Knock knock

Hopefully these two most recent updates aren't just a temporary glimmer in the vast emptiness of my recent blogging activity. I do intend on making updating a regular occurance again, but the usual cop out of "I've too much to do" seems likely.

One thing that's recently become a strength of mine is tactical awareness. For example, I've seen that with Team G, teams tend to defend way behind us, possibly due to their own modifications. Let's face it, we have one trick in the bag; the counterattack.

If you compare the amount of goals scored from set pieces/open play/counters, you would probably find that we score minimally on set pieces (free kicks taken as shots), incredibly rarely during open play, and almost entirely on the counter.

I've a few theories as to why this is the case:

1. Most of the players have little to no actual soccer training.
2. Everybody wants deadly through balls so they can get the goal (we're historically a team with minimal passing).
3. It suits certain players on the team. Early in our history, frequently Jay would just carry the ball the entire way to the goal. The strategy that worked for a while was that forwards would move up, dragging defenders from Jay.
4. We have fast players and a few midfielders with a good eye for spaces in the defense that can be exploited.
5. Nobody knows to come to passes when they're not through balls, or make themselves space. With that, few of us simply do not know how to play in open play.

Regardless, today, I noticed that the team I played against with the Chilly Willies was quite slow to defend, so counter attacking really took them apart. I believe the final score was 8-3, and I had a goal and at least one assist, and a couple good chances thanks to good movement.

My one goal was quite fancy. It was a 3-on-3, so I took a bit of time to move the ball into a good attacking position. At about a 13 yards out, I noticed I still had quite a bit of space, so I let loose a relatively tame shot for the top left corner. My accuracy was spot on, thankfully.

I passed smartly today, almost scored on a free kick, and found good space for passes and runs. My marking and defense was unspectacular, but it wasn't really required - I forced their star player to long shots and made a few important steals and blocks.

There were a few bloopers though, including a handball in my team's penalty box that went unseen by pretty much everybody (in my defense, it was rifled and just hit my arm that was near my body), and I blew a good chance when a cross surprised me and hit me in the chest right in front of the opposition's net.

At one point I unleashed a cute little volley with my left foot right at the goalkeeper from close range, by it was unfortunately saved. However, good can be taken from that - my left foot is becoming better daily. And to think, a couple years back, I was absolute crap with it.

My next game is Friday, and tomorrow I've got a fairly packed schedule that I need to find time to write a research proposal due the day after. On the positive side, it's only a few hundred words, if that. It's for that coaching young sprouts class, and I'd like to write on something quite relevent to footie, if possible. I've been tinkering with the idea of effective warm-ups at the beginning of practice, but we'll see.