, in watching Matthew’s practice, they didn’t even do a full on 6v6 scrimmage until the last 20 minutes of Wednesday’s practice…..and I know the ‘other’ team has been practicing hard the last two weeks…
I think ‘we’…Matthew’s team, will win, but, expect to see a bunch of silly stupid mental mistakes.
I’m looking forward to the game; this is the first time (aside from OnGoal, and that’s a small field) that I’ll be able to sit and watch (and videotape) a Matthew soccer game. I’ve been coaching him for a long long time.
After: Matthew was a bit concerned as we drove over to tonight’s game…in both scrimmages the team has had (I lied above…I didn’t realize they had held a scrimmage in an earlier practice) during practice he has played defense.
Matthew is not happy playing defense.
Mom and Dad provide Matthew comforting thoughts as we drive to the game….you won’t play there the whole game….when you are on defense, play good defense….even if you are on defense you get chances to push up, etc. Matthew did start the game playing defense and he did pretty well at it. The rest of the game he was up front….and carried the ball forward early and often.
This video, showing Matthew’s two goals in a 3-0 win, says it all. Could have had three goals if he would have converted his penalty kick…
Told Matthew as we drove home “You did one thing today…you let your coach know that you are can score!”.
The soccer club’s philosophy at this age is “don’t worry about passing; we want the kids to learn to be aggressive”. But, surprisingly, I thought the kids did a great job of passing. The second part of the philsophy is “applaud goals like mad!”. Matthew apparently got the idea from hearing this of doing cartwheels or headstands after his goals, and Dad didn’t get it on his tape but he certainly attempted a cartwheel after his first goal. Dad is a killjoy….later on this evening I asked him not do that again “Matthew, you score enough goals that you don’t need to do that. Do high fives, do chest bumps, celebrate with your teammates, that’s fine. Don’t showboat…”.
Tomorrow brings Game 2 of the tournament…the kids should be his age (U9 instead of the U10s from tonight) so his size is going to help him out even more.
