Playing into the Open

     In my last post from the indoor season I wrote about the Girl Power squad making progress in learning how to "move the postage stamp".  As I noted there the girls have all become more than competent at maintaining possession individually and they'd begun developing some understanding of how to use that skill to first hold the ball then pass to a teammate so that they can possess the ball as a group.  Some coaches call this progression "skill, space, release": use skill to possess the ball then move into space to find an option to release or pass the ball to a teammate.
     Girl Power have become very good at playing this "skill, space, release" game now with every player having two or three really reliable 1v1 moves that can get them into space and they have all improved dramatically in their ability not only to see each other on the field but also to assess what their teammate is seeing.  That last bit, the ability to visualize quickly what the field looks like from someone else's perspective, is a hugely important development and I'm thrilled to be seeing this already from our girls.  What I'm talking about here is not merely the ability to see when a teammate is open but also the ability to see how they can get open, what the possibilities of a situation are.  Sometimes passing is foot to foot.  You see a teammate standing in open space unmarked and you pass the ball directly to them.  But sometimes you pass the ball into space so as to break the mark on a teammate.  If I see you marked closely on your right by another player but you've got open space to your left I pass the ball into that space so that you can run onto it.  I pass you open, which is a phrase you hear a lot when the ESPN analysts are discussing quarterback prospects.  Can they only hit open targets or do they have the mental acuity to see opportunities to throw a receiver into the open space.
     Here's an example of that type of cooperative play from a recent training session.  We had eight players on hand Monday so at the end I set the pug goals up to let them play 4v4.  But I also added a rule that each team had to keep two defenders and two attackers on either side of the field, so in the first few minutes Hailey and Ashley were together as attackers and they could not chase back into their own half, they had to stay "up".  Their teammates could only defend and not bring the ball "up" past the half line.  My goal was to force them into more 1v1 and 1v2 situations with the ball and to give them an opportunity to discover the value of the  "drop" passing we occasionally work on.  So right at the start of the game we get an example of the sort of visualization that I'm talking about when Hailey drives the ball into the right corner then does a very deft cruyff to slide back up the line and gain space from the nearest defender, Eileen.  As she turns back to the center of the field Hailey looks up and sees Ashley out near the center of the field with Anna marking her to the inside, that is, on the ball side.  Hailey then turns her shoulders a bit to face a spot about four yards out from goal, totally empty space, and she hits a perfect pass, square to that spot, and as she does so she says loud enough for everyone to hear "you better make this".  Apparently she was talking to Ashley and apparently Ashley was already anticipating the pass as she broke away from Anna on Hailey's touch and was able to simply walk the ball into the goal.  That was some showtime-level play.
     Of course you saw that same sort of play on display Saturday afternoon as Abby managed two goals off of some really brilliant "through" ball passes.  The first was from Ava and it was just perfect and I want you to take a moment to think about what happened there.  Ava saw that 1) there was an open lane for her to put the ball into space behind the other team's defenders, and 2) that Abby was running full speed toward those defenders.  In a fraction of a second she put that all together and slotted the ball to just the right spot and then Abby just had to do what great strikers do...finish.  I'm happy to say we've got a squad full of determined, even mule-headed, finishers right now so a well served pass rarely goes unused.
     All this talk of tactical passing aside though, don't forget what it was that got us here.  It was that attention to individual ball skill and that is still critical.  Olivia got our first goal and it was the result of a box to box run in which she beat at least three defenders 1v1.  Ashley's goal was also a long run and to get into finishing position she split the two defenders with a beautifully delicate touch.  In the opening minutes of the game it looked like it would be a very close affair but once the girls started getting their skills on things opened up.  By the second half we were seeing some beautiful individual skill on display (Anna's maradonna was killer) and you've got to keep in mind how important that is in terms of the team's ability to both generate scoring opportunities and to defend by limiting the other side's ability to possess the ball.  The way I described the team when they were still playing U8 rec is as true now as then: they defend by possessing the ball and not letting you have it.