Columbus Day Weekend Notes

Weekend Thoughts

As much as I disparage tournaments, I must step away from my curmudgeonly side this week and give credit where it is due.  The Springboks, who are on a bit of a rough streak in PAGS, played a nice semi-local tournament in Allentown over the weekend and several benefits were clear.

First, based on some conversations with parents, here's a glimpse of a couple examples of defensive work from the last couple days of pro matches which show the themes my teams are constantly being harped on about.

First, from Germany's 3-0 win over The Republic of Ireland, we see the Irish defending deep, very low pressure, in two banks of four, with one striker withdrawn (circled) to provide an outlet upon repossessing the ball.  The distance between the back line and the four midfielders is quite small, making it very difficult for the Germans to pass or dribble through - and any long pass, either lofted or played between defenders, ought to be simple for the GK to pick up.  This is a good example of a "short" team...they aren't particularly "tight" meaning close together left to right.  For that example, we'll look at the next two screen grabs from Sunday's Portland/Seattle match in MLS.

I'm a big Caleb Porter fan, so was glad to see Portland grab the win and go top of the Western Conference. But, in this example, it's Seattle showing what "short and tight" defending looks like:

Here we see the Seattle team in a 25 yard space, front to back.  That the left back is in the dead center of the center circle means the team is less than 40 yards wide left to right.  Given that the right sided defenders aren't on the touch line, it's closer to 30 or so yards (bear in mind, for scale purposes, the 18 is only 44 yards wide).  The ball is being contested, and will come to the Portland player under the yellow arrow:

Not only does the ball come to him, because of the aggressive shape of the defensive unit, so too come FOUR Seattle defenders knocking the Portland player to the ground, with two more lurking nearby! Needless to say, Seattle won this ball back (click to enlarge):

Certainly not a great attacking shape, Seattle will need to connect a few passes to buy the time for the team to spread themselves out and find passing lanes through the Portland defense...makes me chuckle to think of all the youth soccer parents and coaches who yell themselves hoarse for kids to "spread out" when in fact that might be very good preparation for playing professionally...

A couple quick thoughts on the upside of the tournament for the girls:

1. A team which has struggled in PAGS was able to grab a couple wins, finish second of 7 teams and generally enjoy being a lead dog for a little bit!
2. Had we won one of the two games we drew, a tie for first place and possibly a first place finish based on tie-breakers would have been possible...so the value of taking chances, executing at the highest possible level and being sharp for the full match was underscored.  Details, and attention to them, is often the difference between goals accomplished and disappointment. 
3. The time spent together showed that the team has a great esprit d'corps, and it was fun to see the group enjoying each other's company so much.  The results were very good, but that success was made much sweeter for all given that the team enjoyed the time so thoroughly.  This is a remarkable group of kids...so fun to work with.
4. It was very good for me as the coach to have a couple hours to chat with some of the parents over lunch on Sunday...I'll be the first to admit I don't care for parents in general (there's nothing like an adult to ruin a sport) but I think it was good for me to get over myself a bit, and to have some opportunity to answer questions from the parents.  I hope I didn't pontificate too much...
5. The final game I encouraged our families to sit behind our bench, in part because of the conversation about the topics addressed above with the screen grabs, but also so the families could see some of the contrasts between the information being given to the 'Boks and the assumptions often made by spectators.  I think too, that many parents would think twice about how coaches treat these kids if they could more often sit behind the benches (though certainly under such scrutiny, coaches wouldn't say the things they do without such oversight - in some cases).  Something we could only do at a tournament, for the most part, and while that final match was something of an anti-climax, hopefully it was useful for the families to be a little closer to the conversation.