Cpher: Lost, 37-0, to Grand Ledge. I stopped taping after the 3rd quarter.
For all of that, I’ll say he played…better. The majority of the time was holding his blocks; not placed in a bad position where he had to deal with a quick guy outside. Came away from the game feeling pretty good about how he did.
The Offense huddles….
I didn’t take either of these pictures; this one is not from Grand Ledge, but is from the Holt game previous….
Matthew: A long drive on Saturday (1 hour 45 minutes) to lose 2-1 to a team that we probably should have beaten.
(Matthew has been starting more recently. I don’t know if I read too much into the coaches decision regarding starters…I do know that any concerns I had about Matthew in August are long gone!)
Our failure-to-convert problems still exist and they really caught up to us this game….if you don’t score you let random factors influence the game. And that ref up there in the picture above….he was bad. Atrocious level bad and he made several decision that cost us. Add a goalie-disaster to that (still not sure what he was thinking…) and that’s that.
(A lot of his teammates are hitting their growth spurts….if Matthew is like Kevin, and I believe he will be, he will hit it late. So, kind of surprising to me sometimes to see him still a bit taller and heavier than his opponents.)
A lot of our players, and parents, spent time during the game and after the game bemoaning the ref and how he cost us. Am happy that Matthew was not one of those doing it during the game and Suzanne and I talked a long time to him on the way home that it is a reason but it is not the only reason you lost and Matthew (and his teammates) have to be good enough to get past events like that. And that we were very proud of him for not reacting during the game….but instead doubling down on effort trying to make things right!
All that being said, Suzanne and I agree…..this was Matthew’s best game in about a year. He was everywhere; you can really see the cross-country and how it has changed his stamina and his running stride (a lot of other parents…and his coach…have noticed it too….Matthew runs completely different now). The other team was taking it to us in the second half; from the moment Matthew subbed in until he was subbed out late he was a ball of energy and we were back on top of things again because of it.
(being a little heavier is a good thing in very physical games…which is what this turned into because of the ref. Combine that with the extra ‘speed’…that’s the wrong word, I’ll talk about that when we get to the cross country section…but Matthew had an advantage on some of these kids)
If the goal for this Fall is to make Premier 1 in the spring we are quickly reaching the point of ‘must win soon’. I think next Sunday is a must win.
The Game Report (includes the note from the email as well):
“Hi All,
Please find attached that game analysis from this weekends game vs Wolves East. Obviously this was a very frustrating game in many ways and we just need to have a good week in training and get things right for the trip to Carpathia.
It would be easy to bemoan the ref this weekend, as he had a massive hand in them getting there goals and effecting the game. However we were good enough to win this game and did not finish our chances and must play up to our standard for the rest of the season not down to the opposition.
Thanks for you continued support and we as coaches will get it right over the next few sessions.”
DATE: 20th of September
TEAM: 02 Boys Blue VS Wolves EAST
RESULT: 2-1(AWAY Loss)
ATTACKING
ATTACKING STRENGTHS
Possessed the ball well at times in the game and made some good runs off the ball.
Had numbers up in the final third and good runs in behind them.
Created more chances then the opposition and had some lovely touches and ideas in the final third.
ATTACKING CHALLENGES
Didn’t finish the chances; we certainly had enough.
When confronted with attacking 1v1 situations we didn’t make the right decisions often enough.
We had too many players making runs and not demanding the ball.
We need better runs into the channel.
DEFENDING
DEFENDING STRENGTHS
Aside from the goals we dealt with them very well as a back 4. Their strikers were not able to turn and get at us which was pleasing.
Some good individual tackling especially from midfielders.
We stepped up better then ever as a unit and this was pleasing (although once or twice we stepped a little too high).
DEFENDING CHALLENGES
The big lad on their team walked through 3 players to create the situation in the box that led to the penalty kick. We needed to do a better job defending him.
Individual errors cost us today in a game we should never in a million years lost.
OVERALL COMMENTS
Thought the boys played well enough in this game to get at least a point if not all three. We looked good at times and had some nice play in the final third without really making it count. We lost a little patience towards the end of the game and this was frustrating as it would have been nice to have had a little more composure in the final third to get the goals that we needed. Obviously the field played a massive part in the game and we need to play a little more direct a little quicker on fields like this. We have to fix a couple of little things for the next few games to turn dominating teams into wins.
Cross Country: The second meet of the year is at Holt. I remember this course as the one where Kevin won the rest-of-the-kids race; Kevin, when told where the boys were, remembered a) that he won and b) “that course sucked! It had so many hills!”
The boys, they would agree.
(Matthew and his buddy Nick. First time Matthew has beaten him…although Matthew says Nick was “hallucinating”???)
(wish he had a better outing. Oh well, there is always next week. I’m just glad he’s doing it!)
I think the day was a success for Matthew, who was only 17 seconds off of his last time (they aren’t publishing the meet times here but the general feel is that most kids were way slower than the last go at it). Cpher should have listened to his parents who said he should go for a short and not very strenuous run Sunday night….he ended up struggling with all of the ups and downs and walked a bit when the runners were out of sight of the parents.
A note about running: as mentioned earlier, others have noticed a big change in Matthew’s running…Mom and Dad don’t see it as much as others claim too. But I see a huge change in how Christopher runs….much more ‘normal’. Before he liked to just bounce along, hands flopping any which way. At least the cross country has helped that improve for both boys!
About that Matthew-speed comment above: I’m not convinced he’s any faster…I don’t have any real proof one way or the other. What I do believe is that he is now more willing to drop into a flat-out sprint at any moment and he’s willing to do that over and over and over. Think he has completely embraced the “you have to work outside of soccer to be good at soccer” mantra…..in hindsight, am very glad he is doing cross country and not football. Much better for him.
