Oh No!

At football practice on Monday….all is going well, team’s happy after a tough win.  Matthew is getting more and more reps at running back….he’s not the primary option (goes in motion on almost every play) but ON ONE PLAY he gets the ball and his time is coming.  They are working on tackling, and Christopher is just crushing people.  They name different captains each week (Cpher was one last week) and when they asked who hadn’t been a captain yet Matthew’s hand shot up and the coach immediately went “Well, I know who one captain is….that’s what happens when you get a big interception!”.

Look up about an hour into the practice and Matthew is hobbling off the field.  Watch the coach tend to him for a minute, he’s not getting up, walk over.  He’s heard a ‘pop’ in his knee as he cut back while running and went down.  No one touched him.

One nice thing about this team is that one of the other Dad’s, who comes to practice a lot, is a doctor.  He is checking Matthew out and literally, as we watch, his knee swells up like a balloon…..everyone is fearing the worse, that he tore up one of his ligaments.  

 

Turns out that he only sprained one….he’s still limping a little but seems like he’ll be ready to play again this weekend (it’s Thursday…he did some light running over lunch with no problems).  Didn’t go to soccer or football practice Wednesday but is going to give soccer a whirl on Friday before the football game early Saturday morning and the soccer game Saturday afternoon.

Whew!

Fall Football(!) – Game 3

A partly cloudy day at Chippewa Stadium for the game against St. Johns.  The general feeling is that this will be a little tougher than the first two games.

Opening kickoff?  We return it for a touchdown….

Kickoff to them?  They return it for a touchdown….

Game on!

You can click on any of these photos and you’ll go to the video (but again, sadly, not to any specific play).  This is the first of Matthew’s tackles; he’s playing linebacker right now. 

Matthew’s second tackle….he’s the only linebacker you see here before the play starts…..

Lo and behold, the first close game of the year appears and magically, things start changing.  The first two games, each player would be on offense one half and defense the other; Matthew and Christopher have been opposite, so, there’s always be one kid on the field

This play is again Matthew on the tackle…but you’ll see Cpher making an appearance on the defensive line as the coaches shift the better players onto the field to stop the other team.  It’s 8-6 at this point, St. Johns is ahead (we missed the kick after the TD, they made it, and you get two points for a kick at this age)

I have told Matthew to be patient as the season has progressed and he hasn’t found himself in the positions and the plays on the field that he wants to be in.  As the season has gone on, his coaches have seen what Matthew can do, and he’s ended up doing more. 

No boys on the kickoffs this year, not even in practice…..but, you get two kickoffs returned against you in two games and the coaches made the subtle switch here to introduce some better tacklers….you can see Matthew on the lower right and he’s involved in this return.  At the end of the game, it wasn’t so subtle, you could hear the coach yelling to his assistants “I want my best tacklers out here for the kick!”

Here’s a first.  The double-Hutsell tackle.  It’s mostly Cpher, and he falls on Matthew, but hey, it’s a first.

It’s the second half; we’re down 14-12.  There were four turnovers in about 3 minutes on this section of the field.  This is the second; we lost a fumble, and now St. John’s is losing a fumble.  Cpher got the credit for forcing the fumble and the recovery from the announcer, but, video review shows the guy was bobbling it before he got to Cpher and Cpher did not get the recovery.  But he did stop the running back from getting his fumble, so, that’s all good.

The third turnover; we throw an INT.  Matthew, playing right guard, rushes out to make the diving tackle.

They are driving again; both Matthew and Cpher again on the field……Cpher makes this tackle after being held….

If you watch the video, you’ll note they’ve pushed Matthew out to cornerback.  He has played, zip, zilch, no cornerback at any of the practices.

Ok, you can see him here, lined up to the far left.  He’s backpedalling away in coverage.

This is the last turnover….Matthew intercepts this ball and returns it about 15 yards before being tackled / dragged out of bounds.  He swears if he could have gotten by the guy and had more room he could have gone all the way.  I particularly like how his teammates come up to him at the end (although the brother-teammate is nowhere to be found….)

Matthew picks this ball off with about a minute left in the third quarter….Cpher and Matthew had played every down on defense on this last series.  We proceed to march the length of the field on a 14-play offensive juggernaut of a drive.  Matthew’s normal station is left guard during this half; Cpher is moved on to the field as we start this drive and stays there next to Matthew blocking for the rest of the game.  We score with about two minutes left to take the lead, 18-14 (we haven’t missed many kicks all year; missed all three today).  Recover a fumble on the kickoff to preserve the win!

Fall Futbol – Games 5 and 6

Crazy Parents:  Sunday was really busy, and the reason why many quite sane families choose not to double-sport their children.  Matthew had a soccer game in Livonia at 11:10; he had a football game in Okemos at 1:45, and another soccer game back in Livonia at 4:30. 

How did that work out?

9:20:  Leave for Livonia to be there at the requested time, 30 minutes prior to game start, 10:40.  Arrive around 10:25…

11:20:  Game starts 10 minutes late

12:30:  Head out for Okemos….leave right after handshakes, can’t stay around for after-game coach talk

1:30:  Arrive Okemos.  Includes a 6-minute stop to hit a Wendy’s drive-through for lunch.  Average freeway speed = over 80.  The team is requested to be there an hour before the game….obviously don’t make that.

2:15:  Football game starts late.  This does not bode well for getting back to Livonia on time.

3:35:  Game ends.  Not really able to pull Matthew before then (more on this in the next Football(!) post…), leaves before the handshakes…

4:40:  Arrive in Livonia.  Have to stop for bathroom break in Brighton.  Average freeway speed = over 80.

Game 5:  Really hoping that playing some different teams will spark a better result……the offense is still out to lunch and we lose 4-0.

 

Guess this is as good a place as any to into why we’re in this tailspin (fall record:  0-5-1)

 

#1:  Maybe the simple truth is we’re not as good as the other teams.  I’d be hard put to disagree with that.  I’d like to think that the answer is that we’re not as good as these teams right NOW.  So maybe the question should be is that a) why aren’t we as good now?  and b) what will it take to be that good in the future?

 

Matthew taking a direct kick…..sadly, he drills this one right at the goalie….

So, why aren’t we as good now?  I think it’s a combination of things….we don’t practice together as a team, because of that, we don’t practice game strategy much in practice.  We haven’t played as much soccer as the other teams…..Most of these teams played two preseason tournaments that would at least be six games total; we played one and were rained out of two games.  I think that the top five or six kids on our team are as good as the top five or six kids on the other team….the other half seems a little iffy to me.  I think those teams have been coached to get the ball and control the ball; we react, or choose not to react, to the other team a majority of the game.  And if the other team is going to dictate the game to you, well, that’s not good.

 

Can we get better?  I think this fall season is a loss.  We have two regular season games left and then the playoffs, which I assume will be one and done.  There’s a lot more practice time available before the playoffs, but, until there’s a fundamental change in how we go about practicing, I don’t see how the end result is going to change much.

Can we get better for the spring?  I think that requires a different commitment than the club (90%) and the coach (10%) has been willing to make so far. I think we need to practice as a team, not with the other team that’s playing 6v6.  I think we need to play more, 8v8, in the winter.  I think we need to play in a tournament to start the spring season (we’re not scheduled to do so now) so that we are ready to go for the spring season.

There’s a lot more frustration on the sidelines….in some games we’re not competitive and we only become competitive when the other team switches players out to give others a chance.  Lots of complaining from the parents…..I’ve taken to moving away from the crowd to videotape so I don’t pick up audio….

It’s hard, as Matthew’s parents, to complain too much.  We miss at least one practice a week because of football conflicts.  But, Matthew always tries and doesn’t give up, and I’ve seen other kids do that…..I have a hard time pointing to Matthew as the problem when he’s logging as many minutes as he is (and on defense, he’s frequently left out in the lurch on breakaways).  As long as Matthew wants to double-sport, this situation seems to be the best for him.  If he was soccer-only right now, I’d definitely be thinking of moving him to a club near Detroit next year and sucking up the travel for practices and games. 

 

This picture is a good example of what the other team’s do….pressure, pressure, pressure the ball.  And we don’t, we sit back and wait, a lot, for them to come to us.  I was watching the tape (trying to salvage what little highlights there are) and you can count the number of passes the other teams make, 4, 5, 6, on each possession.  We’re lucky to get two, and too often our time with the ball is a kick, at best, out of the area and back to the other team to start their build-up all over again.

 

Another slide that looks worse than it is…..but it’s clearly legal, he’s on the ball and not into the other player at all.

Game 6:  We arrived late.  We had told our coach that we’d be late, and this was the third game of the day, and we weren’t sure how much Matthew would have left in the tank.  Learn later that we were down 2-0 when we arrived, we’re losing 5-0 at the half, and it’s a 5-1 final.  And there is no way we should have lost, much less lost and not been competitive, to that team. 

The pictures above are from another parent; one bright side is that we have a nice share site and there are a lot of pictures posted after each game.  I have very little video of Game 5, and almost zero of Game 6…..just nothing there worth saving.

Ugh.

The football post coming next is a lot better!

Fall Futbol – Game 4

Man, I hope this team we’ve played the last two games is the best in our division, because they certainly have our number.  A 6-1 loss this morning.

 

 

Thought Matthew played well; you can see here already he has a huge stain on his white shorts from sliding….he did this about as much as the last game and it seemed to go ok.

 

 

One very obvious thing about these teams that we are playing….they have learned, or been taught, to push, push, nudge, and do anything you can to take possession or keep possession.  Our team has not responded well to this…we go down at the first sign of a push and hope for a cal that is just not going to happen.  Matthew does better than most….I know when Matthew goes down something really happened and he plays through a lot of it

 

I think I have this moment on tape….and it is awesome.  He does a pull-back so well and so completely that he loses two Force players and heads back into restart the offense.  A definite ‘Whoa!’ moment….

 

Since Matthew plays a lot of defense, he’s awfully busy in a game that we lost 6-1 (more so when the shots probably were 30-3 or something crazy like that).  Has to be very good on defense or things go south….and then has to take the ball and get it up to the forwards, who don’t always seem inclined to come back to get the ball.  

More on the state-of-the-soccer-team later….

 

 

Matthew battled and battled and battled……didn’t do much (any?  don’t really remember one misstep..) wrong and did a whole lot right….still playing about 50+ minutes of a 60 minute game. 

Two games on Sunday….hope that we can pull out of our tailspin…… (I know the answer as I type this.  Not so much.)

Football(!) – Game 2

Play a team from Lansing for the home opener.  Still had the same level of dominance from the first game; mercy rules of a running clock and us kicking off to them after they scored in effect as we cruise to a 32-8 final…..

Not a whole lot to report here, so, let’s get to the photos….

 

 

This is a touchdown about to occur.  You can see Matthew in the first photo sealing the line; in the second he has released and is heading upfield to find another person to block….that person doesn’t exist

Matthew helping out on a tackle….going low like he should….

 

And here he’s breaking through the line looking for someone to tackle….

 

….the running back is heading right, so Matthew’s run into the middle had only made him head outside….I don’t think they made this fourth down. 

Not much to report here….a few tackles, but nothing earth-shattering.

 

Christopher was a little nervous before the game started…we’re playing a team from Lansing!  At the end, he realized that there’s nothing to be worked up about….he controlled his part of the line of scrimmage most of the game…

 

 

 

These three photos are Christopher moving down the line of scrimmage for the tackle….

 

Fighting his way off of a block….

 

Getting ready to go to work….

And this, well, this is what happens when you are big and strong and can’t be stopped….the other team holds you….

 

They hold you so badly it is shameful…..and somewhat unbelievable that it wasn’t called!

Fall Futbol – Game 3

Headed to Bloomfield for the first of back-to-back games against the early leaders in our league.

 

Right after kickoff….Matthew racing to track down the ball

Matthew started off the game at center-midfield…..and I thought he did ok, not great here.  I think Matthew has played too much defense, so, when he moves up, he tends to drift back to play defense when the team needs him to press forward and create some goals.   Coach Alex has said that he wants Matthew to shoot more….number of shots in this game from Matthew?  Zero

 

Love this picture…the yin and yang of soccer…same pose trying to get the ball where they want it to go….

 

First half ends and we are losing 3-1…..one goal, to me, is on the goalie, who has been playing well but is giving up entirely too many rebounds, and they score off of one.  One goal, to me, is on Matthew, who misses(!) the ball and lets the guy right by him for an open shot, and one goal is just good soccer by the other team

 

Entirely too much of this in this game…..swing and a miss.  He missed this ball, missed the one I described above, and mishandled another ball in the 2nd half that led to a breakaway and another goal against us. 

 

 

 

The big event in this game happened late in the 2nd half….and there is no good picture to lead into it.  I’ve talked here how Matthew has been sliding into the ball more….to the continued encouragement of his coach.  And I’ve gone back and looked at the video I have of the game…..his first slide tackle of the game he was whistled for a foul when he got into the guys legs, but, everyone after that looked to me to be “all ball” and no foul was called.

Late in the 2nd half, Matthew commits his last slide tackle of the game, he comes in from behind and to the side and, confirmed by the video, cleanly takes the ball away from the other guy.  But, the boy trips over Matthew, goes down, hits head first, and needs help because he’s hurt.

The kids take a knee while the other coach comes out….and the referee comes over to talk with Matthew.  Matthew leaves the game right after that (the coach had been planning to sub him)….he walks off, and immediately we can see Coach Alex and Matthew talking…and talking…and talking…game goes on and they are still talking. 

So, question Matthew about what happened.  The ref’s talk went something like this

“95% of your slide tackles are illegal; if you do it again this game I’ll give you a yellow card”

So Matthew goes to the bench and is a little upset by this statement, and Coach Alex noticed and asked him, and, well, thus the long conversation.  Coach Alex was pretty clear, if Matthew’s slide tackles were ‘bad’ the ref should have called it way before now and Coach Alex will tell Matthew what to do and not to do, not the ref.

 

Incoming!

 

Outgoing!

We lost 6-3…..we had made the score 3-2 but Matthew’s second ‘whiff’ led to the fourth goal for the other team….and we only scored the third goal on the last play of the game.

Rematch Saturday morning……I still believe we can compete with all of these teams, but, the clear difference to me is that for this team, it’s game 11, and for us, it’s game 4.

I have some decent Matthew video….I’ll post it one of these days….