We’ve played six games so far (two each weekend) and carry at 2-2-2 record into our two weekends off (we finish up the week after Turkey-Day).
There are only four teams in our division; unlike last year where we were the young team playing a bunch of older teams this year we are the older team and we’re playing a bunch of older teams. So, it’s good competition.
My experiment in formation is continuing, still trotting that 2-2-1 out there.
Matthew – his best position are either of those 2’s up there; he’s just naturally a forward or a midfielder. No goals, but, a lot of great passing. I need to make the time to work with him on his kick; he still doesn’t have his weight forward enough and so he ends up on the ground after kicks and his kicks tend to sail (like today, right over the goal..).
Christopher – His best position is that 1 in the back….while my change in formation is a good thing for the team, it’s a definite minus for Christopher….he’s not built well to be that one guy in back (if he’s not careful he can get exposed pretty easily…he was giving me nightmares in our game on Saturday by creeping up too close to the other’s team forward, who was a really fast and quick kid) and he’s just not built to be the midfielder I need in this formation (someone who can run end to end quickly and for long periods of time). Oh well. That game on Saturday was his best game in a long time; he was everywhere on defense and really held the fort as we cruised to a 4-1 win.
(started this post in November…. guess I’ll finish it now)
We finished up 3-3-2. Beat the team that we should beat 3-2 and then came out and laid a giant egg in the very next game and got down 4-0 really quickly. I’m actually kind of glad it happened…..I had been telling the boys that the 2-2-1 formation had one really big down side….if the two midfielders didn’t come back to play defense when the other team has the ball, we are going to give up a lot of goals really quickly. And that’s exactly what happened. We were tired; we hadn’t played in almost three weeks and back-to-back games with tired kids will get them to start walking and watching instead of running. But again, I’m glad it happened…..all of the boys got to see what a good team will do to us if we stop hustling in that formation.
There’s also some TNT news rumbling around…..looks like the team will split into two teams for the spring. I think this is a good thing for Matthew…he’ll be up with the higher group and he’ll know more what to expect from this teammates and they know what to expect from him (can’t even describe how frustrating it is to watch Matthew center ball after ball after ball this fall into the middle and watch some of the kids just not be able to handle the passes and convert….).
