The Jerseys are Arriving

The solid jerseys are arriving at Breakaway Fashion's office (the prints aren't far behind). The first teams to get their uniforms (jerseys, skorts, and socks) will be in Frisco since their games start this Saturday. (Maybe not looking at the forecast...). Our team's uniforms should be right behind them, but I still need to get sizes! I guess we'll have to make some phone calls; the email replys are not pouring in.

As for the coaching update, I'm simplifying the 2 v 2 game even more...way more...and it's working. I setup a wide field (30 yards, but in hindsight I'll go to 40 yards next time) with a wide goal (4 - 5 yards). I told the girls the only rule is that they start with their ball in the corner (like a corner kick). The girls raced (one from each corner) to get their ball in the goal.

It was good dribbling practice, but that wasn't really my intention. I told them to think about the objective and rules of the game. One girl figured out she could do a pass to herself rather than dribbling to the goal, but with the dead grass on the field this time of year, that was a difficult strategy to execute.

Eventually one girl hesitantly asked me if she could get a teammate to help her. I said yes, that it was not against the rules. So pretty soon she and a teammate were easily the fastest to score because they would put one girl in front of the goal and the other would kick it to her from the corner instead of dribbling. They reinvented the corner kick!

It wasn’t instant success; they took a few iterations to work out exactly where to stand. They also struggled a little with the timing of kicking a ball moving perpendicular to the line they needed to kick it into the goal. Most surprising to me is how long it took the other girls to start communicating with other and use a similar strategy. Even this game is showing an abundance of opportunities for improvement in some of the most important areas.

They still haven’t figured out that even more girls helping in front of the goal would allow them to do a very hard corner kick and score even faster. Maybe they’ll figure that out next week.

After we play this game for a while, we’ll extrapolate this lesson to let them figure out the best way to score after moving the ball up the sideline and deep into the corner. (Does this sound familiar?) It seems obvious to us adults what needs to be done, but I think the girls really enjoy the challenge and are very proud of themselves for optimizing these situations. It takes leadership and communication to put the plan together and pull it off. That sure beats having the coach tell them what to do. Best of all, they’re gaining true understanding of the game which will allow for more creativity in the matches. Their creativity is what makes it the beautiful game.

-Bill