Week Four.

The U4 team had a pretty good game really.  All of the kids did very well in practice and were very attentive.  Sammy was more involved in the game than ever before and Hunter got a goal, so that was a great game.  One thing I spoke to the team about after the game was, again, to remember to be looking at the ball all the time.  I think a major hurdle for many kids to get over when learning a team sport is that they have to resist their natural urge to make eye contact with other kids when they are close to them.  It seems like their natural instinct to treat their collisions on the field like any other social interaction gets in the way of them being able to learn how a game flows.  When they form a scrum over the ball in one of the corners invariably only a few, if any, of the kids are actually looking down at the ball.  Most of them are looking at each other.  It's comical because often times the expression on their faces seems to be saying "why are we doing this?"  I'm not sure that anything that I might say to them about this would make any sense so we just have to be patient and let them figure it out on their own.

The U6 Bears had a great practice, really focused.  Then they had a weirdly disjointed game.  Zychick was really focused in as keeper and did great work and there were flashes of brilliance from everyone but there was also a lot of aimless jogging around the field.  I didn't expect that given how well they had focused in practice.  Oh well.
My highlight of the game was Cole holding his keeper pose, like some sort of ninja awaiting an attack.  That's how Ava got started in keeper and she turned into a good one, so keep an eye on Cole.

The U6 Sharks were also just a bit less than sharp this week, maybe because they were missing Karolyn.  Diego did manage a goal and Trey continued his trend of playing with more and more confidence.  He put a few moves on this week including a nice pull-back that showed how he is beginning to trust his skills.  Samuel came in as keeper for the first time and was crazy good.  He's too good in the field to ever specialize as a keeper but wow! is he fearless.

For the U8 Sharks it was a reversal of their fortunes from the week before.  In last week's game they were the dominant team and they were able to stretch out and play a more controlled type of soccer.  This week they faced a team that was bigger and more skilled and in response the Sharks seemed to fall into a panic mode right from the start.  By the third quarter though they were getting their groove back and they finished the game with some excellent play.
Here's video from the game.  I tried putting notes in the video...we'll see how that works.




When you're watching this with your player be sure to point out all of the times you see one of the Sharks basically standing still while the other team takes control of the ball.  That was a big problem in this game.