Haven’t been in a big hurry to do this post; a) the tournament ended poorly and b) the pictures aren’t all that great. Oh well….
Went with the same Panda shirts, changed the name this time to ‘Panda Express’ since we were missing two of our players from the last 4v4. I was happy, am happy, whatever verb tense is most appropriate, with the ‘replacements’ but knew that they hadn’t done a lot of 4v4 soccer. And it is different….
Game 1: We play 4+1 (how do you cheer for that team? saying ‘four plus one’ is awkward? to you say ‘five’?)
Anyway, they are a team of kids from travel soccer around here….this team won ‘our’ age group in the Williamston 4v4 we played in a few weeks back where we played up two age groups. And we started slow but ended up pulling away at the end to win 6-3. Affirmation that I made the right decision to play up a month ago? Who knows?
:
The best picture of the day, the two teams shaking hands. Sadly, Matthew is the one kid you really can’t see all that well in this picture. For the record, for the Panda’s it is Matthew, Zane, AJ, Drew, and Levi from left to right, for 4+1 it is Jayden, Jesse, Nick, Nick, and Isac from right to left.
Game 2: Against some green team that I did not get the name of. I did watch one of their early games and they were down 10-0 at the half….I knew going in we were going to cruise through this.
Might as well talk about 4v4 soccer ‘difficulties’ here….I’ve said it before and will say it again, it is hard for me to get Matthew out of that defensive spot when we play these tournaments. It’s not just the defense, which he is good at, and other members of our team are good at also. It’s everything else…on a small field you have to distribute quickly, which he can do. On a small field you have to be ‘man-up’ and be pretty physical in near your goal, he can do that. In this tournament, you could score from everywhere….so big long kicks from our end are a good thing, and we figured out that, well, there is one Panda who can do that accurately most of the time. So, in Game 1 he is mostly back there…I try something different twice and we give up two goals. In Game 3 he was back there almost all of the time.
Really not a discussion point, but, I found out pretty quickly that one Panda was as I suspected, pretty much limited to the forward position.
(he can boot it, pretty consistently, 3/4 of the field. I wish we had done a better job of controlling the balls that he booted forward….)
But here in Game 2, he started back on defense and moved up to forward as we got going…..we were up 5-0 at the half, and Matthew had his only goal of the day. Discovered, at the half, that all of the pandas had scored but one. Told that Panda that he was the only Panda that was allowed to score in the second half and that after he scored we would not score again…just kick the ball out of bounds and let the other team have it back….
So we score on an own goal…the ball deflects in off of one of their players…it is 6-0. I tell that Panda that the goal didn’t count…he had to score (he is a Panda who plays defense primarily in real soccer and almost never scores). He finally scores and it is 7-0 and the team goes into stall mode. The game finishes 7-2 (they score when we touch the ball inside the arc and they are awarded a goal as the penalty…and score on this long shot when I have one of the new kids back on defense)
My decision to stall and have the kids not play to ‘demolish’ is not greeted with enthusiasm by the parents, who think I am sabotaging the chances of doing well in the next match. So let me discuss that a little bit here…
The case for holding back: Well, it is good sportsmanship. The 4v4 is supposed to be for fun and not deadly serious. The team we were playing only scored two goals are day; both against us. If we hadn’t held back that never would have happened. They wouldn’t have even had possession of the ball like they had in the 2nd half. The absolute opposite of this was what the team they played in the first game did…they scored 13 goals (only 10 count) and were bragging that the green team didn’t touch the ball in the 2nd half.
The case for not: Well, if your kids come out flat in the next game it is because they weren’t “playing to win”.
I said it there, I’ll say it here: I was not going to bury that team. I’m glad they scored. And if we come out flat, that is on the boys.
Game 3: The first two games determined your fate in the seeding for the single-elimination….we were the #2 seed (giving up those goals early in the first game sealed our fate….if we had a chance to be the one-seed my instructions in the second game would have been different…hold up but do NOT let them score).
So we play the #3 seed, a team with travel kids from Ann Arbor and Jackson.
And even thought I had warned them that their parents thought they would come out flat, they came out flat, and slow, and let the other team be first to the ball almost the whole game, and we lost 4-1. Feel bad, I should have gotten a picture of the team afterwards and I was so disappointed and mad afterwards that I didn’t do that. Feel bad, let my disappointment show with the boys as we talked after the game, but, man, was just an ugly game. Matthew was very pissed off at me afterwards, he thought all of my talk to the boys was directed straight at him….which wasn’t true at all. I forget sometimes how personally he takes these types of games.
So, after next week, the sports swing back into full throttle:around here: Upcoming events (and posts) for July and August include:
- that things I would do differently post I haven’t gotten to (next post!)
- Fric and Frac at Spring Hill
- Scott and Suzanne in Vegas (not sure if we’ll go day-by-day here or not)
- FTSD: A tennis preview
- FTSD: Tennis Quads (Kevin will have five quads in by the end of August…think I have figured out the best way to get the results out of the paper and out here now!)
- Olympic Developmental Program try-outs
- FTSD: Rush Kickoff Tournament
- FTSD: Football preview (with a discussion of double-sporting complications for the soccer-minded…)
- FTSD: Dewitt Ox Roast 2013 (defending champs!…shirts are ordered!)
(shirts are inspired the song Inner Ninja, which Matthew and I have heard on the radio a lot this summer….click on the picture below if you want to watch the video….)
FTSD – GR Crew Cup (did this tournament last year with ( T ), will do it this year with ( C )).
