2009 Clorox Cup

We knew going into this tournament that it probably wouldn't match up to Plano in regards the level of competition.

So the challenge would be to validate the level of separation. I told the girls we weren't going to measure it by the score either. We have occasionally played down to lesser teams or gotten completely out of our game by trying to do nothing but score goals.

The girls did a great job of playing to our pace. As a whole you could see a difference technically by player. We had better touch, we passed much sharper, The girls did a really good job of knowing when to pass to feet or into space.
I had one of the refs say to me that it seemed we always had someone in the right place at the right time. What this tells me is that the girls did a really good job of beginning their movement two to three passes away. They did a great job of keeping defensive and offensive shape.

Saturday in both games the girls did a great job of forcing our pace on the other teams. I saw several players again push their individual game which just started everyone to start feeding of this momentum. But we stayed in our game. The girls built on what we did in Plano. Great job of keeping possession, working different parts of our attack and we transitioned back and forth with greater consistency on Saturday.
With AJ being out we had to work with players in different roles. It was fun to see those players succeed in their new roles. Some things we need to help them with but everyone did really well.

Sunday it was a challenge to keep playing at our pace in the morning. The girls started to get a little frustrated by not scoring on opportunities that should have been really easy goals. I think their was about probably 5 or 6 attempts where we were 1 on 1 with the goalie and either kicked it wide or right to the goalie. I guess in the long run this was a good thing turning in a 11-0 score would have not been very sportsman like although I wanted to.

The game against Carrera was just what we needed to end the tournament. They were a very athletic group with some real quality players. They won a tournament in St. Louis last week so they were very confident and ready to come here and do the same. I really challenged the girls in this game to come out very hard and we did. We attacked so hard to begin the game it was hard for them to get organized. Again a few goals we should have completed in this half that we didn't.
At the half I told the girls not to be over confident. I said if I were the Carrera coach i would be really challenging my team to come out hard and try to get back in the game. So we had to come out hard to prevent that from happening. Carrera really played with a lot of heart in the 2nd half. I would say a more even match in the 2nd half. We had some great chances but Carrera fought through it with some great effort.
The goal we gave up was a reminder of our Plano Tournament. We had a breakdown again that again resulted in giving up a goal. We were pretty fortunate in the 2nd half. A bad call on a breakaway that I thought was a great save resulted in a PK that Emily stopped. Emily had a few great efforts on other shots this half as well.

I think the girls enjoyed this game alot more as well. Its a greater sense of accomplishment to end the tournament against this type of opponent.

Great job this weekend.
Thoughts?

Doug