Getting photos from the main camera to here has not been a smooth process recently. Suzanne, who takes the pictures, downloads them to her Airbook to edit/look at. But getting them back off of there back to Windows-land has been a challenge…..
These pictures are from the first match day; I talk about those games back here. We win the first game 2-0 and tie the second 1-1.
The pre-game jog across the field; very serious here….
Matthew’s been playing center-mid again this year….he made an appearance at defense in one game earlier this year; I think we were way up in that game though…..
The first of two photos in a sequence. I like that our coach is really working on having our team play possession soccer; one or two touches on the ball and then a safe pass off to a teammate and THEN move without the ball into a good space….
Getting ready to make that pass. The team sometimes take this approach, and sometimes does not. Too often, when we are struggling, we revert to kick-ball times strategy….kick the ball upfield and hope that something good happens.
One of three in a sequence; like this photo, there are five of the team moving up into the offensive zone…
and Matthew needs to make this pass, one way or another….
and finally does pass the ball off….but I don’t remember what the end result of this sequence was.
A race to get to this ball….
and Matthew gets there and pushes through.
Games in which we play a possession-based game we do pretty well….games in which we get away from that become more problematic. We may score six goals that way, but, it inevitably leads to disaster when we get up against a good team that can keep control of the ball…..
Last picture from the first game….Matthew with the ball in midfield.
Again, we won 2-0, but, having beaten this team 7-0 the day before, can’t really be crazy excited by this 2-0 win. We come back after lunch (at Buffalo Wild Wings, watching some football) for the second game.
The best of times and the worst of times with this team….and the worst of times definitely included this game. The recipe for the worst of times? The first is no possession-soccer; turns with the ball and blind kicks upfield. The second is having goal-scoring opportunities and not scoring….and that happened a lot in this game.
This boy has been told that he should be taking at least a few shots per game….and he is in position to take those shots sometimes but it doesn’t always work out. Matthew is supposed to be this holding center mid too…..there should be a forward, a center mid, and two side mids ahead of him when we go on attack. Doesn’t always happen, and there a few times when he gets that far forward he is out of position on defense….
Always a good predictor of how our team is doing; is Matthew in position to head the ball. It means we are keeping possession and Matthew is involved….
I’m not sure this ball is going where Matthew wanted it to go though….
The upcoming weekend provided a big debate around here…..Matthew has both a football game and a soccer game at the same time.
We’re going to end up doing football……and we’ve waffled quite a bit back and forth before deciding on football. Why football? 1) Matthew is about as important to both teams….he has a prominent role on both teams. 2) But it came down to that there are 6 football games….and we’ve played 15 soccer games to date and there are at least 4 more games after the one we are missing.
