Cpher: Lost to Grand Ledge. I don’t even remember the score and I was there for the whole thing….36-14? Just a long season getting longer. Cpher complained about leg in his pain and didn’t play the second half. He said he played through it in the first quarter so I don’t know what was going on. Was not an issue when he was warming up to run the next Monday so who knows?
Matthew: Tied the league leaders 3-3. Completely dominated the first half; had a 1-0 lead. Went 2-0 up early in the second half; they responded to make it 2-1. It’s tough to say the game turned on this play, it isn’t fair at all, but, this goal, if it was a goal, would have made it 3-1 and things probably would have been a lot different.
You can click on the picture to see the video.
A few things here:
1) Zach, over there on the right, has just centered the ball to Matthew, who is there in the center at the 18’ and has just shot the ball…..
2) We are playing on the new turf field. The bleachers and lights are in and it really looks great.
3) The ball that Matthew has just shot is above they yellow player in front of him…..after the game I was a little critical of Matthew about this shot because he didn’t drive the ball like he has been working on. Seeing it on replay make me take that criticism back; think he did about as much as he could with it. Except be maybe one inch shorter on it. The ball bounced down, hit the goalie in the back, and then went sideways, not into the goal.
4) Gopro. Finally, after a long (probably too long) experimental period, have it figured out where I can tape the whole game. No wifi enable, need battery pack charged to full capacity.
Anyway, he missed, they scored the next two to make it 3-2 them and we were lucky to equalize late to make it 3-3. Which is too bad; we really dominated the first half and probably deserved better than that.
If you are curious, you can click on that picture above to see what I’ve started to do for games; make a 7 to 10 minute highlight video complete with captions and title screens. This play is TKO’s second goal; you can see the ball between Matthew and Zack over there on the left coming in from a corner kick. They both miss it; the guy you an barely see in front of the other player doesn’t…..he heads it in for the goal.
Game Report:
DATE: 5th October
TEAM: 02 Boys Blue –vs- TKO CREW
RESULT: 3-3 Tie
ATTACKING
ATTACKING STRENGTHS
Created good chances in the first half and looked dangerous every-time we attacked.
Looked to exploit the opposition’s high line.
Looked very dangerous from the wide areas and players in the centre of the park got looked to get on the ball
Good through balls.
ATTACKING CHALLENGES
Wide players not bursting up the field the join the attack but just giving us a safe option when we were counter attacking.
Wasted too many set pieces.
Final ball was a little over hit.
Still need to be a little more clinical in the final third.
DEFENDING
DEFENDING STRENGTHS
In the first half especially we were first to most balls.
Defended well from the front.
Dropped back and got ten behind the ball very quickly.
Very good at battling for aerial balls and stepping onto the ball.
DEFENDING CHALLENGES
Stepped up a little too high with them playing with two strikers.
Got caught out a few times with players on the centre of the park not giving the best defensive shape.
OVERALL COMMENTS
This was a very good team we played and we did some excellent stuff against them. We talked about playing with more freedom and not worrying about the results. The boys seemed to take that on board at the start and played the ball around well and created the much better chances. We could have gone in with a much bigger lead at half time however I was pleased overall. We started the same way in the second half and were 2-0 up. We made a few mistakes and they had a few moments of magic and suddenly we had to claw our way back into the game. There were several times when our center forward would pick up the ball and run and we would be supporting him wide but never SPRINTING beyond him or joining him. This left our forward isolated and until we made some changes to our system we wasted too many chances. We must be more prepared to gamble forward when we counter attack. Overall I think we shaded the game against a good team and took a few more chances then in previous weeks. I also felt that we worked a little harder off the ball then in previous weeks which helped us manage the game better.
