Last year I coached two teams in this 4v4 tournament; Christopher’s team made the semi finals in the U10 group and Matthew’s team lost in the finals.
3/5 of Matthew’s team from last year wasn’t available to try and get the title that eluded us….so, I figured we weren’t doing it. But, Matthew’s best buddy was interested, their family found two more players, and we were in,and I was dragooned to coach. And I had a really good idea for shirts
"Oh the places you'll go! There is fun to be done! There are points to be scored. There are games to be won. And the magical THINGS you can do with that ball will make you the winning-est winner of all."
Had a blast with the Things concept all weekend long….made them line up in order; yelled out “What are you Things doing???”, and other thing-a-ma-jig related phrases during games. Wish I had found that quote earlier, I would have had it printed on the backs of the shirts.
Game 1: Playing the Green Pickles: They were a dill of a team, only had four players and one of them had a broken toe. We won, 8-0.
Things do what things do….Thing #3 is an expert at collecting the ball on defense and dribbling up-field. This sequence of four pictures shows him doing exactly that. The Pickle didn’t have a chance…..
Talking with my Things. I had never coached or seen two of my Things before today so Game 1 was trying to figure out what they did well and what they didn’t do well. Like 90% of kids, no interest or skill at defense…They had played with the other travel team in town last year; good players, but, I was (and am still surprised) that the big message I had to pound home was to go hard all the time….
Of course, no defense means .Matthew buried in the back again holding down the fort for most of the game….
Nice pictures….realized that with the other ball on the field that all they were doing was warming up……
Game 2: Playing Hat Trick Plus Two….this is the group of two male TNT teammates and three TNT girls that beat us last year for first place. So, I’m not expecting good things here……I think my three TNT kids will hold their own but have some concerns about my two new Things.
Turns out one of my TNT Things went south on me and we lost 5-1. Kicking balls back to the middle of the field; letting the guy with the ball just dribble in on Matthew and our goal instead of making him pass…..ugly. I basically threw in the towel with five minutes left and yanked Matthew out of defense when it was 3-1 to try and score goals, and that meant we were going to give up more goals as well.
playing your TNT teammate makes it a little more fun…..either Zane (here in the headband) or Matthew was going to walk away 3 for 3 in the summer 4v4 tournaments (they had played together at Holt and Mason)
These four photos show Matthew doing what he needs to be doing…..playing sweeper-goalie and getting any threatening balls out of there. This 4v4 has a different rule; no high balls. Any balls that go over the shoulders are blown dead and the other team gets a free kick. Matthew adopted to this better than most Things…he knew what he had to do to keep the ball down all the time.
This, and the next three photos, are a goal against us. They, and another play later, convinced me that we didn’t have much hope in the rest of the tournament if I didn’t keep Matthew and Henry back on defense (with instructions to move and dribble forward and shoot when they could) and have the other three rotate through the forward and midfield positions.
I implemented that strategy in our very next game.
You can’t see it here, but one of my Things was running towards Nick, who has the ball BUT at the last second, peeled away to cover the girl that is out of the picture to the right.
I much rather would have had him challenge Nick; because Nick has a full head of steam coming towards Matthew, and my Thing has just basically opened the door for him to take a shot.
Because we didn’t challenge the ball, Matthew’s facing a two-on-one. You can see between picture 1 and 2 that he opened up his stance a little bit to try and be ready to react. And I’m sure he’s cheating a little towards Zane
Because he’s cheating right, it’s hard to move back left…and Nick slides it by him for the goal.
I think Matthew just took quite a shot in this photo after the girl kicked the ball…..
He is very good at collecting the ball off of his various parts of his body and dribbling to a good position and making a pass….and that’s that the last four pictures show.
Not so successful at beating Nick here though…..
These last six photos are picture-pages of how Matthew likes to beat people; I’m really happy that Suzanne captured them. I love this new camera (sports mode generates a lot of pictures quickly….it stinks to process but does look really cool when you string them together).
Act 1: Matthew heading left. Girl heading left in hot pursuit. If the goal Matthew is heading for is at 12 o’clock, the girl is heading towards 10….
Act 2: Matthew, having gotten the girl to follow him left and in front to try and catch up, now begins the patented-cut-back-to-the-right-move we know so well….
Girl heading almost at 11 now…
Act 3: Matthew cuts and gets ready to accelerate. Girl facing 9 o’clock
Act 4: Accelerating. He’s pushed the ball further away from him than in any other picture in this sequence because he has stopped her and knows he can accelerate into this ball and past her. Girl facing 6 o’clock now.
Act 5: Still accelerating, girl facing almost 4 o’clock now and stretching out to try and get the ball, off-balance. I think this photo makes her look closer than she really is….because….
Act 6: Matthew did get the next touch and is pushing by…..girl facing 3 o’clock….Matthew got her to rotate more than 180 degrees……
Go back and look at her ponytail in these photos….another indication of how much he made her rotate during this sequence…..
Game 3: After a long rain delay we play our final game, against Five Boys and a Ball. No pictures here; threat of rain has the electronics stashed away.
We win, 3 or 4 to 1. I don’t really remember. My Thing plan works in that we don’t give up many goals (the one they scored was a mistake on our part) but we’re going to be challenged to score goals unless Matthew and Henry come forward. Spend most of this game explaining to the Things what I want for our single-elimination games tomorrow.
One tired Thing….fell asleep on the way back to the tournament after the rain delay.
