U13 - Second Friendly

Tonight we played our second friendly.  The quantitative result was 2-0 in our favour.  The team we played are much improved over last season and we are very appreciative of them inviting us to work together with them.

Our 2 goals were very sweet soccer goals.    Both sequences were started as a switch in the play by our holding midfielder at the time.  They saw it works... great.

The good:

• Nice goals
• We kept our shape much better
• We were quicker getting out and coming back, keeping our shape compact up/down the field.
• They had some great ideas as the game progressed
• We had good organization on both sides of goal kicks and corner kicks
• More players recognizing when to turn 
• More attempts at switching the play 
• Lots of crosses
• The boys worked hard to get the balls down the wings, behind the defenders

The bad:

• Strength and technique when heading the ball
• Distances on throw-ins
• Some wild kicks to nobody/nowhere

The ugly:

• Not getting to the ball first.  Almost every time.

These are the coaches' problems to fix and our sessions will focus around them.

This Saturday we have our first tournament.  I wouldn't say we are 100% ready to play but I would say we want to play, which is good.  Tonight I had a to-do list for the boys and they did it for the most part.  I will work with Coach Paul to put together wish lists for each game Saturday.

I always say I don't like playing two matches in a row because there are things to fix.