The oldest player on our Girl Power squad is now one hundred and eight months old. This means that the last three months of soccer represent more than 1% of her total life experience. In most contexts 1% of anything doesn't seem like a significant amount but think of how long three months is if you've only been alive for one hundred and five months. Think of how many things you would be doing in those three months that would be completely new to you, how many new experiences you'd be having and how much you'd be learning. When you're eight or nine years old one soccer season is a long time.
It's easy to lose that perspective when you see a group of young athletes consistently performing at such a high level. I'll admit that given how well Girl Power have been playing I went into this tournament weekend expecting a good outcome and the actual results were a little jarring. I think the girls played well enough to win each game but they made some mistakes that allowed their opponents some easy goals. Those mistakes were hard to watch and seemed totally uncharacteristic of the way this team has been playing and that's why it's so important to maintain perspective. For a coach or parent watching the games those situations where the team made mistakes all seemed like easy problems to solve. It's easy to think "how did they mess that up?" But then I remember how little actual experience they have, how every game is filled with new situations, new problems to solve. Seen from that perspective every game, even the losses, are valuable and I've got to remember that my job is to teach them how to play but when the whistle blows the game is theirs. They've got to experience it all, the good games and the bad ones, for themselves.
So, that tournament is behind us. They played better than they did in Gatlinburg. Scoring two goals in each game is nothing to sneeze at. Their individual dribbling skills were excellent with each player showing many times how cool headed they've become in tight situations. Their cooperative play as a team was impressive too, particularly their ability to rotate positions.
What most teams are looking for in terms of cooperative play is obviously passing but where our girls are so precocious is in their ability to change positions immediately. One of them picks the ball up in our third and takes off up the touchline and then a teammate drops into position to cover on defense. In this weekend's games we saw it over and over again and it was so fluid and effortless. Other coaches notice and point it out to their teams.
As for cooperative passing, we are seeing it more and more and my job now is just to be sure that they don't go in for that too much. I want to continue to see them winning at least one 1v1 every time they get the ball. Once they clear that first defender passing or keeping the ball is their choice but I'm going to continue to insist that they all continue to develop and test their dribbling skills.
With only one game left in their first season of select I want to devote a few paragraphs to each player summarizing where I see them in terms of their development. Pardon me for going on a bit long and wandering from topic to topic too.
Abby
Abby's a player who came to the game from the start with a strong desire to be on the ball and so teaching her to be a clever dribbler was easy. Dribbling is what she wants to do and she'll try any trick or fake you show her. Then she works diligently on the moves she likes and before you know it they've become second nature to her.
Last season it was a bit comical to watch her as she dodged defenders for what seemed like minutes at a stretch without actually making much progress up field. She was great at keeping the ball away from them by moving laterally and making quick ball-shielding changes of direction but she rarely saw the openings she was creating for herself. Now though she sees those openings and has really lived up to her nickname. She knows how to use a move to gain a step and then turn the corner headed up field toward goal. Bye bye. She's learned how to anticipate and jump over tackles too and that's made her a more resilient or stout player. Finally, she's definitely got a good strike on the ball. Abby has always had good ball striking technique, just not much power. Lately though she's coming into the ball faster and putting some heat on it.
Anna
Given Anna's relative speed I have to say I'm really delighted with how in love with dribbling she is. She's got a couple of moves she favors and has worked at them to the point that she can pull them off when the pressure is on and still find space for a getaway. I think when she was first finding her ability to possess the ball back in the spring she was a little surprised by how it was working but now she's supremely confident. I see her in a crowd of opponents with the ball at her feet and her body language clearly says that she thinks she's going to get away with the ball. I love that. And as everyone has seen, Sugar Anne is really the first player to get a sense of how to distribute the ball effectively from within that sort of double or triple coverage.
As for her strike on the ball, Anna has come a lot farther than some of the girls in that she was a committed "toe-baller" last season. Now she's got excellent technique and a lot of strength. We should expect to see plenty of goals from her over the next few seasons.
Anna's real achievement over the last season though is that she's developed into a really devoted participant in training sessions. I don't expect any player in this age group to actually be "serious" at practice. I expect a certain level of goofiness and all I ask of the team is that we all agree we will have fun...playing soccer, nothing else. I'm lucky in that the whole team has adopted a good attitude toward training, mainly I think because they are simply in love with the game. I'd point to Anna though as a particularly gratifying example of a player whose love for the game has led them to a certain level of commitment, even calmness within the game.
Ashley
Smashley has always been the athlete, the player with speed, strength and a killer natural strike on the ball. There have been times where to me she looked even a little embarrassed by her strength, seemingly concerned that she might hurt someone. When the game is on though she goes full tilt and is tough as nails. At some point last season though that great speed of hers started to become less of an advantage as we faced bigger and more experienced opponents. Over the last few months I've repeatedly asked her to try to throw in a simple change of pace move, a little stop and go, so that she could really take advantage of her speed. Get the defender chasing you at full speed, pull up quick, and then as they over-run you you take off again gaining a few steps. We've talked about it and talked about it. I've demonstrated it repeatedly. Finally this weekend there it was, that stop and go move, and it was masterful. It's just a subtle tap on the ball to slow it down then a little "I'm sorry, did you want this?" shoulder shrug and away she goes as the defender has to spin awkwardly to catch up. Of course she's still got that power too and whenever she gets past a defender into open space near the goal Ron and I both kind of duck a little in sympathy with whoever might be in her shooting path. Sometimes I even yell "look out!"
Ava
I gave Ava the nickname Scout because since U4 she's always been a player who naturally drifts toward the back of the field, both to protect our goal and to have the field in front of her. From those early days of Girl Power in U6 she would "scout out" the open side of the field and then when she received a loose ball in her own half she'd dash right or left to out flank the beehive of kids.
Last season Ava's ability to cover on defense while still being a constant threat to bring the ball up with blazing speed and lead the attack made her the MVP of many a game.
Now she's our own Ali Krieger or Meghan Kingenberg, a defender with speed and skill who does so much more than tackle attacking players. Ava has always been a diligent worker at practice, striving to master whatever skill we're working on. Now though she's got a few moves that she not only can execute but can really make work for her. Like most of the girls she developed facility with some of our deceptive dribbling skills early on without really having the guile, the willingness to trick another player, that you need to make those skills work. As she showed this past weekend though, she's tricky now. If you bite on her first move and chase the ball she'll make you pay.
Eileen
My dear little Beanie has always been the most laid back of players. She loves being part of the team and during our car rides to games she'll sometimes describe to me the big future that Girl Power has ahead of them. You know, like playing in the Olympics and World Cup. She knows what their entrance to the field will be like...what music and what sort of fireworks. She likes the performance aspect of playing so naturally she likes using the dribble skills she's learned. We all remember her last spring regularly making a big show of dribbling backwards toward goal to get open space then doing her little spin to dodge around her opponent and get loose. At first it was funny and then it was a little maddening. As Zoe said once, "you don't have to dribble that far back." I'm glad she started doing that though as the other girls caught on pretty quickly and began using that tactic too. You don't see other teams doing that in their own half. It's either straight ahead or kick it out.
One thing with Eileen though is that while she loves putting on a show she's always been a little skeptical of the intensity of the games like she sometimes thinks it's all a bit silly. She's not as naturally competitive as the rest of the girls so it's been wonderful to have her side by side with this group of players. I love that as a group they know how to leave a game behind, win or lose, just forget it and move on. But while they are actually playing? It's game on! Little by little Eileen has been learning from her teammates to embrace that intensity and she's got a bit of a swagger now.
Emily
Intensity is also what defines the transformation of Emily into "Legs". I was thrilled to have Emily join the team as she was school mates with Eileen and I could see she was an athlete. But early on it was hard to gauge just how interested in playing she actually was. Now though she's kind of bull dog out there. When the first game ended Sunday and she'd been denied a scoring opportunity despite putting on a real dribbling clinic she seemed genuinely furious. I liked seeing that and I think that emotional commitment will drive her to improve her skills.
Legs gives the impression of being one of the girliest of the girls but when she's headed into a 50/50 for a ball it's elbows up and full speed ahead. Last season her best move was a sort of maradonna spin that was all her own but now she's more frequently using that cruyff turn we work on and that's really significant as it's a move that involves getting low over the ball and, in 50/50 situations, inviting contact. Some of the best tackles of the tournament were Emily's as she used that cruyff to simultaneously step across her opponent's path, hip check them (in a very lady like way, to be sure), and whisk the ball away.
One thing I'm always looking for with players is some aspect of their natural talent that can serve as a foundation for their skill development, some ability or tendency that I can work with to help them get into the technical details of the game. One thing I talk with players about occasionally is that when they are receiving the ball in a situation where they aren't under immediate pressure their first touch can actually be their first deceptive move. That is, as the ball comes to them they can stay square to it to let the opponent think they are going to just trap the ball but then at the critical moment they take a smart touch to one side or another using their opponent's momentum against them. Emily is the expert practitioner of this skill and she usually incorporates a very deceptive shrug or hop into this that really throws opponents off. As the ball gets to her Emily sort of rises up on her toes as if to trap but then lets the ball come up under her knees and drops back down and into a sprint to the left or right of the nearest opponent. It's deceptively graceful and she gets it to work over and over again.
Emily has been working hard on her shooting stroke too and it shows.
Hailey
Hay Hay, full of guile.
We've all seen the con-man's trick where a ball is hidden under one of three bowls and then with a great deal of sliding and swirling about the fellow get's his mark to loose track of the ball. Compare that to a more subtle magicians trick, something like making a coin seem to disappear in mid-air. The con-man's trick requires a lot of energy and movement, the magician's trick is all about misdirection as she convinces you, with just the subtlest gesture of the other hand, to look away from the hand holding the coin. While you're looking the wrong way the coin goes in a pocket. Voila.
Every player on the squad, including Hailey, has worked hard to master a few basic dribble skills; not just be able to do them but really master them. Most of those skills work by moving the ball quickly and taking advantage of your opponent's momentum. You take them to the right then move back left. The concept is simple but the execution often involves some very difficult movements with the ball and requires energy and speed to be effective. But what if you can get that opponent to move to the right with just a slight dip of your shoulders, a subtle tip of your head? That's Hay Hay. Hailey has for as long as I can remember had a gift for knowing how to actually deceive an opponent. She just recognizes deception as being part of the game and that's been a huge advantage for her. I've written here before about my experience that many players, as much as they want to get to goal, are actually a bit shy about being deceptive. Not Hailey. Over and over again you see Hay Hay dribble straight toward an opponent, touch the ball with the outside of her right toe to her right then quickly tuck the ball back to the left with the inside of that same toe. The ball barely moves a foot laterally but this subtle move is effective for Hailey 90% of the time and it works so well simply because as she takes that first touch to the right everything about her body language is saying to the opponent "I am going to your left". The way her head tilts, the way she shifts her weight to her right...from the opponent's side of the ball it must look like an unambiguous commitment to go that way...but then she doesn't. Slowly, I hope, all the girls are learning this dark art of deception, this ability to misdirect your opponent. Zoe is probably the closest behind Hay in this.
Hay's great improvement this season is her ball striking. Like many of the girls she has been a toe-baller for a long time and only recently did the level of competition force them all to devote some serious effort to developing a stronger strike. For Hailey it's not just a good shooting stroke. She's got a pretty good dead ball stroke (goal kicks, free kicks, etc.) too and I know that's taken some work.
Olivia
It takes a very narrow focus on the technique of striking the ball to improve. Whether they are conscious of it or not, in order to develop a consistently good shooting stroke a player has to learn to feel their strike, to understand what part of their foot is contacting the ball and what the posture of the rest of their body is when they make a good strike. They've got to learn to learn from the feedback of hitting the ball. You've seen them all before practices, aimlessly whacking the ball into an empty goal. I yell "no toe balls"; they roll their eyes and do it again. All they are focused on is the sight of the ball rolling into the net. But when the competition get's tougher and now you've got to put some real heat on the ball and be able to hit it from odd angles and when you can't rely on getting a running start headed straight toward the goal, well now you've got to learn a new way to do it or forget about scoring. When I talk to the girls about ball striking I tell them that when practicing solo don't think about where the ball goes, think about what you feel when you strike the ball. Learn what if feels like to hit it solidly and focus on that, keep trying to replicate that.
As with the dribble skills, learning to strike the ball is an experience that allows a player to also learn what it feels like to learn, what it feels like to go through the process of mastering a new skill. That's incredibly valuable and gives them the confidence over the long term to believe "if it can be learned I can learn it too." For many players what gets in the way of their experiencing this is their impatience to just get out their and play the game. They just want to play so bad that all the details about technique and tactics are just noise. The game is out their on the field not here on the sideline with the coach so everything coach says sounds like...well, think Charlie Brown's teacher.
When I first got the opportunity to work with Olivia I could see she was the type of player who had great natural gifts for the game but who also was so impatient to actually play that most of our practice work would strike her as boring and unrelated to the game. Joining Girl Power has done her a world of good as it put her in a position where despite her athleticism she wasn't the strongest player on the squad. To catch up she's had to learn how to focus on technique and to take the technical work seriously enough to notice her own ability to improve. Now she gets full advantage out of that athleticism of hers. Livy has amazing speed and (finally!) a powerful stroke but her greatest asset is her ability to play in tight space, to deftly control the ball then take off into open space. Her preferred move is her own version of the Puskas and she improvises on it by varying the amount of hesitation she takes before dashing off with her getaway touch. An experienced defender might not necessarily bite on the first touch away from a Puskas and so they are right there with you as you try to escape. What I've been seeing Livy do is recognize when a defender has stuck close to her and in that case she lets the ball slow down a bit to draw them in closer and then takes off. I teach the Puskas as a 1-2-3 beat move and Olivia has learned on her own how to add a fourth beat.
Livy's vision is impressive too and I see her leading the way along with Anna in finding teammates with smart passes.
All of her technical advances aside though, for Olivia her greatest achievement of this past season is that she's become firmly ensconced as a member of the team. It was a scary transition for her to move from the Tigers to Girl Power and I know she was tentative at first. Now though? She's just one of the knuckleheads...a gifted competitor who approaches the game with creativity and toughness.
Zoe
Back in the winter I was worried about Zö. Like many players that I've coached she's so anxious to play that the work of training is hard to get into and sometimes seems unrelated to the game. Consider the basic ball control work that we do at nearly every practice, those toe-taps and foundations. To most players new to training those drills seem completely pointless, perhaps designed specifically to embarrass them. This past winter when we began our pre season training Zoe still hadn't mastered either of those two drills and I could tell she was becoming more and more self-conscious about it. I just kept telling her to work on it and be cool, you'll get it. Well now not only is she as masterful a toe-tapper as anyone else, she's also become an extremely dedicated, almost "no-nonsense" participant in our training. Two weeks ago we were working on a variation on a move that they already know and I was so impressed with how committed Zö was to getting it right and then she was the first player I saw who actually tried to pull it off in a game.
Zoe's balance has improved dramatically over the last few months and she's much more sturdy. She's always been tough and unafraid of contact but she hasn't always been able to keep to her feet when going into contact. Now though she's jumping over tackles left and right while keeping the ball. She's got a shambling dribble style, full of step overs and scissor moves, hesitations and then quick starts. It can look inelegant at times but it's always effective. Now who is it that she reminds me of? Maybe this guy? https://youtu.be/0Q7ZAnCFzI0
Sorry to have gone on so long. I'm so proud of these girls.
