TSC 95 White Game & TSC white 97 boys game

Game 1 a 1-3 loss.

A great game to level set us going into our first premier league games next weekend.

I knew being down two of our top defenders it was going to impact our depth at certain positions. The girls that stepped up to play new roles did very well. Good job Ellen. Lauren, Hope & Madison.

When playing games like this it comes down to who can make the fewest mistakes and which team can take advantage of the other teams mistakes. At a very high level TSC did a better job of winning the 50-50 balls than we did. We got impatient and either tried to take off down the field befoere we won the ball or we were flat footed and they came from behind and beat us.

We tend to get that way after we have put up a lot of points in previous games.

Here is the down and dirty of the first game:

We played the first half fairly evenly although TSC white was a little more physical. Not as physical as Sweden though. We had a few opportunities on corners that we did not capitalize on but we did get the first goal off a corner to take a 1-0 lead.

We made a few crucial mistakes on the insuing kick off and gave up a very easy goal just seconds later.
Marking up reading passing lanes has to be more consistent on both sides of the ball.

We then went into the half tied 1-1.

The White coach and I both had the same idea and that was to come out hard the second half and pressure the ball as much as possible. They executed it much better than we did. Even in our second match the girls still struggled with understanding when and how to double team and pressure the ball.

As with any tactic their is a counter. If we could have handled the pressure, kept our heads up and connected passes which we did from time to time it would have created more advantages. Our problem during this game was trying to do too much individually instead of relying on what we have been working on tactically and letting the formations and movement create the opportunities.

Primarily we lost the middle. TSC had some talend center mids and our mids struggled moving and keeping the middle of the field. When a team puts a lot of pressure on us we tend to take a more defenisive position at the mid. We talked about this, our mids need to watch their position without the ball, watch our depth and width with and without the ball so that we are staying in position to own the passing lanes.

Playing at this level it is very difficult, almost impossible to turn on strong defenders. I want our forwards to work on playing the ball back to our mids and looking for the second runs. We did this at times, but we are still trying to force the ball more than we should. We will work on this.

Our defenders did a better job of playing the ball back and working the ball but we lost paitence at times and forced our own turnovers. But this is new for them but its moving in the right direction.

One thing we have to focus on is the thinking piece. A great example is our set plays. We are not reading the field and are too predicatable and mechanical in our actions. The girls have to be able to adjust and react to what the defenders are doing.

To Summarize this game:

We are a very talented, fit and athletic team. Sometimes we rely too much on our athleticism. Skill will usually win out when teams are evenly matched athletically.

The 2nd and 3rd goals were due to not hustling and being out of position. Its been a while since we made those kind of mistakes.

We also had our chances and we need to capitalize.

Some common opponent scores: TSC defeated ESC 2-0 / Thunder Italy - 6-0 / TSC Red 3-0 / Blitz Navy 6-0.

Our last scores vs the same opponents : ESC loss 2-1 / Thunder Italy defeated 2-1 / TSC red defeated 3-0 / Blitz Navy Tied 1-1.

The last time we played TSC we lost 7-1 back as U11's. I thought we played a better than 3-1 but its movement in the right direction.


Game 2 - TSC 97 White boys Win 4-2.

First I think the girls did very well. We played roughly 40 minutes after playing a 70 minute match against a very good team. With having the same coach he used the same tactic with his 2nd team as he tried in the second half and that was to apply a lot of pressure.

The game started pretty well as the last game left off, however, the girls did a much better job in the first half of playing possession and taking advantage of our speed. Once we started recognizing what we have been working on we scored 4 goals fairly easily. The movement and finishes almost reminded me of how we moved in Sweden. Working the outsides and following up on the rebounds or on the crosses.

4-0 at half. It could have been a little worse in the first half but I called the dogs off and forced the girls to drop it back and work the ball around. I killed two runs that most likely would have resulted in goals on runs by TW and AD.

The second half the girls fatigue kicked in. Not having had a time to rest or eat lunch showed. Everyone was really tired but they played it out. The first goal we gave up was a very good shot off a free kick, I dont think we could have stopped it. The second goal was just fatigue.

The goal in the second half was to minimize turnovers. We still struggled with strigging passes together as I would have liked.

Defensively we did a much better job of being able to bring the ball back, pulling the other team back and stretching them. When we did this we opened up our game. We did this very well in Sweden. We will keep working and will improve.

Im not sure of all the scores but the last update I got from the Blue team was they were loosing to the TSC White Boys 6-3.

We will practice Tuesday at 6 Sugar Creek. We will practice Thursday at 6 as well. Thursday at 7 we will scrimmage the U13 boys for about 30 minutes.

Saturday we play against BUSA who were the Alabama state runner ups first at 6 then we play HSC yellow on Sunday at noon. Both are very good teams so it will be a tough weekend.