Game 1: If they wanted to make a statement about who the best team in mid-Michigan was, they certainly did it. Beat us 5-1; could have been more than that. There isn’t an aspect of this beatdown that the other team did not completely out-class us in.
Yeah, that kid is huge. And a very good forward too. Didn’t help (but wouldn’t have changed things) that our best defender was out sick. Didn’t help (but wouldn’t have changed things) that Matthew was a little under the weather (had an emergency stop on the way down to the game to take care of ‘issues’.)
And it showed in the first half; Matthew wasn’t quite there and didn’t play much; did things that indirectly led to two goals against us. Not happy with coach over one of them; Matthew was in position between 82 and our goal around midfield, our coach yells at Matthew to move up and double-team him, Matthew does, the kid goes right through the spot that Matthew vacated and two or three passes later it is a goal. Alex pulls Matthew off field for this ‘mistake’…
2nd half is much better for Matthew; we have maybe three real chances on goal and Matthew helps create two of them.
I am sure I will eventually post a much more complete post on the thought process we are going through trying to figure out what to do for soccer next year….one of the things that really appeals to me about the Chill right now is the dedication their coach is putting in to make that team develop and excel. So he is scouting opponents, he prepares scouting reports, he prepares post-game reports….it’s very enticing to a soccer-obsessed Dad like me…
I’ve seen the scouting report on our team. It is uncannily accurate and the truth hurts.
Game 2: Every bit of the beatdown I expected. We were down 4-0 before Matthew came on the field for the first time in the first half. The less said about the 7-1 loss the better.
Game 3: We won 3-2 on Sunday to at least go home happy. One kid doesn’t show up on Sunday; we are down to only 1 of our normal defenseman.
One of the very obvious things about our better opponents is that they play 3 defenseman, where we only play 2 and if you really read that scouting report you can see what a weakness the other coach thought that was. The best news about our opponent is that they play 2 on defense too!
We scored, they scored, we scored, they scored. We had the run of play but had a few very scary moments though on defense with our kids-who-haven’t-played-there-all-year (don't kick the ball to the middle!)
The second half is dominated by one of our players running into their goalie...not dirty, but, he busted the kids' head open. Big delay, ambulance comes up while the game goes on....
They have some, um, unique kids on this team. #10 is the single worst player I've ever seen; always pushing, always with elbows. AAU #2 is weird too; strange yelling noises all during game. But last minute redeemed it all...we have multiple chances in the last 10 minutes and are really taking it to them….and finally get the winner. Click below for video
Love that video! From Henry’s Mom’s reaction to the continued antics of #10 (he finally received a yellow card from his run-in with Matthew here) to my noise of disgust at Matthew’s shot (because I thought he would try and put the ball more on goal and instead he put it exactly where he wanted to put it…where his teammates could get it) to watching different people’s reactions after the goal (some schadenfreude watching 10 and 2 react and watching Matthew grab his teammate to the very fleeting moment of the U11G coach congratulating our coach on the sideline). The game ended about 10 seconds later…..a last-minute finish!
