The second tournament of the weekend wasn’t really a tournament….just a series of games against other teams in the club. Matthew, again, ran hot and cold. Just not sure what the deal here is. Not sure he knows what the problem is. At times, he is in full denial that things aren’t quite where they should be (and that’s frustrating!)
(spending way too much time here right now)
Finally went and talked with his coach for a long time to see if he was seeing the same thing we were seeing. Yes and no.
1) It’s not fitness. He lost 9 pounds over the summer….even Matthew will tell you that he feels great and he looks really good out there, especially in the late parts of games.
2) It is confidence. Matthew, on almost everything, is deferring to other players. Letting them make the plays instead of him. And this means that he is playing like a butterfly (oh, did he not like that comparison!). He goes here there and everywhere but isn’t doing anything. And because he isn’t making an impact, he goes to the bench more often. You can’t work on your confidence or making an impact when you are sitting on the bench….
3) We played four games. In the first game it wasn’t good…in the second, maybe because he got moved back to defense, it was better. Forced him to be aggressive. On Sunday, the first game wasn’t good….and the second was the best of the weekend. Had a great assist for a goal against the best team we faced and was really chasing after it in the second half when everyone else had given up.
The solution? Not sure….I taped him, but, we haven’t watched it. Need to find the time to do that…maybe that will help. Just seeing the video of him deferring like that I think will be a large part of it. I do know if he wants to ‘defer’ like that in football he’s going to get creamed.
The other noteworthy thing about the weekend was that three of the four games were played on the new turf field. Looked nice. Field is huge; it’s championship size so way bigger than the normal 11v11 fields we play on.
