How many times have you played pick up games at the park or gym, been getting schooled by a better team for the length of the game, only to have the coach or opposing player say, "next goal wins."
The fragile confidence of a four year old can suddenly be boosted by a game ending walk off goal. The Pink Elephants finally got that moment of adulation on Saturday morning. Is was a glorious early day. The sun was glistening off the dew on the well manicured grass. The rooster tails of water shooting up from the ball as we rolled it out on to the field brings back the memories of countless mornings I spent growing up at the soccer park. A slight chill in the fall air made a light jacket optional but unnecessary after a couple of quick sprints. Ruby and I went to work putting our cones out, setting up for a quick practice before game time. That is the m.o. every Saturday. Thirty minutes of practice, a quick drink, and then a thirty minute game. While I think the kids enjoy the games more than the practice they do a good job of trying to listen and pay attention the best they can.
More nerve racking than anything is that all the parents are there for the whole time. It's not like they drop the kids off and come back later. You, as the coach, are on somewhat of a stage and with those eyeballs comes some nervousness of making sure you are doing your best job possible. After going through our drills and getting them warmed up I decided to discuss the idea of playing defense. With three games remaining, and us giving up goals like a colander gives up the water, I thought it might make sense to incorporate a central defender into our team. Last week, one of my players took the initiative of doing this herself after we had given up quite a few goals, so the idea of this seemed to already be taking root. We all walked to the top of the goal box and I explained that one person would stand here and wait for the other team to have a break away. "When the other team gets close to you, it's your job to run out there and kick it away from them." This seemed to make good sense to me and they took to it right away.
Once again we played a team consisting only of boys and they had four team members. This is becoming more the norm. We have all seven players, early or on time, while the other team is lucky to have five and they don't show up until right before the game. The Pink Elephants like playing and as important at this age, their parents like bringing them. Per our usual gusto, we played strong at the start but the speed of the boys kept the ball on our half for the majority of action. Our new "defender" did a great job initially of stopping the forward progress of the attacking team, I failed to coach to the entirety of the role. My team does a great job of getting to the ball and making the first kick, but they have a tendency to stop and feel good about that initial accomplishment rather than continue to pursue the action. This led to our defender making the first stop and then stop running which allowed the opposing team to gather the ball in and score...about three times. Nevertheless, the intention was there and the idea of what it means to play defense is being recognized. My wife later told me she thought having all three girls running after the ball may have been more effective, that might be true in the short term, in the long term the development is what's important. (that's how I keep justifying my approach).
Finally, with about one minute to play, our little German winger got the ball, made a bee line toward their goal and throttled it into the back of the net. I blew the whistle (I'm the only coach in the league who uses one) and we lined up for handshakes. We got into our circle for our postgame breakdown, this consists of me telling each of them how great they did, and I told them we scored last so we won. They were pumped. You could see the excitement on their little faces and we lined up for a quick picture for the parents. I informed them I would be unable to coach next week due to a previous obligation with a marathon and no one immediately jumped up to take the job but someone will. I love where we are right now and when we play a team full of girls, we are going to kill them.
1, 2, 3 Go Pink Elephants.
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