There was a moment during the second game on Saturday where the girls seemed to briefly forget who they are. The team they were playing was easily the toughest competition they'd faced in months. The squad was on average physically bigger than our girls and had some players with real speed and strong strikes on the ball. We gave up a goal early in the first quarter and Girl Power seemed to be set on their heels a bit by the speed and aggressiveness of the other team. There had already been several shots on our goal and at that point I noticed that our girls were all drifting back toward their own goal, sort of conceding our half of the field and crowding into the box. They were instinctively falling into a sort of "bunker" defense, all of them feeling that they had to do something to stop the next shot.
After a little talk at the half they went out and played the way they've learned to play. They possessed the ball more and slowed the other team down. They had to work hard at that as their opponent wasn't simply going to let them have the ball. Playing against better competition forces you to reach a new level of intensity in your own play. You've got to work harder to maintain possession and when you lose the ball you've got to work harder to get it back. But all the while you've got to keep your cool and be patient as your scoring opportunities develop.
Girl Power's second half comeback in that game was the highlight of the tournament and maybe the season. They've had so many games where they were simply masterful in contrast to their competition; so many games where they were imperious in their insistent domination of the ball. And we all loved watching that. But this weekend they had to face a tough challenge and they rose to it. They overcame their fear of conceding goals and instead went on the attack looking to find some goals of their own. And how they were rewarded! A brace for Ashely and another for Hailey is what they found! Magnificent! And to the coach and parents of the other team that comeback was stunning! I didn't enjoy being on the sidelines next to such a screamer but his panicky groaning at his team when Hailey's second goal went in was delectable, I confess. And to his credit, the other coach's comments to me after the game complimenting the girls' skills were in earnest.
Given their performance Saturday I think the girls went into Sunday's game feeling very confident that they could win. In fact they were, as a group a little over anxious to get to the ball and be the one to score and so they gave up some easy goals by leaving our goalies alone too often. That's okay though. Being over anxious for the ball is the type of mistake we can work with.
Regardless of the outcome of that Sunday game I think it's clear that playing against good competition in four straight games had an immediate affect on the girls' play. For most of them it was just a realization that they can play the way they know how to play even when facing faster and tougher opponents. Hailey kept patiently weaving in and out then taking off when the space opened up, simply adjusting her intensity up a few notches to match what she was seeing from her opponent. Ava, Eileen and Zoe, discovered that no matter how tall the other players are the ball gets played on the ground so using your skills against bigger players still works. They were tough as nails. Zoe even had a technically perfect chest trap at one point in Sunday's game and that's huge for her as she's been a habitual hand-baller in the past.
Ava has always been our most precocious player in terms of field awareness. Since U4 she's been instinctively moving in and out of the scrum around the ball, anticipating when to attack and when to defend. Whenever any of our girls starts out in defense I encourage them to be on the lookout for opportunities to move up and join the attack. What usually happens though is that they do move up and then never come back. Ava's the one who knows how to dash up top for a shot opportunity or to just keep the ball in the other half and then turn around and re-establish position in our half. I wish she was a little bossier and would direct traffic a bit as she's clearly got the best vision for the field and is the quickest to react to what she's seeing.
Emily played with remarkable speed throughout the games as well as showing rapidly improving field awareness. She was still charging in on the ball sometimes when her own teammate already had it but now she's looking up and seeing them in time to avoid a collision by leaping, gazelle-like, over the ball! It's like a soccer ballet! Her highlight was in the early game Sunday where she got open on the left half of the field. One defender was herding her that way so to take a shot she had to go with her left foot and she crushed it off the post. In practice if I asked her to strike the ball left footed she'd protest that she can't but in the game it just comes naturally.
Anna was typically persistent in her use of her pull-back and play-behind and managed to frequently shield players off the ball for long stretches. As I mentioned above, I didn't like that the team fell into a defensive state of mind in that second game Saturday but in Anna's case I think that was a kind of breakthrough. As great as she's been playing all season I hadn't seen her hustle back to defend very often and this weekend she seemed to suddenly be thinking about the need to do that. That's an experience she can build on.
Finally, for Abby and Ashley this weekend was a true breakthrough. Abby has consistently been our most dedicated and creative dribbler. She loves her spin moves and her play-behinds. Interestingly though, even as the competition we faced this season was not very strong Abby didn't actually manage many goals. She likes possessing the ball and dribbling with it, enjoying the feeling of playing keep-away with defenders without feeling much urgency about finding a path to the goal. In that second game Saturday though she seemed to have stepped up to a new level. Under the sort of pressure we haven't faced all season Abby was suddenly even smoother and more creative with the ball, one move flowing into the next in combinations that, rather than simply maintaining possession, allowed her to slip past defenders and consistently make progress up field not simply across field. In particular I was impressed with a sort of loop combination that she was using repeatedly to amazing effect. She would run into a defender then do a right-footed pull-back and play-behind. When the defender followed Abby to her left after the ball Abby would then step across the ball into a shielding position with her left side now between the ball and the defender. When the defender would then move back to their right to get around her Abby would deftly cruyff the ball under with her right foot, spin to find it and then be well in the clear. The big difference this weekend was that she was executing that with speed and really deceptive smoothness. It was some beautiful play.
And then there was Ashley. Ashley's game has always been based on speed and power. I can't remember a time when she didn't have an excellent shooting stroke. Some of them are born with it. We saw a couple of players on the other team with great natural strokes like that but nothing like Ashley's ball skills and in the second half of that Saturday game she came out on fire, not simply playing hard but seeming to actually get bigger and faster. She was unstoppable, forcing the defense to yield to her. She would run headlong into their line then pull-up fast with a stop and go move followed by a pull-and-play to draw them left. Then a quick cut to the right and boom! In Sunday's game she'd determined that she wanted to keep playing down the left side and try from that corner to cut back in for a shot. It didn't work out and I couldn't talk her out of it but I am so impressed by the consistent effort. She drove to that corner over and over again and danced around with three, sometimes four players on the other team, daring them to steal the ball and letting them bounce off of each other while she kept working toward goal!
The video shows some of that smooth skill that Abby has but it also shows a lot about all the girls on both teams. Note how both Ava and Kathleen come toward the ball with the clear intent to steal it rather than kick it away. Kathleen comes in low with her eyes focused on the ball. Ava reaches once for the ball but then spins, anticipating Abby's next move. Brilliant stuff.
I'm probably forgetting other game highlights that deserve to be mentioned. Here is one non game related highlight though. Prior to the championship game I started teaching them how to run a drill we call "hot corners". It is a great little game that forces them to work as a team, anticipate and to develop solid passing strokes and first touches. It's also a bit complicated and I wouldn't have expected to show it to players this age. Even my U10 players have had a terrible time mastering it and we've invested a fair amount of time in it. I wanted to run the drill with the girls just as a way to kill time prior to the game. Imagine how pleasantly surprised I was to see how anxious they were to master it. They had fun obviously, with plenty of silliness but they also were actually running the drill and trying fairly hard to get it right. And they liked it.
The first time I tried to teach this drill to my U10 boys they acted like it was a punishment. But these girls are like soccer playing sponges. They want to play but they want to get better. They like working at it. Their attitude as a team is exceptional and their love for each other and trust in each other is beautiful. They're great kids.
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