At the end of my last post I highlighted a brief passing sequence involving Ava, Abby and Peyton. I was trying to describe a moment where it was clear that the players involved were anticipating each other's movements in a way that allowed them to essentially decide what to do with the ball before they'd even received it. In the situation I was describing from that game Peyton received a pass from Abby and made an immediate one touch pass back to Abby, not directly to her but rather to open space about five yards to Abby's right. So before Peyton had received the ball she had already anticipated that possible pass, had already anticipated that Abby could follow a pass into open space past two defenders.
The exercises we ran at training this week are meant to encourage more of that sort of thoughtful cooperative interplay between players. We ran the familiar Hot Corners game and then we worked on learning a new pattern passing game that is somewhat more complicated than Hot Corners and that really emphasizes the concept of a "give and go" movement with the ball. I'm very encouraged at the extent to which our players are picking up the idea of moving the ball cooperatively, especially their individual willingness to release the ball when their dribble options don't look so good. Where we're lacking, and this showed in yesterday's game, is in their individual willingness to anticipate that a pass might be coming their way.
A great example of what I mean happened right in front of me in the second half. We were headed down hill in that half which I hoped would give us the same advantage it had clearly given the other team. And it did as our attack certainly became faster and more penetrating. So at one point Zoe is bringing the ball up the line after a brilliant tackle to repossess and she makes a beautiful hesitation move to dance around the biggest player on the other team. But then as she continues her run along the touch line she looks up and sees three things: two more defenders closing on her; Peyton running with her about four yards to her right; wide open space up the line. Zoe took one more dribble touch and to me her intentions seemed clear. She was going to release the ball up the line for Peyton. Zoe made that pass flawlessly with her left foot. Well struck with just a little left to right hook on it so it hugged the line without going out. Peyton made the effort to run onto the ball but unfortunately she had started about two steps too late. She hadn't "read" Zoe's intentions early enough.
That was typical of the whole team's performance yesterday and I don't want it to sound like a criticism. Rather it's meant as an observation of how close they are to some really brilliant play. There were many other instances of sequences of play where one or two of our players would demonstrate wonderful individual skill to regain and possess the ball. We had lots of fantastic 1v1 victories. But we also did have a lot of really great penetrating runs into the final third that did end with very smart through ball or crossing ball passes. The problem was simply a matter of timing and of touch. Sometimes the through ball was hit too hard and sometimes the intended target player hadn't taken off early enough.
So I'm not disappointed by this performance in any way and as I told the team after the game I'm actually thrilled about the potential they're showing. Their technical skills are solid and still improving so each of them is formidable in those 1v1 situations. And now they're showing that on the tactical side, the cooperative aspect of the game, it's really just down to needing more experience so they can hone their timing. Throughout the game yesterday I felt they were consistently only a knife-edge away from finding that first goal and they kept up the pressure right to the end. We can go back to the training field knowing what we've got to focus on and knowing that we're at a point where a lot of what we're doing in training is fine tuning.
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