Given the way our boys had played that last game in Nicholasville I was very surprised by what I saw yesterday. We possessed the ball at least 60% the time and for the first ten minutes Lexington FC couldn't get it out of their own half and I was afraid the game might be a blow-out for us. But then we get beat on a counter attack. And then again...and again.
I saw two things happening. First, the other team realized that none of our players is anxious to give up their own dribble so the Lexington defense adjusted to begin challenging aggressively in one-v-ones rather than laying off and covering passing lanes. Second, our own boys were so focused on attack that they failed over and over again to anticipate those counter attacks. Our players in defense got caught ball watching at midfield repeatedly, punts and clearing passes flying by as they stood stone still. I even pulled a few of them off the field at points in the game to discuss that issue. This failure to play solid defense surprised me as I thought they played so well in Nicholasville. In that game their level of cooperation, communication and anticipation was very high. But yesterday they each seemed to be playing alone and so they chased the ball a lot, crowded the six yard box when they didn't need to and at one very embarrassing moment they even failed to realize that the other team had been awarded an indirect rather than a direct kick. This, even though the referee said the word indirect at least three times. So, as the other team is setting up, our boys are forming a wall rather than marking up man on man. That should have resulted in a goal for Lexington but we got lucky. I call that moment embarrassing because to see players at U11 seemingly unaware of what the referee's call was shows that to some extent some of our players are caught up in the rush of the game, like a six year old would be, but not fully engaged in the game the way a more mature player is. As coach Ben explained it to the boys after the game, soccer is in some ways like chess or checkers; you can't play well if you don't know where all the pieces are all the time.
I've got to find a way to address that at practice while still keeping our focus on developing skills. I've got to put them in situations where they have to use those skills while still keeping an eye on the rest of the field, situations where some sort of pressure forces them to anticipate. What I won't do is give up on the skills-heavy character of our training. Anyone who watched that game yesterday had to have seen how much more skillful our boys were in general. I don't mean by that that we played better. The other team played more effectively and their cooperation and energy level as a team were admirable. They beat us straight up. But our boys stayed committed to using their skills generally. They took on their one-v-ones and won a lot of them. The Legends development goal is to take players who've learned to be ball-hogs and then give them the understanding of game situations that allows them to become co-ball-hogs, to cooperate while still being willing and able to take on those one-v-ones.
The post game talk yesterday was a difficult situation. I have to be honest with them about what I'm seeing so that, hopefully, we can learn from what happened. At the same time I want them to be able to walk away from the game feeling good about where they are in their development, to be confident that it'll all pay off. I believe with this group it will pay off and I know they can play more effectively as a team.
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